The striking connection between Kierkegaard’s laugh and Diogenes’ Cynic philosophy

Søren Kierkegaard

“When I was young, I forgot how to laugh in the cave of Trophonius; when I was older, I opened my eyes and beheld reality, at which I began to laugh, and since then, I have not stopped laughing. I saw that the meaning of life was to secure a livelihood, and that its goal was to attain a high position; that love’s rich dream was marriage with an heiress; that friendship’s blessing was help in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what the majority assumed it to be; that enthusiasm consisted in making a speech; that it was courage to risk the loss of ten dollars; that kindness consisted in saying, “You are welcome,” at the dinner table; that piety consisted in going to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed.”
–Søren Kierkegaard

Could have I found a better quote to introduce the genius of Kierkegaard!
He is perhaps known to be the father of Existentialism and yet his words resonated much with the Cynic philosophy of Diogenes which focused mainly on doubting the conventional(mindless) ways of society.
Diogenes perhaps was the man who went into the street with a lantern in hand in broad daylight with his quest to find at least a single honest man!

Diogenes

But Alas, the world has never spun!
It really has stood the same.
It has always been the same since the beginning of time from the days of Diogenes to the days of Kierkegaard.

A target and an element of satire (society) never really changes it seems.

The masses somehow seem to always be blind to that bird of a thing called ‘awareness’.

Be it Cynicism, be it Existentialism;
their target has always been the same.

And the only way in which we can most help the world and also ourselves is by reading a book today and reflecting upon it.

By turning inwards.
By becoming a kind of thought.
By becoming homo sapiens (wise beings).

De omnibus dubitandum (Doubt everything)