Tolstoy wrote this to explain his conscious choice to believe in God. To paraphrase the early part, he reached a point where he didn't believe in God anymore and was near suicide from a deep existential despair over the apparent meaninglessness of life:
This is what I found in people who were in the same position as myself through their education and manner of life.
I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out from the terrible condition in which we all are.
The first way is through ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding that life is evil and meaningless. People of this category - mostly women or very young or very dull persons - have not yet come to understand that question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha...
The second way out is through Epicureanism. It consists in this, that, knowing the hopelessness of life, one should in the meantime enjoy such good as there is...The dullness of the imagination of these people makes it possible for them to forget that which gave no rest to Buddha, - the inevitableness of sickness, old age, and death, which sooner or later will destroy all those pleasures...Thus think and feel the majority of mean of our time and our manner of life...Such people I could not imitate...
The third way out is through force and energy. It consists in this, that, having comprehended that life is evil and meaningless, one should set out to destroy it. Thus now and then act strong, consistent people. Having comprehended all the good of the dead is better than that of the living, and that it is better not to be at all, they go and carry this out and at once put an end to that stupid joke, so long as there are means for it: a noose about the neck, the water, a knife to pierce the heart with, railway trains...I saw that that was the worthiest way out, and I wanted to act in that way...
The fourth way out is through weakness. It consists in this, that, comprehending the evil and the meaninglessness of life, one continues to drag it out, knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. People of this calibre know that death is better than life, but, not having the strength to act reasonably, to make an end to the deception, and to kill themselves, they seem to be waiting for something. This is the way of weakness...
[Then a long metaphor about being set adrift in a raft on a river and finding the will to steer to the far shore]
That shore was God, the direction was tradition, the oars were the freedom given me to row toward that shore, - to unite myself with God. Thus the force of life was renewed in me, and I began to live once more.
My question is this: Are Tolstoy's four categories of people accurate, in your experience? If not, why not? If so, which of the four categories describes you most closely? I'm most closely a "four", but without the pessimism or the belief that death is actually better than life; they're about the same, I'd say.
I enabled you to choose two options in case you find yourself to be a mix, but if so, please explain.
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken
"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
