In his lesser-known letters and essays, we get a more intimate look at what he loved, hated, fiercely believed in
Dig in👇🏻
1/ Dostoevsky believed life is only possible when you have a philosophical north star you swear by:
"Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea"
Dostoevsky: "In order to maintain itself and live, every society must necessarily respect someone & something"
2/ In his essay against Environmental determinism, Dostoevsky writes:
"The doctrine of the environment reduces man to an absolute nonentity, exempts him totally from every personal moral duty and from all independence, reduces him to the lowest form of slavery imaginable."
3/ In a letter, Dostoevsky revealed the mystery he wanted to solve:
“I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man."
4/ Dostoevsky needed only three things: “I need nothing but books, the possibility of writing, and of being daily for a few hours alone. To be alone is a natural need, like eating and drinking."
Certain spiritual and intellectual problems demand solitude.
5/ BUT Dostoevsky also warned against introversion:
"Lacking external experiences, those of the inward life will gain the upper hand. The nerves and the fancy then take up too much room. Every external happening seems colossal, and frightens us. We begin to fear life.”
6/ Dostoevsky lists important questions all societies must ask:
"Whom can we now consider our best people? Most important, where shall we find them? Who will take the responsibility for proclaiming them the best, and on what basis? Does someone need to take this responsibility?"
7/ Do we possess talent or does talent possess us?
Dostoevsky: “It's very rare to find a person capable of handling his gift. The talent almost always enslaves its possessor, taking him, as it were, by the scruff of the neck & carrying him off far away from his proper path.”
8/ Dostoevsky hated the "small-souled" people who preach "contentment with one's destiny” and "modest demands from life."
Dostoevsky: "Their contentment is that of cloistered self-castration."
All vital souls will instinctively reject such an "insipid" existence.
9/ Dostoevsky on the measure of great art:
“Art is always true to reality in the highest degree…it cannot be unfaithful to contemporary reality. Otherwise it would not be art. It is the measure of true art that it is always contemporary, urgent and useful.”
10/ Art becomes abnormal when we become abnormal: “During his life man may deviate from normality, from the laws of nature; in this case art will deviate with him. But this serves to show art’s close and indissoluble link with man, its constant loyalty to man and his interests.”
11/ Dostoevsky against censorship: "It is of primary importance not to hinder art with various aims, not to prescribe laws for it…for even without this it is already confronted by many submerged rocks, many temptations and deviations inseparable from man’s existence."
12/ For Dostoevsky beauty is synonymous with health and ascending life:
“Beauty is useful because man has a constant need for (his) highest ideal. If a people preserves an ideal of beauty and a need for it, it means that the need for health and normality is also there."
Peter Thiel: "There is no better way to think about human irrationality than to read Dostoevsky, and there is no better reader of Dostoevsky than Mr. Girard"
Girard's book on Dostoevksy, Resurrection from the Underground, is fascinating!
You are defined as a man by what sort of relationship you have with reality. To truly see reality breaks both your back and your heart. But once you do, it frees up your hands to tinker and your feet to roam. That's the basic bargain. Or you can accept some convenient lie
The Matrix remains the foundational myth of our century because it's about waking up to what IS. The naked, brutal, ugly truth preferred over the sensuous, pleasurable, convenient lie - for power only belongs to the one with his eyes open
The flipped page, the strange dream, the impassioned debates - all human attempts to reach clarity. Reaching clarity strains the eye, taxes the mind, exhausts you at a muscular level - but only out of the weight of the truth can you forge swords that will conquer the world
A myth so loved by a US President that it almost became the national emblem
A popular meme comes from this myth too👇🏻
1/ Hercules’ father was the God Jupiter but his mother was a human female
Hercules is one day out in the woods, doing what the young everywhere tend to do: daydreaming about the future
Suddenly two female figures make their way to him: Lady Virtue and Lady Vice
2/ Vice reaches Hercules first and makes a tempting offer:
“If you befriend me, I will lead you to the most pleasant and easiest road; you will not miss the taste of any delight, and you will live your life without experience of the hard things.”
Stuffing your brain with information that invokes no emotion - and inspires no action - is to gain knowledge “at the expense of the soul.” You become a “pedant and logician” who’s dead inside.
André Malraux fought two wars, discovered lost cities, won literary awards, and became the first Culture Minister of France under De Gaulle. His favorite writer was Nietzsche and he lived a real Nietzschean life. How Malraux achieved great feats while overcoming tragedy👇🏻
1/ Malraux’s first published article - “The Origins of Cubist Poetry” - came out when he was 19
His surrealist short stories were well-received
He was becoming popular among the literary salons of Paris
But he suddenly packed bags and took his young wife to the Far East
Why?
2/ The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche made a profound impact on young Malraux
His first wife Clara Malraux wrote that ever since she knew him, Malraux was “haunted by Nietzsche”
Malraux clearly had literary skills - now he wanted to prove himself as a bold man of action
Ezra Pound invented a new form of poetry. He inspired everyone from Hemingway to TS Eliot. And for being a Mussolini Superfan, he was declared mad in 1945 & institutionalized for 12 years. On his 137th birthday today, discover Pound’s insights on poetry, why Rome fell, & more👇🏻
1/ Pound on putting your skin in the game:
“If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good”
In the preface to Guide To Kulchur, Pound notes that he will be committing himself to ideas that “very few men can AFFORD to”
2/ Pound on words:
Every word comes with “roots” and “associations” - with a history of where the word is “familiarly used” and also where it has been used “brilliantly or memorably”
A great writer uses words with full awareness of this background