Living Forward, Understanding Backwards

So, there is this famous mis-quote that Danish people like to attribute to Kierkegaard that goes something like this "Life can only be lived forward and understood backward." I guess this is really how some Danish scholar interpreted Kierkegaard's work, and it is much to concise to really be anything he said. Still, I kinda like it, though it is a sort of Existentialism for Dummies version.

All of that is to say that I am thinking back on my time in Copenhagen now that I have been here for a while and I am gearing up to head home.

One thing that has changed tremendously for me, at least since I was here as a student, is my ability to enjoy other people. I think that this process, this change that I have undergone, started before I even wrote the application to come here, but in interacting with a very similar set of students that I knew as an undergrad now as an intern, I see how much has changed.

About a week ago, I was sitting in the front of a large tour bus (something I end up doing a lot in this job), and two girls were talking behind me. It was the kind of conversation you would expect two twenty year old girls in Denmark to have as they think about heading home, and one of them was talking about what she was going to do about her french boyfriend who is living in Denmark as a student. They haven't really been together long enough to make a long-distance relationship across the Atlantic seem practical, but she really likes him.

I sympathized with this girl, as I am in a long-distance relationship myself, but more than that, I was impressed that these two girls, who I could tell from the conversation were not best friends but merely what I call 'class buddies,' were able to seemingly genuinely connect on a variety of levels based just on their short months in this single class in Denmark. I realized that I had been so limited in my time as a student. I had taken almost the same class as these students, gone on trips like this with many students just like them, but I had only a few close friends. I would sit on those tour buses alone (not that it is bad to be alone) and watch other people have fun. I was disappointed that I had wasted so many chances as a student.


There is, however, another side to this experience. The two girls were, as I said, totally average, nice, not super intellectual but not dumb girls. I found myself enjoying listening to one another's insights about relationships, living (and drinking) in Europe, and their analysis of their favorite and least favorite classes. This moment of pure enjoyment of other people for no good reason struck me as a new experience. I could relay dozens of other stories about how my friend base is much more diverse, about how nearly none of my favorite people here are 'intellectual,' nor do hardly any of them tolerate philosophy talk, or about how I actually found myself hanging out with 'the bad kids' on my last study tour (I would have HATED these guys as a student, but they were fun and clever, if not a bit reckless). All of those things are examples of how I have branched out, but I think this simple moment, where nothing was in it for me, of just enjoying other people, really showed me how I have learned not just to tolerate, but enjoy other people.

None of that is to say that I am not super eager to get to a philosophy department and start talking about Marx again.