“Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth” wrote Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment. We discuss how you arrive at the truth through lying, and then about the twisted lies of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, how her insistence on denying her own truth eventually leads to her ending her own life.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] lying is a delightful thing for, it leads to truth. Lying is a delightful thing for it leads to truth. This was early on in crimes and punishment by Dostoevsky, which by the way, is a book that when I started it, I instantly knew. That’s actually not true. See, it’s a book that I’ve heard so much over the years, it’s been kind of on the, just like calf guide, heard that name forever.
So it was sort of in my, this must be somebody great. This must be a piece of great art and literature. And so when I started reading it, I think I already had the idea that I would like it. And then as I started reading. I, I did believe instantly that the book will be fascinating and there’s going to be something in it for me. But the early reading was very, I have to say it was [00:01:00] sort of dense and the main character is at the beginning. Just not very likable. Right. So it’s so dark and the main character is so not likable and things are kind of it’s, it’s not dust to ask. He doesn’t write at least maybe in the translation to English.
It’s not as beautiful writing as tall story. And it’s not
RA: not it’s not like riding a bike downhill through a nice landscape.
SE: no, no, it’s not. It doesn’t. Yeah, it doesn’t have that. Light-heartedness and it’s not that poetic flow of describing things in the sentences. Just like Gallup, it’s much more dense. It’s slow. It’s like walking through mud a little bit. Right. You walk through mud and it’s gray and rainy and the character you don’t lie.
And so you’re like, why am I doing, why am I [00:02:00] following this character? I don’t even like him. I don’t hate him, but I really don’t care for him to be following him through the mud. Like this is kind of
RA: Yeah.
SE: but I have to say now I’m, uh, kind of, uh, the second half of the book at around, around 40% into the book, he got me, like, then I realized.
The shift in me where it went from there’s pages that I really like, but there’s also lots of pages where just work through the mud. And I am not in this like state, the most beautiful state in reading. When you really get addicted to the book where you really are delighted and reading and you don’t want to stop and you want to start.
Right. I never had that for almost half the book. It was always a little bit of a work effort and never that kind of effortless. I want a more, more of this and then it shifted. And now I’m [00:03:00] kind of in this addicted state where I’m super invested in the characters, what is going on the state, it creates within me.
And I’m like, I want. I need to finish this book and I want to know the resolution and want to know what’s going to happen to these people because I care now. But it took a while this, this book took a while to get me there, but it’s always delightful when it happens. It always is a beautiful thing.
Once you are really in, once the people on the page have come to life so much that you care that you deeply care and really need to know. What is going to happen to them and how the stories going on fold. and it’s deep dark shit, obviously, but in one of the, that, one of the few things that are highlighted, uh, in the first half of the book was the sentence, you know, lying is a delightful thing for, it leads to truth.
That [00:04:00] sentence stood out to me because you don’t, we don’t usually hear. Lying described as a delightful thing that points to truth. That leads to truth. Now, when I brought this up once with you, you had a response, which is a typical room, which is like 50% of the time, maybe less, 40% of the time that I’m like excited about something.
W, uh, remain responsible B because she’ll look at it from the other side, this is wholly unremarkable and not true. Right? This is kind of like used to be 70% of the time. That will be the mean response. But I would say in last years, it’s more, it’s not half the time. It’s a little less than half the time, but it’s a
RA: I mean, I already know at the end of this, I’m going to look like an idiot because I mean, but, but I’m curious to understand more about this
SE: But what’s your first response when it’s, when I [00:05:00] say line, is it life of, because it leads to truth.
RA: so my very first that I didn’t share was like, why, wait, how curiosity? Right. And then it was okay. Probably in the way that what we lie about, we make an effort to conceal something about, and what we conceal is kind of the thing that is the truth. Right? So it points to a set. If there’s a, if we lie about something and I was like, yeah, but every time.
In a way points to truth, whether it’s lying or this a joke points to choose a common points are true. The compliment points are true. I dunno. So I was like, uh,
SE: That’s true. Everything either points towards truth or away from it, but the way I think about this is that a lie. Is a much stronger signal towards truth than a half truth. I actually tweeted this a day later that actually a half, half truths are more [00:06:00] dangerous to the truth and lies.
Why? Because they’re more muddled because the person that otters a half-truth understands himself less, that what he’s saying is not the truth. Right. That is kind of a convenient, concealed water down or morphed way of looking at the truth in a way it’s just a lie, but it feels true because it has true components in it.
