“It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards. And if one thinks over that proposition it becomes more and more evident that life can never really be understood in time simply because at no particular moment can I find the necessary resting-place from which to understand it—backwards”
– Soren Kierkegaard
Curious the forum’s thoughts on what this might mean.
Sounds a bit like the by-product of living a hurried, rather than a contemplative, life. There are those who manage both, but they usually shake out toward one orientation or the other.
I find, as often as not, that Kierkegaard is reaching out to the soul of the agnostic with something more nouetic than the more standard apologetical evidentialism or presuppositionalism on offer. That is, he speaks to the reality of stilted emotions in the face of desiring God more effectively than most… he notes ironies, without exactly “solving” them, and thus preserves wonder of an unusual sort.
It is, to my mind, only tangentially about “origins.”
It functions well as an opening quote for you, however, by starting with something “disarming.”
To each his own!
My two cents… : )