The Power of Time

     So far so good. I find the narrator to be deep and insightful as I consider him to also be an observer similar to the narrator of Notes From The Underground while at the same time interjecting humorous and witty sayings like how when he remembers how he took a long and peaceful sh*t.
    But other than taking a sh*t I found something quite interesting in today reading. Human beings define time to be the indefinite continued progress of existence and event sin the past, present, and future regarded as a whole, yet we place little significance on it’s god like power. Time controls every single moment of our lives. It allows us to grow into adulthood and likewise pass into death. For anyone reading this blog I ask if you pay attention to time’s true power. Do you really focus on the present moment and make the most of it or focus on time at a day to day basis. I honestly can say that I have fallen into society’s standards and lose track of time. Before my eyes I am going to collage and am considered a man when in reality I feel like a child ready to play on the playground with all my friends.
    Like many people, the narrator finds when breaking up with Victoria that a large chunk of his life as been taken away from him. He too became entangled in a larger picture that people place a plethora of significance of. This larger picture consists of going to school, finding a boyfriend or girlfriend, getting married, getting a job, retiring, and dying. Before we know it, time has stripped life away form us and we become the elderly person we get mad at walking down the stairs.
    I believe the narrator to be a toned down version of the narrator from the Notes From The Underground. He is still stuck between the world of his mind and what the masses define to be reality. He is starting to realize that understanding and being grateful that time has allowed him to breath in this very moment/second is a gift that should be cherished. Although it will be a difficult path, I hope the narrator will be able to detach himself from the road map and be able to do as he professes. Time is not a toy to be played with. It is a quite serious power that should be granted respect and should be worshiped by all of mankind.

Notes From The Underground About "Notes From The Underground"

So yeah, I'm two days late on this, I was going to do it yesterday but couldn't find the time. Normally I would kinda let it go but I feel like I have to do the last post, to some extent for myself.
First off, I ADORE this book, I loved every minute of it, even the cringy second half. I love the writing, the ideas, I loved seeing this guy have a mental breakdown while trying to figure out what he believes. I think even the most closed-minded moron could get something out of reading this book, if only to be provoked into thinking philosophically or bolstering your own points further. I definitely have a bias here because philosophy is basically my favorite thing in world, but I genuinely believe that everyone has the capacity for philosophical thinking and that everyone can grow from such thinking. For some people in our class this book was their first encounter with existentialism (and in some cases philosophy) and even though I probably wouldn't start someone off with this book, I think it's pretty clear that these people were made to think.
I think it is indisputable that the discussions helped, though Dostoyevsky is rolling in his grave as I type this, it is commonly accepted that thoughts and ideas develop with discussion. Moreover, any idea brought forth in the discussion was normally challenged at one point, which leads to a discourse that everyone can learn from.
To answer the final question, and the question I feel is most valuable, the one thing I will remember more than anything, despite all the debate and discussion and conflicts, the biggest thing I take form this book is the concept of "the wall". I think this is an idea that we were all aware of before reading this book, but I've never heard it put so well  and so effectively as the way Dostoyevsky did it. I find this to be the most valuable idea in the book quite simply because it has given me a way to communicate that collection of ideas in a way anyone can understand. I would argue that it is his most universal concept, and if you need to explain it it only takes a couple of minutes.
I can't let this whole thing be positive, because then it wouldn't be one of my posts, so I will try to end this off by saying that as much as I adore Notes From The Underground, I wish a lot of it was worded better. I know it's a translation, I acknowledge this, but I feel like his wording makes a lot of implications that make his arguments seem kind of unreasonable, and these are implications I now believe he did not intend.
As much as I want to end it there, I would feel disingenuous if I do not admit defeat. I loved every second of reading this book, I even loved annotating it. As much as I want to complain I can't bring myself to actually propose an argument. I absolutely loved it, and I am only slightly ashamed to admit that.

2/25

I cannot honestly say I am going to miss this part of our class immensely (though I may reconsider when I begin writing essay #3 of 50 AP essays), but I will miss the potential for great discussion. I do think that the discussions tended to drag on and did not become as productive and fruitful as I had hoped, but we got some general points across, and I believe our class has learned a lot as a result of it, which is a great thing. It was definitely worth it to read this, and I certainly cannot complain; as dense as it was, at least you did not assign The Brothers Karamazov. 

I must admit that these lectures had most inconveniently taken place at a bad time in my life, and though I am still not completely out of it, at least I have come to terms with some of the content we have learned from Dostoyevsky, and despite as nihilist as they seem, I must agree with all of it, because it makes sense, and I cannot deny things that make perfect sense. They are depressing topics, and even more depressing to realize if you had not done so before, and though many of the themes we had gone over were not necessarily new to me, I am happy to say I have become even more open to certain ideas. 

