The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed.”
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Kierkegaard sees busyness as amounting to a waste of time, quite literally. The nihilistic ‘A’ finds the busy people comical because busyness does not achieve anything worthwhile over the course of one’s life; yet these “busy bustlers” devote their lives to busyness. Hence busyness is considered by ‘A’ as a waste of one’s life.
Kierkegaard repeats this sentiment, as himself, in his Letters(1848), where he decries the high price his age places on productivity and busyness, that it devalues those who cannot keep up with the pace of busyness, and that ultimately, the “busy, busier, busiest haste of busy-ness” that people aspire to, is merely being “busy with wasting life and losing oneself.” Busyness causes us to waste our lives and lose our very selves in our busyness.
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