Right? So when I say something that’s sort of truth, but is concealing certain areas, it’s much harder for me to see what I’m doing and it’s much harder for other people to clearly see what I’m doing. So I’m muddying the waters versus a lie. It’s sort of like eating something that’s sort of sweet and a little bit bitter, and you don’t know if it’s going to be, uh, bad for you or not.
Right. It’s mixed signals or eating something that is disgustingly bitter, where you might spit it out instantly because you know, this might be dangerous. This, the, the way [00:07:00] this tastes tells my body, this is not for consumption. Right. And I think in the same way, When I, when people lie, the stronger the lie, the more awareness there is an internal conflict.
There is above the very fact that I’m lying. And I can’t forget that. And so that lies hanging over my head, like a, like a flashlight that tells me that there’s something that I’m concealing. And I think also to other people. Not always, obviously, but in the abstract, a strong line might be much more obvious to spot.
Then when we are seeing things that are half trues or things that we’re unsure about. I think thinking about a lie as a very, as a strong, just like a stronger signal, that there is strongest signal towards where the real truth is. Just like in a similar [00:08:00] way to the philosophy of when I’m really angry at somebody, right.
Anger, you know, you’re like we could go anger also points to truth. Right? Love points of truth. But, um, I think we think of lies, I think, without having thought about it in intuitively, we would say if somebody just says a half-truth, that’s better than saying a bold lie. But I think the bold line, maybe in the abstract in the longterm is kind of a more inconvenient or a stronger sign towards truth than the half-truth.
That’s kind of the way that I’m thinking of marinating or interpreting this, not to say that lying is good, but lying people lying is an important step in the dance. I think a more useful step in the dance of trying to figure out the truth, then. Many other things that I might be more tame of versions of what we [00:09:00] call a lie.
RA: Maybe , I also I’m missing the context of where this came up and everything, so, right. But to me A good lie actually fits in very well with a lot of truth and connects to a lot of truth. Right. And it’s wrapped into truth. Versus a bad lie and good, I mean like convincing versus bad lie is a lie. That’s like completely unattached to any truth and not related to any truth. And it’s like, when I went to school, there was a boy who said, oh, I found a Treasure chest full of gold in my staircase, right? Yeah. Okay. Come when you mean, fuck you,
SE: Benjamin Benjamin, come on, Benjamin. We all know that’s not true. Meanwhile, Benjamin had found fucking gold. You’re sitting
RA: bitches.
SE: there in the fucking civical like nine-year-olds were like pushing up their glasses. No, Benjamin. You did not find the treasure.
Yeah, that is interesting.
RA: In Anna Karenina, right. That, that chapter where, she is losing her [00:10:00] mind. All of that madness and insanity works because it’s always attached to something real. And then. Kind of makes it a little twists and interprets it a different way or sees a different way. Right. But it’s not completely detached from, from reality.
SE: Let’s actually read that part. and maybe we won’t be able to read the whole thing because it’s like a bunch of pages, but I know that I’ve highlighted a few, things as examples.
So this is at the very end of the book Anna Karenina and this woman has gone through. A lot of trauma oil has made a lot of decisions that had a lot of drama in her life. And this last bit describes basically her going insane or having a psychotic breakdown and at the very end taking her own life right now, the thing that struck me when reading that.
And then I’ll highlight that I’ll read some pieces that are [00:11:00] highlighted here that I’ve highlighted and we can discuss and debate this. But the way I read that, that whole part though, the reason why I thought it was incredible, one of the most incredible bits in the book was that on that ride to the train station, Right.
She’s at that, on that carriage. And she seeing people and there’s little situations everywhere and just having an inner dialogue and the inner dialogue is going kind of erratic between her own life and her thoughts and her situations, the people, and then observing others externally and having thoughts about them.
And when I read it, all the external things that she saw. We’re actually pointing to parts of her life where she didn’t live. The truth was she had intense anger. So she would see, you know, a family trying to go on a vacation and having a good [00:12:00] time. And she would think you cannot run away from the truth.
Yeah.
RA: here.
SE: Yeah.
Even on your vacation. Yeah. It’s going to
RA: going to help you.
SE: but, but there’s many, many parts I’ll read them. I haven’t read them again since then first reading. So I’ll see how it plays out, unfolds in this room. But to me, every single thing she would see outside on the way to her death and that she had vial and greed, you know, despicable thoughts about where the things manifested, like the playing out of parts of her own life and the anger and disgust she had at those people.
Those situations was the anger and disgust she had towards herself. Because of those pieces of her life, of the way that she should, she lived through that. So the first one is the one that we both obviously instantly remembered, which is, her seeing the kind of family that looked like they’re all [00:13:00] prepped up and all on the way to some kind of nice trip. Weekend trip or whatever else. And she’s like,
no, you’re going in vain. She mentally addressed the company in a coach and for who were evidently going out of town for some merriment and the doc you’re taking with you, won’t help you. You won’t get away from yourselves, right. That you won’t get away from yourselves.