The narrator of Notes from the Underground understands many, many things. He is a smart man, and though he seemed insane at first, after further reading we realize he is more than just a madman- perhaps he is so mad that he is a genius. But, as we had gone over before, Dostoyevsky had to show us what it was like for an Underground man to venture outside of his pathetic hole in the wall and interact with people. Like it was said in class, even the most ingenious man can react like a moron. I think that was important to show us. We all strive to learn everything, know everything, find the answer to everything, and mostly without our own drive because we are the generation of instant gratification, and yet we must realize how lost we are and futile all of our efforts are- and that it’s perfectly fine.

We will never know the extent of the true universe. We will never want to understand the depths of our subconscious. But I believe that we should not fret about it, and succumb to absolute despair and misery because it is just so daunting to believe everything you know is a lie. Maybe this reality is not what it seems, and yes, everything I will ever do will be meaningless, in the end of it all, not just my life. But I assume I am going to be living in this reality, MY reality, for a while, so why not make the best of it. I will continue to believe in what I believe in because, in the end, it does not matter. So the hell with it, just live in your reality the way you want to. It has to be worth something, even if that something is selfish.

FiNiShEd

            I think Notes from the Underground was most definitely worth reading and spending multiple days discussing. First of all, I think we can all say that a lot of Dostoyevsky’s ideas have previously crossed our minds. I feel like the discussion and the book both affirmed my thoughts on specific topics, as well as bringing new perspectives into light. With having the discussion, it brought much more clarity to the book because truthfully the first time I read the book I had no idea it had to do with Darwinism/evolution or religion.

            Initially, I thought the first part was all about being overly conscious and the cons of overthinking, but clearly there is much more depth to Dostoyevsky’s writing. Again, aside from strengthening my analytical skills this discussion/book brought clarity to certain ideas that had already crossed my mind. I think one of the aspects I will remember most is the controversy over religion. I have been raised in a Christian household and have always questioned God and his “love” for his people. I wouldn’t exactly same I am an atheist now, but I question any higher power presented and I am searching for more of a satisfying answer.

            Since I am naturally part of the “direct persons”, I find myself incapable of accepting a wall-less universe. I need answers, I need definition, and I need reason to be fulfilled. So, along with the controversy over religion I think the wall concept is another idea that I will remember.

            Overall, I did enjoy reading the book and discussing it in class.

-Morgan Mills 

End

        So was the book worth reading, well I kind of have mixed feelings about that question. Given that the book suggested that we do not really know anything and that everything is simply defined because if man's need to find order then we do not really know how to define if something is worthy now do we? I may just be being sense but I feel it's a valid comment because I honestly am not sure if it was worth reading. The discussion we had made sense, and the book certainly would have been slightly more worthless without them. I felt as if the information presented by the novel had truth to it, it was bitter, but it was truth. The only thing that's preventing me from fully embracing the novel is an inability to find any point in this truthful information. The narrator begins the book stating that an overly conscious man is cursed by his consciousness, yet he precedes to tell us everything that's led said man counscious, this making us conscious and just as cursed. So if knowing everything that he tells us will only plague because we know nothing then what is the point in plaguing us. Honestly why damn us to the same suffering the narrator explains. I simply see no point in acknowledging these ideas when they will only serve to torture my mind and because of that I do not really see the worth of reading this book when the book itself tells you that the consciousness it holds is makings greatest weakness.
     What I am likely to remember the most is the idea of the overly conscious man living a more difficult life. I find extreme truth in this statement, in fact it's actually something I often think about. I'm a fairly smart person, That's not to brag or anything because I do think our class is filled with fellow smart people, so everyone may be able to relate to the time in which I cannot stop myself from overthinking everything. I stay up at night thinking about the meaning of life and how I could possibly never find the answer. The stars freak me out because the vastness of the universe honestly make me feel like I'm about to be consumed by the void . Intelligence is a curse because it bring consciousness and steals blissful ignorance.

Done.

            Today’s discussion in class really bothered me. I do agree that everyone has dark secrets that they are too scared to admit to themselves because I do have them. But, I think that others may have more extreme thoughts than others. Today’s discussion only discussed super extreme thoughts and I really could not relate to them. I have never been so annoyed in traffic that I wanted to kill someone, that is not my main priority when I am trying to get somewhere. Like I said in my last post, I just want to get from point A from point B, I don’t really care who gets in my way because I know I will never see them again, so why waste my thoughts on them? Everything was way too extreme today and I am not an extreme person. All of these thoughts about killing people, it’s scary. It’s scary to think that people would actually act upon them. But, if I think about killing someone I don’t think it’s a dark secret. I think it’s something that everyone thinks about at one point in his or her lives. The scary part is imagining the way you are going to kill a person; that I have never done, and hopefully never will do. Yes, I would like to just poof someone away, but I don’t want to cause him or her physical harm. I do think that things got out of hand today with weird kind of accusations flying around, but it was a controversial conversation so it was expected. This book really has not taught me much about myself. I already knew a lot about myself by studying psychology last year. Psychology to me was not just learning the facts and memorizing them. It allowed me to look deeper into my mind and understand my way of thinking. To me it was not just a boring class; it actually opened my eyes to the world around me and the people around me. When we first began to discuss the novel I really enjoyed it,  but the more we got into the book the more I began to hate it. I honestly do not care what this man says about my life, my life is mine, and my mind is my own so no one can tell me how I think because no one knows the truth about me. Yes, it was a generalized so it could speak to a broader audience, but I really did not like the way he believed that everyone was the way he said they were.

