Tolstoy Confession Flashcards
the teachings of faith re left to some other realm, separated from…
life and independent of it
the teachings of faith, accepted on trust and sustained by external pressure…
gradually fade under the influence of the knowledge and experiences of life
I ceased to believe in what has been instilled in me since childhood…
yet I did believe in something, though I could not say what
I could not have said what perfection consisted of…
or what its purpose might be
I tried to achieve intellectual perfection;
I studied everything I could, everything life gave me a chance to study
I strove for physical perfection by doing all the excessed that develop strength and agility and by undergoing all the hardships that discipline the self endurance and perseverance
I took all this to be physical perfection
overall perfection
a desire to be better not in my own eyes or in the eyes of God, but rather a desire to be better in the eyes of other people
every time I tried to express my most heartfelt desires ti be morally good I was met with contempt and ridicule
and as soon as I would give into my vile passions I was praised and encouraged
ambition, love of power, self interest…
Lechery, pride, anger, vengeance - all of it was highly esteemed
as I gave myself over to these passions I became…
like my elders, and felt that they were pleased with me
there was not I crime I did not commit;
yet in spite if it all I was praised, and my colleagues considered me and still do consider me a relatively moral man
during this time I began to write out vanity, self-interest, and pride …
I did the same thing in my writing that I did in my life
as an artist and a poet I wrote and taught without myself knowing what I was teaching (…)
I received money for doing this; I enjoyed excellent food, lodgings, women, society; I was famous. therefore what I was teaching must have been very good.
without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not …
know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on taking and listening to one another
the real reason behind what we were doing was that …
we wanted to obtain as much money and praise as possible
but in order for us to engage in something so useless and at the same time maintain the conviction that we were very. important people …
we needed a rationale that would justify what we were doing
we are paid and respected for writing books and periodicals,
and therefore we are the most useful and the best of people
it is now clear to me that there was no difference between
ourselves and people living in a madhouse
like all madmen,
I thought everyone except myself was mad
I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question…
“where are we to steer?”- by saying, “we are being carried somewhere”
The word “progress”. at the time it seemed…
to me that this word had meaning
like any living individual, I was…
tormented by questions of how to live better. I had still not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress
thus during my stay in Paris the sight of…
an execution revealed to me the feebleness of my superstitious beliefs
I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories…
of rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act
I realised that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory,
I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong
therefore, my judgements must be based on what is right and necessary and
not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart
the death of my brother was another instance in which I realised the inadequacy of the
superstition of progress in regard to life
he suffered over a year and died an agonising death without ever
understanding why he lived and understanding even less why he was dying
no theories could provide any answers to these questions, either from him or for me,
during his slow and painful death
but these were only rare instances of doubt
; on the whole I continued to live, embracing only a faith in progress
I told myself that in many of its forms progress did not proceed as it should and that here it was
necessary to leave a primitive people the peasant children, completely free to choose the path of progress they wanted
in essence I was still faced with the same insoluble problem…
of how to teach without knowing what I was teaching
I saw that everyone taught differently and that I the arguments they had they
scarcely hid their ignorance from each other
I felt my mental health was not what it should be…
and that this could not go I=on for long
my shuffling around with the magazine became repugnant to me, since it was forever centred on the same thing-
the desire to teach everyone while hiding the fact that I did not know what I was teaching
it finally reached a point where I fell ill,
more spiritually than physically; I gave it all up and went to (…) live an animal life
the new circumstances of a happy family life completely diverted me from
any search for the overall meaning of life
my striving for personal perfection in general, a striving for progress, now became striving for what was best
for my family and me
as I wrote I aught what to me was the only truth: that we must live for
what ever is best for our family
whenever my life came to a halt, the questions would rise:
why? and what next?
