From the pen of Fyo D.

I should probably do these in order... there are several quotes I'd like to put in as examples of why I enjoyed reading The Brothers Karamazov. In order of appearance as opposed to order of size, alphabetical order, or even in order of preference, since I haven't read the quotes all together recently and couldn't be bothered to rank them.

And by appearance I don't mean the way they look on the page, mean the order in which they appear in the book, my having read from page one onwards.

Alexei is speaking with his mentor, Father Zosima, who is recounting some of his experiences as a younger man. He has recently resigned his commission in the military over a duel. After news of the resignation and why, a wealthy but distant man who lives in the same town starts to visit him, and they have some deep discussions. The visitor says that he agrees with the younger Zosima that everyone is responsible for everyone else. That if people do not think in that way, heaven can never come to be. I liked particularly the comments on isolation. Father Zosima is telling the story to Alyosha.

As he spoke he looked at me and smiled, and I thought he was about to revel something to me.

"Heaven is within reach of every one of us, and now it is within me reach too; if I chose I could have it tomorrow, real heaven, for all my life."

He spoke with fervor and looked at me mysteriously, as if asking something of me.

"As to every man being answerable for everybody and everything, not just for his own sins," he went on, "you are absolutely right about it, and the way you succeeded in grasping that idea so fully, all at once, is really remarkable. It is true that when men understand that idea, the kingdom of God will no longer be a dream but a reality."

"But when do you expect that to happen?" I cried bitterly. "When will it come about, if ever? Perhaps it's just a dream and nothing more."

"So you don't believe yourself, " he answered, "in the things you preach to others. Let me tell you, then, that this dream, as you call it, will most certainly come true. You may rest assured of that, but it will not happen immediately, because everything that happens in the world is controlled by its own set of laws. In this case, it is a psychological matter, a state of mind. In order to change the world, man's way of thinking must be changed. Thus, there can be no brotherhood of men before all men become each other's brothers. There is no science, no order based on the pursuit of material gain, that will enable men to share their goods fairly and to respect each other's rights. There will never be enough to satisfy everyone; men will always be envious of their neighbors and will always destroy one another. So to your question when heaven on earth will come about, I can only promise you that it will come without fail, but first the period of man's isolation must come to an end."

"What isolation?" I asked him.

"The isolation that you find everywhere, particularly in your age. But it won't come to an end right now, because the time has not yet come. Today everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But these efforts lead not to a full life, but to suicide, because, instead of realizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation. For in our age mankind has been broken up into self-contained individuals, each of whom retreats into his lair, trying to stay away from the rest, hiding himself and his belongings from the rest of mankind, and finally isolating himself from people and the people from him. And, while he accumulates material wealth in his isolation, he thinks with satisfaction how mighty and secure he has become, because he is mad and cannot see that the more goods he accumulates, the deeper he sinks into suicidal impotence. The reason fo rthis is that hshas become accustomed to relying only on himself; he has split off from the whole and become an isolated unit; he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in men and mankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the ttruth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole.

"But an end to this fearful isolation is bound to come and all men will understand how unnatural it was for them to have isolated themselves from one another. This will be the spirit of the new era and people will look back in amazement at the past, when they sat in darkness and refused to see the light. And it is then that the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens... But until that day we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, to keep the great idea alive.

I can tell you there is a huge amount of isolation in the community where I live. People shun one another, not even necessarily out of fear, but out of habit, not questioning their own actions, assuming it's for good reason, vaguely reminding themselves on occasion that the world is getting worse.

The world is getting worse, it is a result of thinking that 'everything is permitted' which by the way is a recurring theme in the book. People these days seem to have seriously adopted that mentality, that everything is permitted, and the isolation and unfriendliness is really distrust and suspicion; they feel justified in acting however they want though it may encroach on others, and they fear reproach. Because everything is permitted, who are you to reproach me?

Feet in shoes

I have some more quotes from the Karamazov brothers, but I'll have to fill those in later, as well as my thoughts on those quotes.

On the way here, I realized in a more conscious way the fact that I don't like to see shoes that cover the tips of a woman's toe and don't cover the whole toe. The result is a series of small lines created by the seam between each toe. I'm not sure what's exactly irritating but I think it's something to do with the visual flow: a smooth shoe and a smooth foot and even a smooth line transitioning colored shoe to skin-colored foot all interrupted and crosscut by these small creases.
Edit: I added a visual aid. Let me add something else, in the example shown here we also have squish-outyness, which are also distasteful in their own way. Note: I stole the photo without permission. I have low morals in that regard--if I get caught I will only be sorry I got caught and not sorry I did it.

I was thinking a rather deep thought while entering my building this morning, and now I can't remember what it was. Oh yes.. I remember it had to do with my reading, about God and the devil, in the book. I was thinking about the erosion of my testimony (this is the term Mormons use for their faith in God) and I wondered whether and pretty much believed that it was possible that I might come full circle in my old age. Ah I remember now, I was thinking about my possibly racist comment yesterday to two black women that the 'abos' filled in for black people with the rap and the hopped up cars (I didn't say the graffiti and the hairdos). Immediately felt like moving on to another topic.. Anyway I was reviewing the incident in my mind this morning, and I thought about how cultured and proper I had learned to be in college and here I am reverting. It was at that point I wondered whether I would come full circle in time and become religious conservative again.

Ivan Karamazov

Ivan made me cry today, while talking with his brother Alexei. He gives several examples of cruelty to children, to make a point. I hate reading about cruelty to children, or hearing about it, or seeing it.

Ivan first addresses suffering and who is to blame:

All that my puny Euclidean, earthling's mind can grasp is that there is such a thing as suffering, that no one can be blamed for it, that quite uncomplicatedly cause precedes effect, that everything that flows finds its proper level--but then all that is just Euclidean gibberish, and, being aware of that fact, I cannot agree to live by it! What good does it do me to know that no one is to blame, that every effect is determined by a cause, which itself is an effect of some other cause and so on, and that, therefore, no one should ever be blamed for anything? For, even though I may know it, I still need retribution.

The next point Ivan makes is that there's no way to atone for the suffering of an innocent child. There's no way that by children suffering some imbalance is corrected. It is not just. A mother couldn't forgive her son's torturer on his behalf.

He then asks his brother Alexei if he would build an edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility, only the edifice is built on the torture of just one of these innocent children.

At that point, Alexei brings up the one person who could do the forgiving required. This is the segue into the famous story of the Grand Inquisitor. I actually have the story as a pamphlet, probably for school study, but I understand it better now, having the conversation that leads up to Ivan's point about Christ's relationship to the people. It has more meaning for me now.

Voting

I have decided that if I did vote (were it not pointless to do so), I would vote for the candidate with the most money. Sad, though, that the choice is taken from me in the primaries, i.e. suppose the richest Dem didn't win the primary and would have beat out the richest GOP.