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Prologue:

A couple years ago I was struck, suddenly, by melan-

choly. I countered the attack, deciding that I would watch
Synecdoche New York, which has become a definitive
work of existentialist cinema. The online rental price was
nearly the same as the purchase price, so figuring I might
need to indulge melancholia again eventually, I went with
the purchase option. Turns out, having a movie download-
ed directly onto your laptop’s hard drive comes in handy
when your feet are too tired to continue walking aimlessly
around a foreign city all day but you don’t have WiFi in your
room and you want to keep your existentialist’s pilgrimage
to Copenhagen going strong. The theme was upheld. Upon
watching the film again in my WiFi-less room, I basked in
the afterglow of all the depressingly hilarious scenes that
would have made Kierkegaard proud of the legacy of mel-
ancholy that his life’s work inspires. The scene that hit me
hardest was Caden’s monologue after receiving a 3-second
(inaudible to the audience) phone call that informed him
of his father’s death, delivered with such perfect feebleness
by Philip Seymour Hoffman:

“My father died. They said his body was rid-

dled with cancer and he didn’t know. That he
went in because his finger hurt. They said he
suffered horribly. And that he… that he called
out for me before he died. They said that he
said he regretted his life. And they said he
said a lot of things. Too many recount. They
said it was the longest and saddest deathbed
speech that any of them had ever heard.”
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--

I’m having an existential crisis in Copenhagen, the city that

is coincidentally the birthplace of the existential crisis. It’s
also the deathplace of Soren Kierkegaard, the father of the
philosophy itself. I’m here by complete chance, after a year
and a half of failures, setbacks, and bad luck in Berlin. This
is the first proper existential crisis I’ve ever had, and Ki-
erkegaard’s words still console me nearly two decades after
first reading him as but a wisdom-toothed teenager. Back
then, Works of Love really spoke to my hopelessly virgin
ears, but today his words are completely devastating my
middle-aged ass. e.g.:

And this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel

oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find
himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the
shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which
to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sin-
cere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause
him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the
only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the
rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.

A fraud knows he’s fake, as Pinocchio longed for ex-

istence. And so yes, I do know who I’ve been, but I do not
know who I am. Life has already felt so long, but if this
crisis is what it takes for me to learn how to truly live, well,
I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore. To be vulnerable in the
face of difficulty like what’s-her-name says we should be
in her books and TED talks, how is that not just salt in the
wound? Is reactively diving into the belly of the whale not
suicide? I’m not into self-harm, but I am shipwrecked and
in need of ideas. And no, stoicism is not an idea. I refuse to
watch Jordan Peterson Youtubes. Christianity holds noth-
ing for me anymore, so I cling to myself for dear life.

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Walking to my room to drop off my bag from the

airport, admiring the wide bike lanes, I wonder, is this the
cool neighborhood? I don’t care about cool neighborhoods
anymore. Where’s Kierkegaard’s grave? The man who did a
lot of thinking about Christianity before I did. My all-time
favorite philosopher, oh, how dreadful the foundation he
laid in me! Look at these memories that remain with me
even today:

-I pored over Works of Love in the waiting room for

jury duty. All week waiting, never selected, I was the
only person reading Kierkegaard.

-I reread Fear and Trembling probably four or five

times and gifted a copy to my alcoholic (only) regu-
lar customer at the (only) bartending job I had.

-For years I believed that I would name my first son

“Soren.”

-I titled one of my DJ mixes “Concluding Unscien-

tific Postscript” because the theme was death. It was
the last mix I made before my first wife and I sepa-
rated.
 -One of my roommates from Bible college gave
Philosophical Fragments to me as a random sur-
prise gift. He wasn’t out back then, and when he did
let the world know that he was gay nearly a decade
later I asked him why he never talked to me about it.
He admitted that when we were in college he didn’t
want to be gay, that he was trying not to be, that he
thought he wasn’t supposed to be.

-In my interviews with Aaron Weiss, Jon Foreman

and Jens Lekman, we talked giddily about Kierkeg-
aard and what a funny writer he was.

He really was so funny. Actually funny. A legiti-

mate philosopher that could switch between poetry and
joke-telling in a way that Zizek can only dream of? Guh. I
still love Kierkegaard. How did I end up on this accidental
pilgrimage to his city, anyway? Why am I here all by my
lonesome?