I thought that the answers to them were all well known and that if I should ever want to resolve them, it would not be too hard for me
it was just that I could not be bothered with it now, but if I should take it upon myself, then I would find the answers
it happened to me as it happens with everyone who contracts a fatal internal disease. at first there were the insignificant symptoms of an ailment, which the patient ignores;
then these symptoms recur more and more frequently, until they merge into one continuous duration of suffering
the thing which is he had taken for a mere indisposition is in fact the most
important thing on earth to him, is in fact death
I realised that this was not an incidental ailment but something very serious, and that if the same questions should continue to recur
I would have to answer them
no matter how much I pondered them
there was bi way I could resolve them
I was immediately convinced, first of all, that they were not childish and foolish questions
but the mist vital questions in life
before I could be occupied with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books
I had to know why I was doing these things
my life had come to a stop
I could breathe, eat drink, and sleep; indeed, I could not help but breathe, eat, drink, and sleep
but there was no life in me because
I had no desires whose satisfaction I would have found desirable
if I wanted something, I knew beforehand that it did not matter
whether or not I got it
the truth was
that life is meaningless
I clearly saw that there was nothing ahead except
the deception of life and of happiness and the reality of suffering death, of complete annihilation
I grew sick of life; some irresistible force was leading
me to somehow get rid of it
It was not that I wanted
to kill myself
the force that was leading me away from life was more powerful, more absolute, more …
all encamping than any desire
the thought of suicide came to me as naturally then as the thought
of improving life had come to me before
and there I was, a fortunate man, caring a rope from my room, where I was
alone every night as I undressed, so that I would not hang myself from the beam between the closets
an I quit hunting with a gun so that I would not
be too easily tempted to rid myself of life
I was afraid of life
I struggled to to get rid of it, and yet I hoped for something from it
and this was all happening to me at a time when, from all indications,
I should have been considered a completely happy man
and in such a state of affairs I came to a point where I
could not live , and even though I feared death, I had to employ ruses against myself to keep from committing suicide
I described my spiritual condition to myself in this way:
my life is some kind of stupid and evil practical joke that someone is playing on me
I had now completely matured intellectually and had reached that summit from which life reveals itself
only to stand there like an utter fool, clearly seeing that there is nothing in life, that there never was and never will be
to be free of the body and of all the evils that result from the life of the body. …
if this is so, then how can we fail to rejoice when death approaches
I began to observe people like myself
to see how they lived and to determine what sort of relation they had with the question that led me to despair
the situation in which they find themselves such that it affords them more of the good things in life than the bad;
their moral stupidity enables them to forget that all the advantages of their position are accidental, that not everyone can have a thousand women and places
like every man who truly lives, I could not turn my eyes away
from the mice and the dragon once I had seen them
the third means of escape is through strength and energy (…)
seeing that the blessings of the dead are greater than those of the living and that it is better not to exist, they act and put an end to this stupid joke
the fourth means of escape is that of weakness.(…)
it consists of continuing to frag out a life that is evil and meaningless, knowing beforehand that nothing can come from it
the people in this category know that death is better than life, but they so not have the strength to
act rationally and quickly put an end to the delusion by killing themselves
one escape lies in failing to realise
that life is meaningless, vain, and evil, and knowing that it is better not to live
it was impossible for me not to know this, and once I had discovered the…
truth and I could not close my eyes to it
my imagination
was too active
knowing that life is a stupid joke being played on us, and yet continuing …
to live, to wash, dress, dine, talk and even write books. such a position was disgusting and painful to me, but I remained in it
how is to they shall go on living
and never think to doubt the rationality of life?
indeed, since ancient times, when the life of which I do know something began, people who knew the arguments concerning
the vanity of life, the arguments that revealed to me its meaninglessness, lived nonetheless, bringing life a meaning of their own
(ancient thinkers) everything that is in me and around me is he fruit of their knowledge of life
the very tools of thought by which I judge life and condemn it were created not by me but by them
people who understood it but drowned it
their intoxication with life, people who understood it and put an end to life, and people who understood it but out of weakness continued to live a life of despair
as presented by the learned and the wise, rational knowledge denies the meaning of life, but the huge masses of people
acknowledge meaning through an irrational knowledge
this irrational knowledge is
faith
I knew that I could find nothing in the way of rational knowledge
except denial of life
they do not have to live yet they have
lived and do live just as I myself had lived, even though I had known for a long time that life is meaningless and evil
the question was:
Why should I live?
