A Confession by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best way to read e books TXT) đź“–
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hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has,
disregarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way,
especially if there is much of it within reach. Solomon expresses this way
out thus: “Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under
the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this should
accompany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under
the sun.
“Therefore eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry
heart… . Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of
the life of thy vanity…for this is thy portion in life and in thy
labours which thou takest under the sun… . Whatsoever thy hand findeth
to do, do it with thy might, for there is not work, nor device, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”
That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle make life
possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish them with more of
welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for
them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental, and that
not everyone can have a thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, that for
everyone who has a thousand wives there are a thousand without a wife, and
that for each palace there are a thousand people who have to build it in the
sweat of their brows; and that the accident that has today made me a Solomon
may tomorrow make me a Solomon’s slave. The dullness of these people’s
imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace —
the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which today or tomorrow
will destroy all these pleasures.
So think and feel the majority of people of our day and our manner of life.
The fact that some of these people declare the dullness of their thoughts
and imaginations to be a philosophy, which they call Positive, does not
remove them, in my opinion, from the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the
question, lick the honey. I could not imitate these people; not having their
dullness of imagination I could not artificially produce it in myself. I
could not tear my eyes from the mice and the dragon, as no vital man can
after he has once seen them.
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying
life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity. A few
exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the
stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood
that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all
not to exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since
there are means: a rope round one’s neck, water, a knife to stick into
one’s heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our
circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most
part they act so at the best time of their life, when the strength of their
mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been
acquired.
I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape and I wished to adopt it.
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth of
the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that nothing can
come of it. People of this kind know that death is better than life, but not
having the strength to act rationally — to end the deception quickly and
kill themselves — they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of
weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not
yield to what is best? … I found myself in that category.
So people of my class evade the terrible contradiction in four ways. Strain
my attention as I would, I saw no way except those four. One way was not to
understand that life is senseless, vanity, and an evil, and that it is
better not to live. I could not help knowing this, and when I once knew it
could not shut my eyes to it. the second way was to use life such as it is
without thinking of the future. And I could not do that. I, like Sakya Muni,
could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age, suffering, and death
exist. My imagination was too vivid. Nor could I rejoice in the momentary
accidents that for an instant threw pleasure to my lot. The third way,
having under stood that life is evil and stupid, was to end it by killing
oneself. I understood that, but somehow still did not kill myself. The
fourth way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer — knowing that life is
a stupid joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing oneself,
dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repulsive
and tormenting, but I remained in that position.
I see now that if I did not kill myself it was due to some dim consciousness
of the invalidity of my thoughts. However convincing and indubitable
appeared to me the sequence of my thoughts and of those of the wise that
have brought us to the admission of the senselessness of life, there
remained in me a vague doubt of the justice of my conclusion.
It was like this: I, my reason, have acknowledged that life is senseless. If
there is nothing higher than reason (and there is not: nothing can prove
that there is), then reason is the creator of life for me. If reason did not
exist there would be for me no life. How can reason deny life when it is the
creator of life? Or to put it the other way: were there no life, my reason
would not exist; therefore reason is life’s son. Life is all. Reason is its
fruit yet reason rejects life itself! I felt that there was something wrong
here.
Life is a senseless evil, that is certain, said I to myself. Yet I have
lived and am still living, and all mankind lived and lives. How is that? Why
does it live, when it is possible not to live? Is it that only I and
Schopenhauer are wise enough to understand the senselessness and evil of
life?
The reasoning showing the vanity of life is not so difficult, and has long
been familiar to the very simplest folk; yet they have lived and still live.
How is it they all live and never think of doubting the reasonableness of
life?
My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the sages, has shown me that
everything on earth — organic and inorganic — is all most cleverly arranged
— only my own position is stupid. and those fools — the enormous masses of
people — know nothing about how everything organic and inorganic in the
world is arranged; but they live, and it seems to them that their life is
very wisely arranged! …
And it struck me: “But what if there is something I do not yet know?
Ignorance behaves just in that way. Ignorance always says just what I am
saying. When it does not know something, it says that what it does not know
is stupid. Indeed, it appears that there is a whole humanity that lived and
lives as if it understood the meaning of its life, for without understanding
it could not live; but I say that all this life is senseless and that I
cannot live.
“Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. well then, kill yourself, and
you won’t discuss. If life displeases you, kill yourself! You live, and
cannot understand the meaning of life — then finish it, and do not fool
about in life, saying and writing that you do not understand it. You have
come into good company where people are contented and know what they are
doing; if you find it dull and repulsive — go away!”
Indeed, what are we who are convinced of the necessity of suicide yet do not
decide to commit it, but the weakest, most inconsistent, and to put it
plainly, the stupidest of men, fussing about with our own stupidity as a
fool fusses about with a painted hussy? For our wisdom, however indubitable
it may be, has not given us the knowledge of the meaning of our life. But
all mankind who sustain life — millions of them — do not doubt the meaning
of life.
Indeed, from the most distant time of which I know anything, when life
began, people have lived knowing the argument about the vanity of life which
has shown me its senselessness, and yet they lived attributing some meaning
to it.
From the time when any life began among men they had that meaning of life,
and they led that life which has descended to me. All that is in me and
around me, all, corporeal and incorporeal, is the fruit of their knowledge
of life. Those very instruments of thought with which I consider this life
and condemn it were all devised not be me but by them. I myself was born,
taught, and brought up thanks to them. They dug out the iron, taught us to
cut down the forests, tamed the cows and horses, taught us to sow corn and
to live together, organized our life, and taught me to think and speak. And
I, their product, fed, supplied with drink, taught by them, thinking with
their thoughts and words, have argued that they are an absurdity! “There is
something wrong,” said I to myself. “I have blundered somewhere.” But it was
a long time before I could find out where the mistake was.
VIIIAll these doubts, which I am now able to express more or less
systematically, I could not then have expressed. I then only felt that
however logically inevitable were my conclusions concerning the vanity of
life, confirmed as they were by the greatest thinkers, there was something
not right about them. Whether it was in the reasoning itself or in the
statement of the question I did not know — I only felt that the conclusion
was rationally convincing, but that that was insufficient. All these
conclusions could not so convince me as to make me do what followed from my
reasoning, that is to say, kill myself. And I should have told an untruth
had I, without killing myself, said that reason had brought me to the point
I had reached. Reason worked, but something else was also working which I
can only call a consciousness of life. A force was working which compelled
me to turn my attention to this and not to that; and it was this force which
extricated me from my desperate situation and turned my mind in quite
another direction. This force compelled me to turn my attention to the fact
that I and a few hundred similar people are not the whole of mankind, and
that I did not yet know the life of mankind.
Looking at the narrow circle of my equals, I saw only people who had not
understood the question, or who had understood it and drowned it in life’s
intoxication, or had understood it and ended their lives, or had understood
it and yet from weakness were living out their desperate life. And I saw no
others. It seemed to me that that
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