Where then does despair come from? From the relation to which the synthesis relates to itself, from the fact that God, who made man this relation, as it were lets go of it; that is, from the relation’s relating to itself. And in the fact that the relation is spirit, is the self, lies the accountability under which all despair is, every moment, what it is, however much and however ingeniously the despairer, deceiving both himself and others, speaks of his despair as a misfortune — through a confusion as in the afore-mentioned case of vertigo, with which despair, though different in kind, has much in common, vertigo being under the aspect of soul what despair is under the aspect of spirit, and pregnant with analogies to despair.
~ The Sickness Unto Death p44
Speak Your Mind