A Confession by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (best sales books of all time txt) 📕

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.

All 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