‘If only a rock would fall and kill me,’ wrote Kierkegaard, ‘at least that would be a way out.’ I doubt if there is anyone today who has not been touched by the horror of a thought of that kind. Inertia is the surest killer, the inertia of those who settle for senility at eighteen, plunging eight hours a day into degrading work and feeding upon ideologies. Beneath the miserable tinsel of the spectacle there are only gaunt figures yearning for, yet dreading Kierkegaard’s ‘way out’, so that they might never again have to desire what they dread and dread what they desire.