What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. So it is with me; before me is continually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured. (Either/Or, I)
It’s important to note that Kierkegaard was writing from a fixed “stage of life” during this period, these fragments pseudonymously written by a certain “A” corresponding to the initial Aesthetic stage which always gives way to despair and dread. So while despair is a very potent emotion in life, it is never – thankfully – an absolute condition, or, at least ethically (the second stage), it shouldn’t be, and religiously (the third stage), it never could be.
Zachary Rosenau 