That points to so much of what she did. In her life, always like running away, you know, we’re going to go away, you know, overseas, we’re going to go into this new house. We’re going to live this new life. We’re going to do running away from herself, but anywhere she would get to, she brought herself with her.
Right. And, and that was part of her suffering. ,
And then there’s a, there’s a part where she thinks of Wronski her love affair. And she’s like, what was he looking for in me? Not love so much as the satisfaction of his vanity.
RA: vanity.
SE: And, and then you go, well, what were, was Ana [00:14:00] looking in for, in Wronski? What, what made her. Fall in love. So crazily in a man that she had spoken to two sentences at a train station and was willing to risk her husband, her son, and her whole life for, she didn’t know that meant what made her, it was the vanity. It was the delight that such a man was falling for her. And she had this magical spell over him. That’s what lured her in. Right. Nothing else. So she. Angry at him and thinking these terrible hurtful thought that he wasn’t even looking for love. It was just looking for his own vanity in her, but that’s actually what she was looking at in him.
Then at some point she sees some other dude walking around and he looks like, I don’t know some kind of a lawyer or something. And he walks with a kind of swagger and he was like, nice. He had his hair done nicely. And his is kind of. You know, official paperwork or [00:15:00] whatever under is an honor, his arm.
And she goes, this one wants to astonish. Everybody is very pleased with himself,
RA: Yeah.
SE: right? This one is a stumble. Th once astonished everybody and is very pleased with himself and you go, what did she do? You know? What, what was her main concern? What was so great about her was that she was great at astonishing everybody. Right. And for a while, she was very pleased with herself until she wasn’t. And then later this,
if I could be anything else, but a mistress who passionately loves only his caresses, but I cannot do not want to be anything else. And by this desire or provoke has discussed and he provokes my anger and it cannot be otherwise.
RA: it can be yet.
SE: It cannot be. Otherwise I don’t, I know that he would not deceive me, that he doesn’t have any intentions to work princess Sorokin that he is not in love with kitty, that he will not be unfaithful to me. I know all that, but it’s none the easier [00:16:00] for me if he’s kind and gentle towards me out of duty without loving me. And I’m not to have what I want. That is a thousand times. Even than anger. It’s how, and that is what we have. He has long ceased loving me and where love stops. Hatred begins.
It’s so it’s such deep shit. I mean, again, out of context as soon. Well, I’m sure these things don’t hit as hard, right. When you’ve gone through the travel of
RA: yeah.
SE: her whole life and drama, these things. Yeah. Feeling she has to word some people and thoughts hit differently. But it, it struck me as significant how she was thinking if I cannot have his pure love and all you have is duty and honesty and devotion, then that’s even worse than that.
But the crazy thing here is that one has to ask, did they ever had real love, whatever, however you want to [00:17:00] define it. Right. W they were in love, but did they ever had the chance to develop love? Because their lifestyle was so tumultuous that they went from madly unexplainably loved to risking everything and having such huge drama, that it was just a managing of all the drama. And then they were stuck with each other in a really difficult place. There was no time. There was no healthy, organic time for a seed. Love to grow into a real tree, right. Kind of threw themselves in such a tumultuous wait. Now here’s another thing where she sees somebody else and things, thoughts about that person that are really, I think, pointing to our own life,
ah, a beggar woman with a child, she thinks she’s to be pitied. Are we all thrown into the world only in order to hate each other? And so to torment ourselves, Students going by laughing. So [00:18:00] yours are, that was her son. She remembered. I also thought I loved him and used to be moved by my own tenderness, but I did live without him, exchanged him for another love. And didn’t complain of the exchange. As long as I was satisfied by that love. And with disgust, you remembered what it was that you called that love.
RA: Yeah.
SE: She looks at that, at that beggar woman with a child as like, ah, you think we should pity you. We think that you love your child, but all this is nothing it’s like, yeah, motherfucker. Because, you know, because that’s how you feel about yourself,
RA: right. right. you went to the kid to move to Italy, you know, the mansion and have an artist’s life there. Right. Abandoned your son.
SE: Yeah. And, and, and now in now, because there’s so much bitterness in herself and anger and disgust, I asked about herself, but she doesn’t recognize that at no point in here, is [00:19:00] she talking about herself and no point before she dies, does she go? I did not love, I had too much vanity. I.
