The flight of the wild goose

For Soren Kierkegaard, the soul did not fit in the cage of his chest. His elusive spirit dreamed of the flight of the wild goose.We read in his diary: “Just as the sick man tired of his bed raves to get rid of his bandages, so my spirit wishes to free itself from the weakness of the body; just as the victorious general whose horse is killed exclaims: ‘Give me another mount!’, oh! If only the victorious health of my spirit dared to cry out: ‘Give me another horse, give me another body!’” In the margin, next to the words “fatigue of the body”, he added: “This sweaty and suffocating cloak that is the body, and the fatigue of the body”.He was always captivated by wild geese. From a youthful boat trip on Lake Soborg, he particularly recalled sitting at the stern, enjoying the rough and powerful sound of the honking of those free birds.

On April 1, 1838, he gets up early, goes out into the street and watches the sky: "This morning – he notes in his diary – I saw a dozen wild geese flying through the icy air." When he wrote, he often felt as if he were "on Valby Hill observing the wild geese". The admiration for the wild goose was borrowed – it seems – from Hölderlin, who asked in his Hyperion: "Are we subject like serfs to the land we cultivate? Are we like these domestic birds that dare not leave the yard because that is where they are fed?"Kierkegaard is very critical of the ritualistic conformism of many Christians, who "live like geese in a pen". "Every seven days a parade takes place and the most eloquent male goose climbs onto the fence and cackles about the miracle of the geese, explains the deeds of the ancestors, who dared to soar the sky in other times, and praises the mercy of the Creator, who endowed the geese with wings and the instinct to fly. The geese are deeply moved, lower their heads with emotion and praise the speaker and his sermon. But that's where it all ends! They don't move a feather, they don't fly, and they run towards midday meal. They don't take flight because the grain is abundant and good, and the pen is safe". The goose becomes domestic when it is afraid to cross the boundaries of the pen.When the pedestrian barnyard geese hear the honking of the wild geese flying through the sky, they seem to get excited and "to some extent understand their meaning." This celestial call awakens the memory of their wings and they begin to flap them, squawk and try to soar in a confused and graceless disorder. But their strength is exhausted in a single flight and they return, dejected, to silence. Once upon a time, a wild goose saw a group of domestic geese. Although it was autumn and there were still a few days left before the migratory flight, she decided to convince them to follow her to distant lands. But the domestic geese preferred their comfort to life in the open. 

"The law, concludes Kierkegaard, says that a domestic goose will never be a wild goose, but a wild goose can always be domesticated". For this very reason, we must remain alert.Kierkegaard observes how the geese enjoy the tasty corn they eat every day. It is of such good quality that no goose even considers the question of what lies beyond the limits of the pen. They have everything they believe they need. But the same corn that satisfies them so much has domesticated their desire. They will not take flight because they are no longer interested in answering the question "what does it mean to be a goose?" Kierkegaard knows it: he is one of them. While he dreams of flying, he is unable to give up the comforts of a bourgeois home. Instead of flying, he goes sightseeing.We read in his diary (July 10, 1838): "I hope that in relation to the well-being of my life, it happens to me like that poor man I once read about, who, also fed up with his home, decided to leave. When he had traveled a short distance, his horse stumbled and he fell to the ground, but as he was getting up, he saw his home, and found it so beautiful that he immediately mounted his horse, returned there, and stayed there, in his home". At the same time Kierkegaard knows well enough that he will never contemplate the pen with the complacent satisfaction of the other geese.Contradictory?How would Unamuno, who learned Danish to read Kierkegaard in his own language, respond: “And what? If you are a man, you are contradictory to one degree or another; you are condemned to deny reality and dream of the possible”. I cede the final words to Jacint Verdaguer, who has the precise ones:"Oh my God, oh my God, give me wings, or take away my desire to fly".