On despair, and the physician of the soul in relation to despair.

I wouldn’t suggest becoming such a physician without it.

This book is about despair: what it means to be in despair, the various dialectical manifestations of despair, and the relations despair has to consciousness and will. It also seems to posit authenticity (what I’m interpreting here as a near-synonymous aspect of Kierkegaard’s “faith”) as the solution to despair, rather than virtue. It is about knowing oneself, and more than that, willing to be oneself. Excesses of possibility, of necessity, ignorance, loss, lonliness, and shame are all moments of despair, and often it is not recognized…