After spending a couple college semesters majoring in philosophy, I changed my major to literature, mostly because my favorite reading was novels. But I had stayed with philosophy long enough to gain a few insights: existentialism intrigued and baffled me; Soren Kierkegaard also intrigued and baffled me; and Christ was, during his human life and ever since, an outcast.

Though lots of years have passed, those insights remain important to me, and have helped me navigate through some difficult times, some of which involved a state of mind Mr. Kierkegaard lived through. Rather than use a more clinical (and offensive) word, I'll call it melancholy.