RA: a splint. There’s a splinter in that part, right. Where the, where she thinks to her son and how she exchanged his
SE: but, but no, no, it’s not. You know why? Because she is not critical with herself. She’s critical with the concept of love. And she says, huh, you think you love your child? And we think I was also. In brackets, deceived in thinking I love my child, but then I threw away that love for somebody else. So what is love?
Nothing. It’s all a piece that, that is the, the, the, the problem here. She’s at no point thinking I had vanity, I was never, I’d never really loved this person. I was running away from myself and my problems. I. Did a despicable [00:20:00] thing of not protecting my child and, and honoring that child
at no point is she questioning her own life. She’s questioning life. She’s not, you know, giving a verdict over her love to these people. She’s giving a verdict over the concept of love. You know, life is just a bunch of bullshit. We’re tormenting. Each other love doesn’t exist. We’re all just running away from truth. We’re all just full of it. But it’s not all of us that are this it’s you, you are this way. You have lived your life this way, and now your whole reality is falling apart. And you’re in the psychotic episode and on your way to your death, to your suicide, which is the logical consequence of thinking about life this way and being in this much of suffering. You see the world in her eyes. She sees the world so clearly right now she understands these things [00:21:00] in her eyes. She now has a truth that everybody else is too foolish to accept.
All right,
how dark and useless and emptied life is. And she sees all these examples and these other people, but it’s just herself seeing her own life. Right. But she cannot accept responsibility.
RA: also the almost entire length of the book since they got together she’s always doing this thing where she’s like, yeah. Outwardly, oh yeah. I’m not worthy of happiness. I don’t even desire happiness anymore because whoever I did all these bad things, I’m a bad woman. Right. But, but everything she does. Is to the satisfaction of her happiness and then hourly, she’s keep saying like, oh, I don’t even want to be happy anymore. I don’t deserve to be, I cannot even be happy anymore because of the bad things I did. Right. But it’s all, it’s all through the lens of society’s view of her.
SE:
Yeah, she’s playing. A role, [00:22:00] even in the moments where that our most intimate about her inner life, it appears that she’s not aware of how she’s not accepting her true thoughts and motivations. And hence, she’s never able to understand herself and make the right decisions. And also that self-deception. Escalating so quickly through that cascading of decision-making that it becomes an impossible riddle, a labyrinth that she’s so lost. And that eventually she’s like, this is life just to labyrinth where everywhere there’s a dead end. This is pointless. This is all people think this is some beautiful garden, but it’s not right, but it’s not that that’s the, the world it’s that. Her world in the world she created. Cause she was never honest with herself. She was not honest about her marriage and why she got together with her husband in the first place. She was not honest what fans, [00:23:00] what was fancy to her about that little spark and flirt with Wronski. She was not honest about her relationship with her son. Maybe she had never developed honest feelings toward her son over proportionally devoted herself to her son because her marriage was so. Her life was so empty. So she took on the role of being an incredible mother without being able to honestly feel that love truthfully in and on and on and on and on it was, you know, and as you said, even the things that she did out of
oh, I’m such a good person. Look, I don’t believe I’m good. I don’t believe I’m wise. I don’t believe. You know, when you look at her actions at every point in her actions, she’s trying to maximize her own happiness. She’s trying to maximize to get the perfect results for herself. She’s doing this despicable thing of, you know, of cheating on our husband.
[00:24:00] And then in her mind goes, , oh, even if you would throw me out. In the street and I would lose everything and it would spit on me and hit me, you know, that would be what I deserve. But when her husband forgives her and loves her and wants to protect her and says, I’m at your mercy, I’ll do whatever you, you want.
She hates him for it. What is that? You know, what exactly is that? And then when.
RA: Yeah.
SE: Inevitably gets back to a bad place himself. And he’s like, you know what? I’m going to punish you. You’re not going to get our son. He’s going to stay with me all along, along the way. She’s like, I’m going to lose my son. And even if I lose my son and losing my son is going to part of it first, she was like, that’s the thing I cannot do. So I cannot leave my husband. And then she’s like, oh, you know, that might be the right thing. And maybe I should lose my son. And then when she does she’s out of her mind about it and it’s like, whoa, What are you doing?
Everything she says she contradicts with her [00:25:00] behavior at some point later on, cause he’s playing a role to herself and to others. Really the inner decay they’re like falling apart internally by not being willing to see yourself. Right to really see what are my motivations? Who am I, what do I want? And then at no point being able to accept the consequences of some of that behavior and always kind of morphing and warping the outer world,
even the whole episode towards the end, before she takes her life. It’s this kind of CRA nothing really happened. That is that crazy? Right? She wanted a good, like actually the lover, the one that is much more lives, much closer to the truth because he does sacrifice so many things for her. Right. And then she, you know, wants to leave that house again and move [00:26:00] again to some other place.
