#3 Leo Tolstoy: A Confession

In this episode of Lasting Literature, we discuss Leo Tolstoy's confession. Expect to learn all about Tolstoy's descent into nihilism and his escape, and about the conflict between reason and faith. I hope you enjoy the episode. 

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Transcript

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Leo Tolstoy was at the height of his fame. War and peace immortalized his name, and Anna Caranina was unfolding beneath his pen. He had a loving wife and lovely children, a massive estate, respect and recognition from everyone around him, and wealth that would outlive him. And yet he began to hide ropes from himself and no longer trusted himself to carry a gun because he was terrified of taking his own life. Thought of suicide came as naturally to Tolstoy as thoughts of improving his life had once come to him. Tolstoy was torturing himself with questions like, What will come of my entire life? Why do I live? Why do I wish for anything or do anything? Is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death which awaits me? He searched through the depth of human knowledge for an answer. He talked to Christians, priests, and monks, but found no answer to the question of life. How does a man who understood the human soul so well come to believe that life itself is meaningless? That is what we'll be digging through in today's episode while we talk about Tolstoy's Confession. If you enjoy this episode, please share with a friend. Don't forget to like and subscribe. I appreciate you. Let's get into it. I'm going to read a short excerpt from Tolstoy's Confession, um, basically just the opening of chapter five. Several times I said to myself, but perhaps I've overlooked something or failed to understand something. It cannot be that this state of despair is common to all men. And I searched for an answer to my questions in all branches of knowledge acquired by man. I sought long and lay laboriously. I did not search half-heartedly or out of idle curiosity, but tormentedly, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation, and I found nothing. I searched all branches of knowledge and not only found nothing, but was convinced that all those who had searched the realms of knowledge, like myself, had likewise found nothing. Not only have they found nothing, but they had plainly acknowledged the same thing that had led me to despair, the meaninglessness of life as the only indisputable piece of knowledge available to man. So as we've read, Toso is searching for an answer to the question of the meaning of life. What will come of what I do today or tomorrow? He asks. What will come of my entire life? He is searching and searching for an answer and eventually comes to a point where he learns everything that knowledge has to answer about the question of life. Here's another excerpt from Tosto's confession. I searched through human knowledge for an answer to this question, which is the same, whatever way it is expressed. I found that according to their relation to the question, all branches of human knowledge are divided almost into two opposite hemispheres, at the opposite ends of which are two poles, one positive and one negative. Yet at neither pole were there any answers to the question of life. And so failing to find an explanation of the of his question in knowledge, he began to search for it in life and the people around him. While observing, he discovered the people of his circle had four main methods of escape from quote the dreadful situation in which we all find ourselves. End quote. And of course, this dreadful situation he's referring to is life, unfortunately. The first method of escape is ignorance, which Tolstoy writes consists of failing to recognize or understand that life is evil and absurd. The second method is Epicureanism, which consists of knowing of the hopelessness of life, but still enjoying the blessings we have without choosing to face the questions which Tolstoy is tortured by. The third method is through, quote, strength and energy. It consists of realizing that life is evil and senseless and of destroying it. This group of people understand the stupid joke that is being played on them, and they quote, realize that the blessings of the dead are far greater than the blessings of the living. And the best thing of all is to not live. End quote. And as Tolstoy goes on to write, they act accordingly. All I can say about this third method is I hope you're not finding yourself in this bucket. Um, it's a hard place to be in, but like my condolences if you are going through something like this. And finally, the fourth road of escape is that of weakness, which means clinging to a life that is evil and futile, despite knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. These people know the best road to take is that of the third method we just discussed, but Tolstoy writes, quote, lack the strength to act rationally and bring a quick end to the deception. End quote. Tolstoy says he himself belongs to this category. And so this is Tolstoy at the bottom of his despair. And the four methods of escape represent the philosophical dead end Tolstoy found himself at. His reasoning at this point in his life is this reason proves life is meaningless, and intelligent people see this. Therefore, they escape through these four strategies. So ultimately, this is Tolstoy's map to nihilism. Part two, faith. Tolstoy had reached the end of reason. Philosophy offered no meaning, and science offered no answers. All that remained were the four escapes ignorance, pleasure, suicide, and despair. But soon enough Tolstoy came to realize that he had been living in an intellectual bubble, and all rational thinkers arrive at nihilism. Yet most people go on living. The millions of ordinary men and women living around him, peasants, workers, laborers, did not fall into despair, meaning the four methods of escape do not apply to these ordinary people who suffer far more than Tolstoy had ever suffered, yet they have meaning and a sense of love in their lives. Therefore, they must possess something that reason lacks. He realizes he ignored most of humanity. And so Tolstoy says, quote, I thought that this narrow circle of learned, wealthy, and idle people to which I belonged, comprise the sum of mankind. End quote. And so he finds himself realizing a paradox, coming to the conclusion that life is meaningless, yet most people go on living. He starts to realize that those who believed life was meaningless, which were people he was surrounded by his entire life, were the same type of people, educated, wealthy, and detached from the basic struggle of existence. And that the vast majority of humanity, those who work in fields, who raise families and endured the suffering of everyday life, these people did not arrive at the same conclusion. This observation is not astray from us today. Tolstoy later in his life would try to renounce his wealth and want to live the life of a peasant. We even have a photo of him dressed as a peasant. But it's important to note as a reminder to myself and to those listening or watching to remember this observation. I know I often need this reminder that intellectualizing and reasoning through life is more dangerous than we might think. Of course, I think it's important to question and to search for truth, but it's just as important to step away from the books and from the accursed questions, as Dostoevsky called them, and go out and live and observe and feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Which leads us to the missing ingredient Tolstoy had been searching for. The difference between Tolstoy and his circle of thinkers he was surrounded by, and then of the vast majority of humanity who, to put it simply, didn't have the time to think about the meaning of life and instead just lived it. The missing ingredient was faith. We hear faith and instantly think of church doctrine and theology, but this wasn't what Tolstoy had in mind. Tolstoy defines faith as the following quote, faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, whereby the individual does not destroy himself but lives. Tolstoy figured out for himself the limits of reason. He realized that reason can only deal with finite things, science, logic, and facts, but the question of life's meaning is about infinity. Reason cannot bridge that gap. So for Tolstoy, faith is the bridge between finite life and infinite meaning. If reason alone is the guide to the fundamental human question, why should I live if death destroys everything? Then the answer becomes everything ends in death, therefore everything is meaningless. This leads to nihilism. But faith introduces a new assumption, life participating in something eternal. And once that belief exists, suffering has a purpose, actions have meaning, and life becomes worth living. Faith is not primarily about explaining the universe, but it's about making life livable. It's worth reiterating that Tolstoy never returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and later criticized many aspects of it. His faith wasn't about institutional religion or rituals that don't provide any meaning or dogmatic theology. Tolstoy found faith mainly in his belief in God and his belief in love. I bring this up because faith looks differently for everyone. There is no cookie-cutter answer, and no one can or should assign you yours. So as we end off this episode, I ask you, what do you put your faith into? It's a hard question, but isn't it so beautiful too? The beauty is in the fact that we designate our own meaning. So I ask you once again, what is yours? Thank you all so much for watching. Again, if you enjoyed this video, please subscribe and share it with a friend. It would mean the world to me. Um, yeah, and I'll see you guys in the next one.