A few months back, a friend straight up got me a

job at her co-living company doing handyman work for
apartments around Berlin. It wasn’t anything I had pro-
fessional experience in, but my dad was a carpenter, and
I was a landlord for a few years in Chicago, and was com-
pletely broke and without any job leads, so I accepted the
position on a freelance basis. I worked around 30 hours
a week putting up curtains, installing door locks, moving
furniture, mastering the IKEA hex screws and everybody
at the company loved me for it. There was talk of hiring me
full-time. But after a few months the bomb dropped and I
was told that they would be hiring a full-time person who
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speaks fluent German, and besides, they wouldn’t have
been able to sponsor my visa. But a couple weeks before
they fired me, they bought me a plane ticket to Copenha-
gen so I could join everyone from the company at their
teambuilding retreat thing in Sweden. After an awkward
meeting, it was agreed that nobody really wanted to waste
a plane ticket, so here I am.

Copenhagen. It’s like a yuppier but more metro-

politan version of Reykjavík here, with more murals and
less graffiti and fewer punks and probably a lot more tech
bros. It’s Scandinavian orderly, Nordic comfortable. The
people aren’t as tall and statuesque as Swedes or Norwe-
gians, but they live up to a high standard of appearanc-
es. Their clothes fit and are fashionable. The city hums an
earth-toned, mono-bustle; revealing a different but same
sort of herd mentality that Kierkegaard railed against. Not
necessarily Christians now, but consumers nevertheless. It
all seems very safe here, everything that’s going on. And it
probably is. I make all these judgements after one morning
and afternoon in Copenhagen.

Once I dropped my bags in my room I walked to his

grave, which is a humble family plot. Seven Kierkegaards
are represented. An enormous willow tree hunches over
his resting place, almost too on-the-nose to write about.
A bench across from it is situated perfectly for a sit-and-
think, but two girls are on it and they’re giggling and joking
around in Danish. Staring at his gravestone, I can’t take my
pilgrimage too seriously with this rambunctious behavior
behind me, so I wander off. Aimless again.
 Kierkegaard lived for 42 years. Dropped dead on
one of his walks around town and according to that guy in
Waking Life uttered the last words, “sweep me up!” I don’t
know if that’s true, but they’re incredible last words even if
embellished. In such an exclamation I hear a demand from
a man of faith ready for Heaven, a broken mess of a hu-
man lying in pieces and asking for the final metaphysical
broom, and a pathetic cry for immediate and urgent help-
-all three at once. It’s like three of his pseudonyms harmo-
nizing in song; one boasting tenor, one bawling bass, and
one simply singing the melody. Simply and clearly. Simply
saying what must be said in that one true moment. In the
21st century I’m more concerned with my last Instagram
story. If I die tomorrow, I hope that it gets over 100 views.

And now I remember my crisis, how I don’t know

where I’ll be come November. Will my visa be renewed
at my appointment on the 30th of October, or will I be
deported back to Trumpland on the day before Brexit? I
have a dog and fiancé in Berlin, but a flurry of lost jobs
has turned my once firm confidence into rickety shit. No
wins and all losses will do that to a guy, and it’s been a hell
of a losing season and a half. My savings is long gone since
the move, replaced now with debt, and I don’t have a plan.
I used to work in radio in Chicago but couldn’t find paid
work in Berlin. I was a DJ in the states too, but I always
hated that gig and really did not want to receive a freelance
visa in ‘DJ und Musiker’ even in light of the immigration
office’s insistence. I can write, but who pays writers any-
more? A one-time homeowner, now divorced and jobless,
but in Copenhagen thanks to a fluke free flight and empty
apartment for three days. I don’t know anyone here. Except
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Kierkegaard. What would he tell me?

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be

experienced.”

It’s so simple, but so difficult. Correct, sure, but…

maddening. I want to solve the problem of life. As “a reality
to be experienced” it leaves wide open the possibility for
pain, disappointment, and all the bad shit. I don’t want it to
be an option, the hurt. It would be too easy to say I’d rather
not be alive, but I am only able to say such a thing as one
who is alive. Ah, existence! I won’t call it a problem, but
it sure does feel like the catalyst for all of life’s subsequent
problems.