And then he’s like, he really doesn’t want to do that, but eventually gives up, he’s like, all right, I love her so much. I’ll do that.
RA: Hmm.
SE: Any, instead of doing it in two days, he’s like, we’re going to do this in three days or something. And she’s had this whole psychotic breakdown over that. Right. Um, um,
RA: You know, what was interesting about that part? Also, that was one part that one of the few parts where I read it and it brought back memories when I read it as a teenager and as a teenager, I read it and I was like, this is too much. Come on. I was like, great. I couldn’t, I couldn’t now having looked into the barrel of life a little bit deeper.
I read, oh shit.
So,
SE: Yes. And you know,
most of us will not be pushed to that extreme, but all of us have visited that path to some degree, right. Where you’re not [00:27:00] honest and clear and clean with yourself and you project. The inner demons to the outer world. And you think it’s the world of the people or this person. And then we’re in kind of turmoil, internal and external turmoil loyal that if you keep on long enough, like she does the only, the end station, the, the, the destination is losing grip of life and then losing life itself.
The very last thing is the kind of the paragraph where she kills herself. So let’s finish with that:
sitting on a star shaped sofa and waiting for the train, looking with revulsion at the people coming in and going out, they all disgusted her. She thought of how she would arrive at the station, write a note to him and of what she would write then of how he was now complaining to his mother, not understanding her suffering about his situation and how she would come into the [00:28:00] room and what she would say to him. Then she thought of how life could still be happy and how tremendously she loved and hated him and how terribly her heart was pounding. The bell ring. Some young men went by ugly insolent and hurried, and at the same time conscious of the impression they produced.
All right. It’s actually a much later where she throws herself in the transition. I don’t want to go that far, but again, look, the thing that I find so interesting is how much it registered on her registers on her radar. Young man, ugly, insolent hurried, but at the same time, conscious of the impression they produce, because that’s all she did her whole life. It’s like producing impressions. That’s all. There’s no. To any of the relationships she’s had, [00:29:00] but she was so impressive and was so good in creating impressions. Uh, and now when she sees that in others, all she sees is hurried ugliness pettiness van.
RA: Also after that initial spark of loft with Wronski in the very beginning of the book, right. And then she. Uh, and the husband picks up at the train station and she sees Aspen and immediately she sees this ridiculous ears and she sees everything that’s wrong with everything. And she never know.
And then she meets her friends and everything. Again, it’s like turned into this disgusting repelling. What is, how can I not have noticed this before?
SE: but it’s, isn’t it interesting that the first thing that she notices when she arrives at the train station and she’s had that little flirt with Wronski and then she sees her husband, her husband, in that part of the book is described. He shows up at the transition as loving as he can. Right. He missed her and his real tenderness in her heart for, [00:30:00] and
RA: He has a really busy day, but may time to pick her up.
Welcome
SE: up
RA: makes an effort.
SE: Yeah. And the first thing she notices is a vanity thing. Is it an external thing? Something in his ear that is fat and disgusting, right? Uh, isn’t that interesting? Like that’s the first thing she picks up on something visual, right. That she finds despicable. And then also what’s one of the first impressive things that Wronski does to impress her.
What is it? It’s him. After somebody had thrown themselves in front of a train it’s him because he wanted to impress her going off from that company to pay some money to the wife of the person that jumped over the train so that somebody would come and thank him and tell him. So she would be impressed that he’s done such a nice thing.
Right.
RA: Yup. There was even someone who mentioned that before, right. About the financial status of the, [00:31:00] of the widow or something like this.
SE: Yeah. And, and she was again too, because it was proper from, at no point. Do you really believe that people really cared in that circle about some poor person jumping in front of a train? She was also in proper form in the group of person being very, very holy, very like, oh my God is such a tragedy. How terrible for the people, but it’s all just words, right.
There was no feeling to it because she was delighted at flirting. That was all, it was a flirt, but it was like, oh my God, how shocking? Isn’t it really terrible. And then he goes off to pay some money to impress her, oh, look, what kind of an impressive thing I did. But at no point ever later on in the book, do they ever do something nice to others because they really want to do charity.
Right. Um, you know, there’s always some filling a hole or keeping up impressions to others. Um, and then, you know, Beautifully and tragically it’s written where that part, where they meet and fall in love and have the [00:32:00] flirt, which is the train station at that empty little thing of somebody dying. And he’s paying money to the widow to impress her at the train station.
