So it is with finitude’s despair. Because a man is in this kind of despair, he can very well live on in temporality, indeed, actually all the better, can appear to be a man, be publicaly acclaimed, honored, and esteemed, be absorbed in all the temporal goals. In fact, what is called the secular mentality consists simply of such men who, so to speak, mortgage themselves to the word. They use their capacities, amass money, carry on secular enterprises, calcuate shrewdly, etc., perhaps make a name in histroy, but themselves they are not; spiritually speaking, they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self before God–however self-seeking they are otherwise. Kierkegaard, Sickness Unto Death, p. 35.