I also realised that no matter how irrational and unattractive the answers given by faith, they have the advantage of…
bringing to eery reply a relationship between finite and the infinite
is there anything real that will come of my life?
eternal tourment or eternal happiness
how am I to live, the answer is
according to the law of God
what meaning is there which is not destroyed by death?
union with the infinite God, paradise
explain the finite by means of the
infinite
The concepts of an infinite God, moral good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and a relation between God and the affairs of man are ones that have been worked out historically
through the life of humanity that is hidden from our eyes
an answer to the question of life that makes it
possible to live, Is necessary and dear to us
[religious christian] they are concepts without which there would be no life, without which
I myself could not live, and yet, putting aside all the labour of human kind, I wanted to do it all over again by myself and in my own way
I was now prepared to accept any fait, as long as it did not demand of me a direct denial of reason
for such a denial would be a lie
I began to grow closer to the believers from among the poor, the simple,
the uneducated folk, from among pilgrims, the monks, the Rasolniks, the peasants
the superstitions of the believers from the labouring people were intertwined with their lives to such a degree that
their lives could not be conceived without them: their superstitions were a necessary condition for their lives
the closer I looked, the more I was convinced that theirs
was the true faith
all of them, infinitely varied in their customs, intellects, educations, and positions and in complete contrast
to my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death, laboured in peace, endured suffering and hardship, lived and died, and saw in this not vanity but good
my straying had resulted not so much from wrong thinking
as from bad living
but I came to love good people and to hate myself, and I acknowledged
the truth
to be sure, it is the nature of a bird fly, gather food, build a nest; and when I see a bird…
I rejoice I its joy
what then should man do? he should earn his life in exactly the same way animals do but with this one difference:
that he will perish is he does it alone- he must live his life not for himself but for all
I had lived as a
parasite
if the meaning of human life lies in the way it is lived, then how could I, who had spent thirty years not living life but…
ruining it for myself and others, receive any reply other than this, that my life was meaningless and evil? it indeed was meaningless and evil
we must do what is asked of us. and if I will not to do what is asked of me
then I will never understand what is asked of me, much less what is asked of all of us and of the whole world
thus the simple, uneducated working people, whom we look upon as animals, do the will of their master without ever reproaching him.
but we, the wise, consume everything the master provides without doing what he asks of us ; instead we sit in a circle and speculate on why we should do something do stupid
we alone are wise; only we feel that we are good for nothing
and that we must somehow get rid of ourselves 69
I remembered I had only lived when i
had believed in God
but at that point I took a closer look at myself and at what had been happening within me; and I remembered
the hundreds of times I had gone through these deaths and revivals
as long as I know God, I live; when I forget, when I do not believe in him
I die
to know God and to live come one and the same thing
god is life
there can be no life…
without God
and the strange thing is that the life force which returned to me was not new…
but very old
I returned to a belief in God, in moral perfection, and in a tradition that…
instils life with meaning
the shore was God, the stream was tradition, and the oars were the free
will given to me to make the shore where I would be joined with God.
the conditions of luxury under which we live make it impossible for…
us to understand life
mans task in life…
is to save his soul
experience had unquestionably led me to the conviction that
only the principles of faith gave life meaning
like a man and his power of reason (…)
the knowledge of faith arises from a mysterious origin this origin is god
everything that people truly believe must be true; it may be expressed in differing ways
but it cannot be a lie
the essence if any faith lies in giving life a meaning that cannot…
be destroyed by God
I told myself that it is not for any one man to attain divine truth;
it is revealed only through a union of all people joined together by love
if you do not submit to the rituals of the Church you
destroy love
I restrained my reason and
submitted myself to the tradition adopted by all of humanity
I joined with my ancestors and loved ones
with my father, mother and grandparents
they and all before them believed
and lieved and lived and brought me into the world
I joined with all the millions who made
up the people whom I respected
I explained the common to myself as an act performed in
remeberance of christ, signifying the cleansing of sin and the complete acceptance of Christ’s teachings
indeed I had come to fait because apart from it I could find nothing but ruin and therefore,
I could not. cast faith away; so I submitted
I humbled myself and swallowed the flesh and the blood without
any blasphemous emotions and with a longing to believe, but the blow had already left its mark
many times I have envied the peasants for their illiteracy
and their lack of education