That’s kind of where the loop closes and on her way to the train station, you know, she’s losing her mind. Taking her life in the very same way. Right. But also the thing with her, with her suicide in this situation is that she’s driven to suicide partially because he’s losing her mind partially because she’s seen how, like, you know, it’s suicide as revenge.
That’s what it is because she’s not taking a life because her pain and suffering so bad. And her weight is so big where she just sits there and she doesn’t even know why everything’s so dark that she just can’t. She feels some people, they suicide to get rid of the burden for themselves and the world.
They feel themselves. And the world is such a burden that they’re like, I want to rid myself of this, but she does it as revenge. She [00:33:00] sees the world is so vital. It’s so ugliest. So despicable that this is the final act to beat them off. Right to make Ron ski to break his heart. He had to make a
RA: And she, even, she even, she even thinks that leading up to it where there’s like, I know he’s in the right, but I got to make him regret it. Right. And then she, she says,
SE: that’s it. She, this is her, this is her, her, she is painted this picture of reality and all the people in the room. Is so despicable discussing that her final act is to kill herself because that’s the most painful thing she can think of. To everybody else. And the more, most final thing, that’s the thing she can do.
I cannot even respond anymore. They’ll have to live with that their whole life. Right. It’s so this is the most painful thing she could do to Wronski the [00:34:00] most painful thing she could do to her husband or their ex-husband the most painful thing she could do to our son, the most painful things she could do to all the people that love him.
And that she has tormented along the way. None of these people have initiated any torment towards her. Right. She has been the cause of all that torment to all these people. And then at the end, she takes her life in the most painful way. She can think of two others, right? Oh, that shit is so deep and so dark, but it is.
A, in its pattern, a very human story. Again, not all people that go on that journey go to the final destination of it. Right? Walk it all the way to that point. But how many things have we done
RA: Uh,
SE: to hurt others? Because we were so hurt by them that we could [00:35:00] not think of what all we wanted to do is punish them.
Even if the punishment was terrible for us.
RA: Yep.
Yep.
SE: In small, as well as in big ways, you know, one, one small way that we have discussed in the past where we were very similar is that when we would get, or I would get mad at a lover, somebody I was in a relationship with, I we’d go so cold and so distant and feel like even more.
Mentally the whole situation and emotionally had passed them. Like, you know, I’m not even mad anymore. I have to keep up with this because the punishment I’ve handed out is not sufficient. So, you know, I would have been fine after two hours, but I will keep this up for three days, five days and all along, I will suffer too. I hated feeling this cold, this tense, this distance all the time, all day. I didn’t really feel that. I hated it, but it was the proper punishment because, you know, because my mind was telling [00:36:00] me, I need to punish this person. And so what is that right? That is an insane act. It’s nothing else than it is. Scene act of self, mutilation it in some way in self punishment to punish others.
And it’s also a lack of recognition that something happened here that I’m not willing to deal with. Honestly, I’m not willing to tell this person, this is exactly how I feel, or this is my boundary and I will not accept this anymore. And then if you’re fully honest in your pain, honest in your boundaries, there’s no reason for punishing. Right. You just set the boundaries and you communicate clearly. And the people that don’t fit within that framework will leave your life. There’s no reason to hand up punishments that in that framework, you have to punish others when you’re not honest with yourself and them, when you don’t set boundaries. And so you allow them to. Commit [00:37:00] crimes, maybe they’re even aware of it or you see crimes everywhere committed. And the other person doesn’t even know, had this once with, uh, with, uh, a girl that I was dating that I went to a party with and I had a certain image in my mind of how I wanted her to act in that party towards me. And I never communicated that she didn’t know that. So she acted totally differently. And I was so mad at her and became so cool. And then I realized being sanity of this. Like I’m now about to hand you a punishment for a crime that I’ve never, we’ve never talked about. I never told you this would be a crime and you never agreed that this, that you shall live in this country where this is a crime and played towards this role as a, as a citizen of it.
It’s all insanity. It’s all projection. And at the end of the day, it all points toward something inside it of us that we’re not honest with.
RA: I also love the, the Masterforce. The twisted logic of Annakarina in that chapter where it’s like, oh Yeah. we’re leaving in three days in two days. Right. [00:38:00] And then from then on, on everything that he does is proof that he doesn’t love her anymore, that he’s just wanting to get rid of her, but fields, burden, And, responsibilities, and, no matter what everything gets twisted and turned, and It’s indisputable in her mind that this is what this means, and he’s doing this only because of that.
Right. It’s oh, when you read this. Okay.
