Wednesday

One doesn't often run across this dichotomy:

Professor Morson puts it: “Dostoyevsky believed that lives are decided at critical moments, and he therefore described the world as driven by sudden eruptions from the unconscious. By contrast, Tolstoy insisted that although we may imagine our lives are decided at important and intense moments of choice, in fact our choices are shaped by the whole climate of our minds, which themselves result from countless small decisions at ordinary moments.” At some point in life, I think, one has to decide if one is, in one's belief in the shape of his or her life, a Dostoyevskian or a Tolstoyian. Joseph Epstein.

Interesting, that. Even more interesting: I'm a Tolstoyian, even though I've never really "gotten into" his works, at least like I have Dostoyevsky's (yes, of course I realize I cannot even pretend to be learned if I haven't read War and Peace, but alas, I haven't).

In fact, I would think any person who has given it much thought is a Tolstoyian, whether one comes to such a worldview via the spirituality of St. Therese Lisieux or modern scientific studies about the cumulative effects of the ordinary on a person's personality, spirituality, disposition, attitude, etc.