1) The document discusses the concept of earnestness and how the certainty of death and uncertainty of the timing of death can help a person learn earnestness. 2) It describes how focusing on the uncertainty of when death may come can motivate a person to earnestly seize the present day and avoid procrastination. 3) It also explains how contemplating death can help a learner focus on mastering a subject by pointing out the importance while also leaving open possibilities, just as the uncertainty of death does.

1. Then all is over.
And when the person stepped up to the grave first because he was the next of kin, and
when after the brief moment of the speech he was the last one at the grave, alas,
because he was the next of kin, then all is over. If he remained out there, he still would
not learn what the deceased is doing, because the deceased is a quiet man; if in his
trouble he called out his name, if in his grief he sat listening, he still would learn nothing,
because in the grave there is quiet, and the deceased is a silent man; and if recollecting
he visited the grave every day, the dead would not recollect him.
In the grave there is no recollection.
If it is certain that death exists, which it is; if it is certain that with death's decision all is
over; if it is certain that death itself never becomes involved in giving any explanation,
well, then it is a matter of understanding oneself, and the earnest understanding is that if
death is night then life is day, that if no work can be done at night then work can be done
during the day; and the terse but impelling cry of earnestness, like death's terse cry, is:
This very day.
Death in earnest gives life force as nothing else does; it makes one alert as nothing else
does. Death induces the sensual person to say: Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow
we shall die, but this is sensuality's cowardly lust for life, that contemptible order of
things where one lives in order to eat and drink instead of eating and drinking in order to
live. The idea of death may induce weakness in the more profound person so that he
sinks relaxed in mood, but the thought of death gives the earnest person the right
momentum in life and the right goal toward which he directs his momentum. No
bowstring can be tightened in such a way and is able to accelerate the living when
earnestness stretches the thought. Then earnestness grasps the present this very day,
disdains no task as too insignificant, rejects no time as too short.
So, then, let death keep its power, 'that all is over,' but let life also keep the right to work
while it is day; and let the earnest person seek the thought of death as an aid in that
work. The vacillating person is only a witness to the continual boundary struggle
between life and death, his life only doubt's statement of the situation, the ending of his
life an illusion, but the earnest person has made friends with the contenders and in the
earnest thought of death he has the most faithful ally. Even though the equality of all the
dead is that now all is over, there is still one difference, a difference that cries aloud to
heaven, the difference of what that life was that now in death is over. So all is not over,
and despite all death's terror, no, supported by the earnest thought of death, the earnest

2. person says, 'All is not over.' But if this bright prospect is tempting, if he once again
merely glimpses it in the half-light of contemplation, if it puts distance between him and
the task, if time does not become a scarcity, if the possession of it is secure for him, then
again he is not earnest. If death says, 'Perhaps this very day,' then earnestness says,
'Let it perhaps be today or not,' but the earnest person says, 'This very day.'
The earnest person looks at himself. If he is young, the thought of death teaches him
that a young person will become its booty here if it comes today, but he does not dally in
ordinary talk about youth as death's booty. The earnest person looks at himself; so he
knows the nature of the one who would become death's booty here if it were to come
today; he looks at his own work and so he knows what work it is that would be
interrupted here if death were to come today. Thus the game ends, the enigma is solved.
The ordinary view of death only confuses thought, just as wanting to experience in
general does. The certainty of death is the earnestness; its uncertainty is the instruction,
the practice of earnestness. The earnest person is the one who through uncertainty is
brought up to earnestness by virtue of certainty.
How does a person learn earnestness? Is it by having an earnest person dictate
something to him so that he can learn it? Not at all, if you have not yourself learned in
this way from an earnest man, then imagine how it goes. See, the learner concerns
himself (without concern there is no learner) about some object with his whole soul, and
in this way the certainty of death becomes an object of concern. Now the concerned
person turns to the teacher of earnestness, and thus death is indeed not a monster
except for the imagination. The learner now wants this or that; he wants to do it thus and
so and under these assumptions, 'And it is bound to succeed, is it not so?' But the
earnest person answers nothing at all, and finally he says, yet without mockery but with
the calmness of earnestness, 'Yes, it is possible!' The learner already becomes a little
impatient; he suggests a new plan, changes the assumptions, and concludes his speech
in a still more urgent way. But the earnest person is silent, looks calmly at him, and
finally says, 'Yes, it is possible!' Now the learner becomes passionate; he resorts to
pleas or, if he is so equipped, to clever locutions, indeed, he perhaps even insults the
earnest person and becomes totally confused himself and everything around him seems
to be confusion. But when with these weapons and in this condition he charges at the
earnest person, he has to endure his unaltered calm gaze and put up with his silence,
because the earnest person merely looks at him and finally says, 'Yes, it is possible.'
This is the way it is with death. The certainty is the unchanging, and the uncertainty is
the brief statement: It is possible. Every condition that wants to make the certainty of
death into a conditional certainty for the wisher, every agreement that wants to make the
certainty of death into a conditional certainty for the person making up his mind, every
arrangement that wants to condition the certainty of death as to time and hour for the
one who is acting, every condition, every agreement, every arrangement runs aground
on this statement; and all passionateness and all cleverness and all defiance are
rendered powerless by this statement, until the learner sees the error of his ways. But

3. the earnestness lies in just this, and it was to this that certainty and uncertainty wanted
to help the learner. If certainty is allowed to leave open the question of what it can be,
like a universal caption over life, instead of being like the endorsement of the particular
and the daily by usage, as happens with the help of uncertainty, then earnestness is not
learned. Uncertainty lends a hand and, like the teacher, points steadily to the object of
learning and says to the learner, 'Pay close attention to the certainty', then earnestness
comes into existence. No teacher is able to teach the pupil to pay attention to what is
said the way the uncertainty of death does when it points to the certainty of death; and
no teacher is able to keep the pupil's thoughts concentrated on the one object of
instruction the way the thought of the uncertainty of death does when it practices the
thought of the certainty of death.
The person who has spoken here is young, still at the age of a learner; he comprehends
only the difficulty and the rigorousness of the instruction, oh, would that he might
succeed in doing it in such a way that he would become worthy of daring at some time to
rejoice in the teacher's friendship! The person who has spoken here is, of course, not
your teacher, my listener; he is merely letting you witness, just as he himself is doing,
how a person seeks to learn something from the thought of death, that teacher of
earnestness who at birth is appointed to everyone for a whole lifetime and who in the
uncertainty is always ready to begin the instruction when it is requested. Death does not
come because someone calls it (for the weaker one to order the stronger one in that way
would only be a jest), but as soon as someone opens the door to uncertainty, the
teacher is there, the teacher who will at some time come to give a test and examine the
pupil: whether he has wanted to use his instruction or not. And this testing by death, this
final examination of life, is equally difficult for all. It is not as it usually is, namely, that the
fortunately gifted person passes easily and the poorly gifted person has a hard time, no,
death adapts the test to the ability, oh, so very accurately, and the test becomes equally
difficult because it is the test of earnestness.