Diary of a Seducer V

Fernando - Aside

We need to look closely at the word “interesting” and understand how Kierkegaard uses this word. Keep in mind that SK lived during the Enlightenment, when natural science was reborn from Greco-Roman antiquity.

Today, a close synonym for “interesting” is “engaging” or “arousing”. I want you to understand that this English meaning was born from the Enlightenment. “Interesting” was strictly a legal and financial term before this (not at all arousing). So when we hear Kierkegaard call something interesting, we owe him significantly more ponderance than we would owe a contemporary person who calls something interesting. He lived through a fundamental transition in collective human consciousness.

You see, until we figured out a way to describe how the physical universe operates, the question of why it operates in that way could not possibly have occurred to us. It is this why that constitutes the modern meaning of interesting. With the rediscovery of science comes the re-awakening of the restless and searching human capacity for interpretation, and the subsequent recollection of the category of the interesting. Existential despair follows behind, just out of view.

To orient one’s life around “the interesting” is to give oneself to a desire, ever growing in voracity, for spectacle, for novelty, for the infinitely bewildering arrangement and rearrangement of subjective impressions in the fruitless attempt to escape the inherent boredom of oneself.

“The concept of the interesting — an opposition between what we see and what is potentially concealed behind appearances — has the quality of ongoingness: as we dig deeper and deeper, we find new phenomena that need further explanation. The interesting is the driving aesthetic of scientific discovery.” - Anthony Eagan, Santa Fe Institute

Johannes, The 27th

The more I see her, the more I am convinced she is a very isolated figure. A young man should never be so isolated, as reflection is essential to his development. But for a young girl, isolation saves her from becoming too interesting, preserving her womanliness. A young girl who wants to please by being interesting only succeeds in pleasing herself. Though an interesting girl may manage to please a man, she has renounced her femininity and so can please only effeminate men.

It is in vain to give a bridal veil to a girl who has spent a great deal of time with other girls. A man with enough aesthetic appreciation will always find that a girl who is innocent in a deeper and truer sense is always brought to him veiled.

She is proud, she defies what other girls find pleasure in. This is as it should be, it is an untruth which I shall know how to work to my advantage. She lives in the world of imagination. The right man might bring something very unwomanly out of her, precisely because there is so much womanliness in her.

If I were to imagine my ideal girl, she would always have to stand alone in the world and therefore be left to herself, but especially not have girl friends. This makes her beautiful and saves her from being interesting.

Johannes, The 30th

Our paths cross often: today I saw her three times. I know of her every little excursion, but I do not use this information to secure a direct meeting. For now I prefer to touch tangentially upon the periphery of her existence. Perhaps I arrive at Mrs. Jansen’s a little earlier than her, leaving as she is arriving, and I run unheedingly past her on the steps. Perhaps I see her on the street, not stopping her but exchanging greetings from a distance.

She must be struck by our continual encounters, she must notice a new body on her horizon whose movement in a curiously undisturbing way has a disturbing effect on her own movement, but of the law governing this movement she has no idea. This is the first net she must be spun into. I must get to know her first and her whole state of mind before beginning my assault.

With her it is as with those with whom I associate in general, they believe I have a multiplicity of affairs; I am continually on the go and say, like Figaro, ‘One, two, three, four intrigues at once, that’s my delight’.

Most men enjoy a young girl as they would a glass of champagne, in a single frothing moment. That’s very nice, and with many young girls it’s the most one can make of it. But here there is more.

The more surrender one can bring into love, the more interesting it becomes. The momentary carnal pleasure is a case of rape, if not outwardly then spiritually, and in rape there is only imaginary pleasure, without substance behind it.

No, one must bring matters to the point where the girl has just one task to accomplish for her freedom: to surrender herself. When she feels her whole bliss depends on that, when she almost begs to submit and yet is free, then for the first time there is enjoyment, but it always depends on spiritual influences.

Cordelia! What a glorious name. I sit at home and practice like a parrot, I say ‘Cordelia, Cordelia, Cordelia, my Cordelia, my own Cordelia’. I can barely keep myself from smiling when I imagine the routine with which I will utter these words when the decisive moment comes.

It is no wonder that the poets always portray this beautiful and intimate moment when the lovers descend into love’s ocean and divest themselves of the old persona, climbing up from this baptism properly knowing one another as old acquaintances for the very first time. For a young girl it’s always the most beautiful moment.

Properly to savor it, one should always be a little higher, so that one is not only the one being baptized but also the priest. A little irony makes it more interesting: it is a spiritual undressing. One must be poet enough not to disturb the ceremony, yet the joker must always be sitting in ambush.

Johannes, June 2nd

She is prideful; I have long known this. She sits with the Jansen girls and their chatter obviously bores her, she talks little and wears a sardonic half smile. I am counting on that smile. Her occasional boyish wildness may be inexplicable to the Jansen girls, but not to me. She only knew her father and older brother as a child, she had witnessed serious scenes and her father and mother were unhappy together. What usually beckons to a young girl does not beckon to her, she may possibly be puzzled about what it means to be a young girl.

I gathered from the Jansen girls that she does not play the piano, it is against her aunt’s principles. I found this attitude regrettable; music is an excellent avenue for communicating with a young girl. Today at Mrs. Jansen’s, I half opened the door and caught her playing piano on the sly. She was not an accomplished player, she became impatient, but then gentler sounds came again. She repeatedly played a little Swedish melody as I stood outside and listened to the changing of her moods. Sometimes a passion, sometimes a melancholy, everywhere enervated with meaning and memories for her.

She is evidently concealing the fact that she plays, or maybe she only plays this Swedish melody, and it has a special meaning for her? All this I do not know, and the incident is for that reason very important to me. Whenever I can talk more confidentially with her, I shall lead her quite secretly to this point and let her fall into this trap.