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Den Sorte Diamant library at Søren Kierkegaards

Plads was hosting an exhibit by Marina Abramovic called
‘Treasures,’ which I paid to attend on account of the fact
that it featured works by Kierkegaard. The pilgrimage
called for it. The exhibit was a one-room showcase of items
from the library’s collection which Abramovic selected,
with beds and chairs around the room to rest on while the
included iPod and headphones provided brief explana-
tions and readings from each item. Some of her selections
included handwritten letters from Gandhi, Psalm 23 from
a 1000-year-old Bible, Dante’s Inferno, Jewish manuscripts,
and hours more. I paid for an hour and a half, so I was only
able to listen to those aforementioned excerpts, along with,
of course, Kierkegaard’s. The library houses hundreds of
his original writings, but here in ‘Treasures’ was a page
from one of his journals, the original handwritten Either/
Or, and letters to his fiancé, Regine Olsen. I hadn’t read
his letters to Olsen before, I’m not sure they’re even pub-
lished anywhere, but my God, they are remarkable. Absurd
even. The info kiosk next to his display noted how the then
teenage girl must have certainly been quite baffled by the
literary exultations that were scrawled out on paper notes
to her. And here also it mentioned Kierkegaard’s move to
Berlin, which I had no idea about. He went back and forth
four times in five years, after breaking off his engagement,
and resulting in the writing and publication of Either/Or,
as well as a few other important works.

Kierkegaard in Berlin. Imagine that. The first exis-

tentialist, looking for meaning in a place away from home.
But he didn’t stay. He went, took in the experience, and did
something with it.

The exhibit required that I lock up my cell phone be-

fore entering, and not wear a watch. This wasn’t a problem.
I was getting used to life without WiFi already. Without
WiFi in my room, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, writing,
and ironing. The latter is not something I ever do, but I
wear this one blue shirt from Suit Supply all the time and
whenever I see a picture of myself in it, I wonder why I’ve
never had the sense to iron the wrinkles out. Everything
else about it fits me just right—extra long sleeves, not too
loose around the collar, slim around the waist, it’s just that
up until now and due to my own disregard, I’ve been wear-
ing my perfectly fitted shirt creasey and crumply as hell.
What is this, a metaphor?
 My problem is merely that. Mine. And as long as I
focus all of my energy on I NEED TO SOLVE IT the longer
it will go on unsolved. Because, I’m looking at it all wrong.
Kierkegaard is right--it’s not a problem, it’s my experience.
I’m experiencing misfortune, and that’s about it. Misfor-
tune happens to everyone who has ever lived, some may
even interpret its final culmination as death. None escape
it. It is part of the experience.

So, what to do? Well, iron, if that’s what’s available.

And if it requires a trek to another country to be remind-
ed to iron, then that’s what it takes. For all the anguish,
the other side of the record boasts an almost stupefying
easiness. The other side is always quiet, too, which can be
hard to hear over the yelling, screaming, panicking side.
My blaring existential crisis hates to show its other side,
but when I take the time to reach out and turn it around, I
can hear it softly whispering, “I need to iron my shirts.” A
younger version of me would have felt like this ending was
a cop-out, but the grown-up who has lived some years of
real life is enthusiastically cheering my victory. Yes, finally,
a win.

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Epilogue:

Maybe more satisfyingly, this zine itself is an “idea

of the shipwrecked.” Whom I count amongst the wreckage
with me is Dr. Andrew Koichi Greene, the party respon-
sible for introducing me to Kierkegaard. At the bookstore
in Joliet we would read passages of his writings out loud to
each other. Upon informing him of my trip to Denmark,
Dr. Greene suggested that I write about this experience,
and since I refuse to disappoint a fellow castaway, here we
are. Jim Joyce, also notoriously shipwrecked, was the one
who pushed me to make it a zine. His own zine is called,
Or Let It Sink, and I still haven’t asked him what that title
alludes to. But are there any among us not drawn to nauti-
cal imagery?

Andrew and Jim, along with everything you’ve read

before, I include this final Kierkegaard quote for you. All
other readers will recognize how meta it is that I have se-
lected it, and should consider this a conclusively ironic de-
vice:

Everyone who knows something about the

dangers of reflection and the dangerous walk
along the road of reflection also knows that it
is dubious when a person, instead of getting
out of the tension through resolution and
action, becomes productive about his state
in tension. Then there is no effort to get out
of the state, but reflection fixes the situation
for reflection and thereby fixes the man. The
more richly thoughts and expressions offer
 themselves, the more briskly the productivity
advances-in the wrong direction-the more
dangerous it becomes and the more it hides
from the person, concerned that his work,
his extremely strenuous work, his very in-
teresting (perhaps also for a third party who
has a total view) work, is a work of bogging
himself down deeper and deeper. That is, he
does not work himself loose but works him-
self fast and becomes interesting to himself
by reflecting on the tension and diverts him-
self with an utterly piecemeal productivity
about detached details, with isolated short
articles.

**
The First Existentialist was written, laid out, and printed
by Dylan James Peterson in three days (September 21-24,
2019) in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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