SE: And, and, you know, there, there is, there’s a beautiful dance of truth there because.
RA: Yep.
SE: Apparently loves her, but also in the beginning, it’s like 99% love and 1%, a little bit of like a burden, no doubt. And then it’s 90 10 and then it’s 80 20. And after what, after what they went through, he, you know, at the worst point, he’s maybe at a, you know, 60, 40,
right.
RA: And he still has a good life. He’s still like social, you know, for the blame in societies, on the woman, not on the man. Right. So he’s [00:39:00] still going out and meeting people, meeting friends, doing things, going places she’s at home, the pariah woman where, you know, every once in a while someone comes to visit her, but they are also not the centerpiece of society.
Right.
SE: Yeah. Yeah, but also he has love for her. But he also feels the burden at times feels responsible and she picks up on that. Right. And now we, she could pick up on how much he still loves her going through all of this, or she can pick up on the burden of the doubt or the univer responsibility, but what does she do? She zeroes out of all the love and she amplifies all of that. And even if she didn’t. Take her life. What would happen? She threw her behavior, punishing him for seeing that he feels burdensome. She would only increase the burden he feels and decrease the love until she made it. Yeah. At her. [00:40:00] Um, you know, her prediction would come true would be a self, uh, you know, self related. So self fulfilling prophecy because of our actions. Not because it wasn’t enough. Cause she chose to look at one area of him and amplify through her behavior versus the other, which is the one that you wanted.
RA: Yup.
SE: Why out of fear. Right.
And also him as a final point for this, this book is so beautiful. This book is all of life’s humor, all of humanity in one book through, through one story. and you know, there’s the counter to Ana, which is not the main part of the book. That’s why it’s. You know, uh, that’s why it’s on call after him, but there’s the counterpoint of a person that, you know, that lived a very different life to the life of undercurrent, you know, and where he ends up with. But Wronski after she kills herself. Oh, you don’t know that you’re not there yet. It doesn’t matter. It’s not that it’s [00:41:00] not that important of a point that I can make it right. As one thing that Bronski does. After she kills herself much later in the book is that he, you know, in, in roles himself to go and fight at a war, uh, of the, uh, you know, I think of a neighboring country, right.
To support their cause. But, but it’s really to sacrifices. And publicly, it’s a scene in incredible esteem. Again, you know, Wronski is doing something that people like look at, go look, he’s so tormented by her suicide, that he’s going to do this heroic thing and fight for a great cause. And, you know, uh, you know, sacrifice his life for it.
But when you look into Ron skis, motivation, it really is the violence he has in his heart. And he just wants to go. To act out that violence because he’s so enraged in an angry about [00:42:00] how his life turned out and how this whole, this LA last actor for turned out that he wants to kill. It wants to go somewhere and kill and be killed.
So the motivation is really violent. But the society is like, look in his like uni foreman with a sword, and he’s going to be a commander go into this war to help our neighbors and do a good thing, how heroic and self-sacrificing, but it’s not his nothing heroic and self-sacrificing about it. Right.
RA: When it comes to Wronski, there was another, another chapter that I found really interesting also where he met his old classmate. Right. And whatever it was classmate or, or, or from, from military history and, and that guy. Was all focused on his career. And by the time was a general and had, you know, all the wealth and social capital and everything, and they had this conversation and he was, and it was just like, oh, I don’t care about these things anymore. I’m in love. I care about more deeper things. Right. And the other one was like, oh Yeah, I thought so too. But, uh, and they have this [00:43:00] argument and both are kind of pretending that, uh, they’ve got it all figured out, but it was a delicious section.
SE: Yeah, because the way that toast. Right, right. In between the lines and before and after you know, that what Wronski was telling the guy is full of shit, but it’s also partially true. And so he himself is at times confused about what is real here, right? He’s like at times tormented about his career and all his ambitions now. Panning out the way he want them. And part was, you know, what was the start again? Like the start of his decline in his career is not the fair with Ana. An accelerator of the decline of his career. The start of the decline of his career was that he was sent to some post to do, he was given some task, some job and he rejected it. And why did it reject it? He rejected it because he thought [00:44:00] it would be seen as an act that he doesn’t care about his career. So he’s not taking this. Then he does step as a career hungry person, and that will give him higher status. And he miscalculated and people were like, well, we given him this fast-track because he’s such a career driven and he’s not taking it. Well, this means that he’s not the guy. He’s not that interested. So we’re not gonna, we’re going to degrade them down, slow him down. So he did this thing to protect. He’s not so career obsessed to make his career go faster because people would see how, you know, how pure and his heart and intentions are. And he miscalculated. Right. That was the beginning of the decline.
