Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element. Music is the only other one that takes place in time.
Time never progresses at its natural rate in language-based arts, which includes theater due to the nature of a script. A film incorporates space much more than language because scene transitions and montages factor in heavily to the adoption of screenplays for the big screen. In this quote, Kierkegaard succinctly provides an analysis of how art forms present their meaning. In conjunction with his other work, this message shows artists how to direct their focus for maximum effect.
... my soul always reverts to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that it's human beings talking.
Kierkegaard was a Christian without Evangelical tendencies, and this quote allows him to demonstrate that the ideal of Christianity on Earth is not to somehow cure humans from being sinners. Kierkegaard instead praises the art in which he can see the full array of human choices and their consequences.
Aren't people absurd! They never use the freedoms they do have but demand those they don't have; they have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Kierkegaard often puzzles out the contradictory values of individuals using parallel formulations such as this. Here, he presents the observation that thought is difficult to cultivate as a free thing. Instead, the thought which is free gravitates to the concept of the lack of other freedoms.
The most ludicrous of all ludicrous things, it seems to me, is to be busy in the world, to be a man who is brisk at his meals and brisk at his work. Therefore, when I see a fly settle on the nose of one of those men of business in a decisive moment, or if he is splashed by a carriage that passes him in even greater haste... I laugh from the bottom of my heart. And who could keep from laughing?
The actions of a busy person easily become habitual and, in the eyes of Kierkegaard, lose their emotive potential as human. This quote releases the tension of Kierkegaard's structured philosophy and lets the reader share in the mirth of a situation in which they are free from presentation. Kierkegaard's choice of "those" when introducing the men of business sets up a moment for the relation between author and reader to be confirmed as one of camaraderie.