RA: also. Then he can, because he still has options. Right. You see, he still could get back on track, but even then when he’s at that point where he could say, all right, I’m going to, I’m going to do this again. He still has to hold. Like he can’t, he’s so afraid of losing face that he holds onto it and say, no, I don’t care [00:45:00] about these
SE: yes. Now this is losing face, right? I’m holding on to your person, your personality, the perception of people viewing your own in the image of you. Is really what is driving him to many, many poor decisions that are in conflict with his own inner truth is always in conflict with his inner truth to hold onto
RA: Yeah. Also when he got into painting, right. That entire,
SE: there’s a beautiful quote in there that I won’t be able to pick up as quickly where the paint, the real painter that they meet at the village. How he thinks of Wronski and his painting.
RA: yeah. You said that quote.
SE: I actually, maybe I can quickly pull it up on WhatsApp because I think I took a picture of it.
RA: Yeah, you did. You did.
SE: Uh, but I’m sending [00:46:00] so many quotes your way. Let’s see if I can find it. Uh, I hear ya. It is. So the, this is a part about that painter in his opinion on Bronski. And now Wronski is a super rich guy and he’s in this tiny village and he’s like, obviously interested in art and he’s a, want to be a patron of the art. He wants to give this poor kind of GRA grumpy uh, artists, guy money. And.
RA: even this right, it’s so interesting because before they meet him, he has already made up his mind. And. once that artist to be a struggling. Whom he comes to help and save. Right? And then he has this friend who knows the guy. He’s like, I actually, he’s kind of, you know, he’s not doing great, but he’s kind of but surely he needs help. Right? Surely he’s in Dyer dire need.
SE: Yeah, because
I want to.
RA: you know,
SE: I want him to, so, okay. So there’s the final coat before we, we wrap up for today. So this is some something that artist is thinking about [00:47:00] Wronski:
he knew it was impossible to forbid Wronski to toy with painting. He knew that he and all the Dilla towns had every right to paint, whatever they are. But he found it unpleasant. It was impossible to forbid a man to make a big wax darling kiss it. But if this man with the dog came and sat in front of a man in love and began to caress his dog, the way the men in love caressed, his beloved, the men in love would find it unplug. Makaya I love, which is the artist experienced the same unpleasant feeling at the site of painting. He felt it ridiculous vaccine pathetic and offensive.
I’m like, this is so fucking dope. So beautifully expressed. No, you can forbid somebody to make a V uh, you know, a plastic doll and kiss it, right? I mean, everybody could do whatever they want, but if that person said next to you and was doing anything you do with your woman, that you love, you would find it very irritating. That’d be very, and that [00:48:00] was what he was seeing. And that was also the truth. It was, Wronski looking at an artist and pretending he is an artist to make himself appear a certain way. Without it being the real thing. He was not in love with art. He was not in love with painting. it was just all for impressions. It’s all for, you know, showing off to society, which is really the core of Anna Corrina is the. The role and the danger of society in our lives, like playing to society, playing the game that society lays out for us playing to impress, playing to charm, playing for opinions, playing for reputation, playing for admiration, playing for approval of society. You play that game and lead some really, really, really terrible places. Um, and that’s really, I think.
RA: Yeah.
SE: Four theme of that entire [00:49:00] book.
RA: Yeah. this is also with, with the artist Mikhailov or whatever his name was. Right. I love it. Oh, he flip-flopped in like, looking at these people and seeing like, oh again, these rich infatuated. And now they come here to the artists that are there and they think, ah, whoever, whatever, I don’t care what they think right. To them. When they look at it at sudden, he’s like, he sees, oh my God, they see the magnificence in my work. And then he’s, flip-flopping back and forth between these two modes where it’s like, these people know nothing is, oh, they see the greatness of it. My work.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. When, when he is being, uh, when he’s being complimented, uh, he can’t resist
RA: Yeah, but then he also, he also picks up when they make a compliment simple because of politeness. And then he gets again in this vicious, like, oh, these people, right?
SE: What an amazing book. Uh, but that last part, especially to me, The [00:50:00] walk to the, the, the, the travel to the train
RA: Yeah.
SE: her final part of a life is so intense. And it’s, to me, such a potent summary at no point, is it like, and she was reviewing her life and thinking through all the steps of the things it’s so masterfully hidden, but that is, it is she’s, she’s going through her entire life and seeing it, play it out in the world, in front of her and other people, and is so angry. At war so disgusted by it that she can’t buy, be driven to suicide as revenge. Right. Wow. What the fuck?