            This book was worth reading because as Melanie said perfectly “everything is worth reading”. The discussions did help in understanding the novel, but I was over it in the end. What I am most likely to remember is probably nothing to be completely honest. I am the same person I was before I read it and I never had an “aha” moment while reading it. 

Final Post (Alexia Barrios)

            To answer the question on whether or not this book was worth reading I have only one response; yes. Though in the beginning I did not feel this way towards the book as I struggled to fully comprehend and grasp what Dostoyevsky was trying to discuss, I now find the whole experience to have been very worthwhile. Initially I hit some bumps on the road while attempting to dissect line after line in an attempt to discover what the point of this whole story was, but this struggle was necessary and I believe helped develop my analytical skills. The aspect that I found most compelling about Dostoyevsky and his writing in Notes from the Underground were his complex and thought provoking ideas. This to me was what made the reading the discussing the book worthwhile.  To be entirely honest, without the discussions I would have missed out on many of the topics that Dostoevsky mentioned simply due to the manner in which he presented them, which would have been a loss considering I was enlightened by some of the ideas he mentioned. I use the term enlightened here simply because the book has had some effect on my outlook because it has provided me with greater knowledge and understanding about certain subjects, such as the infinite universe, the walls, and society and science as a whole. One of the many that I found compelling was the concept that man does not do what is in our own best interest. Animals, according to Darwinian theory, are programmed to do what is only in their own self-interest and we may assume that we are considered under that same theory so it is appalling to see that we don’t. We are not entirely selfish creatures since we do sometimes go out of our way to take the “road less traveled on” so to say or the one that presents a end result that does not serve entirely in our favor. And an aspect of this that I find most compelling is that we go against our own self interest and do what may be the opposite of what is best for us just so we can justify that we are individual beings and our free will, an advantage Dostoyevsky seems to believe is the “most advantageous advantage”. This concept of free will and our ability to make our own conscious decisions on what to make of our lives is a concept that evolutionary theory fails to explain to us. To conclude, I am entirely shocked at how much I enjoyed Notes from the Underground because I was not expecting to enjoy it or the discussions we had on the topic as much as I did.

This is The End

         Personally, I found this book to be interesting enough to be worth the read and, like Luisa said, it would not have been worth it to read it on my own, seeing as I would not have been able to understand most of it, but because we read it as a class, I was able to understand much more about the book. Also, the fact that reading the book entailed a good grade in this class means that it was worth reading just for that, even though Dostoyevsky would argue that trying to get a good grade in this class is absolutely useless, as is almost anything according to Dostoyevsky. After reading this book and discussing the different themes in class, I have thought a little bit more deeply about a couple of things and questioned life a little bit, but only that, I have not been converted into a full time philosopher. I have made some jokes about the book, pondered a few ideas, but I quickly realize that what Dostoyevsky is trying to get at, the uselessness of the pursuit of a wall, is just an extended way of saying that the human pursuit in life is meaningless. I quickly ignored this as not having that nagging thought in the back of my head would allow me to progress and actually succeed in life, as opposed to the philosopher who only ends up asking one question: “do you want fries with that.”

           Now I might be getting a little cynical in the previous paragraph, but that is how I am. Being a man of logic and reason I often scoff in the idea of a philosopher who holds no benefit to society, other than to provide thought experiments, and possibly confuse some people more than actually help them. But that brings me to the next question: What will I remember most? Probably the notion of the wall and the general concept that humans are driving headlong towards an explanation, without any real expectation of what to do when we get there. This idea gives an interesting perspective on life and allows me to have another viewpoint whenever considering something, albeit a viewpoint that is very far from normal logic and will probably have very little effect in the decisions I make. Another thing that I will remember from this book is the concept comparing evolution to religion in that it is just another wall that has been accepted and that it WILL be refuted sometime in the future, yet this just tells me that I do not really care for what is actually right, as long as I have some explanation for the world around me. I do not see that evolution will be disproved by another theory in the near future, but when the moment comes, I hope I am alive so that I may see the social chaos that Dostoyevsky saw with the introduction of evolution. Overall I have enjoyed reading this book, but to be honest, I will not miss these discussions. 

The end

            Today in class I was quite frustrated. Although I was relieved that we finally finished the book, the conversation of dark thoughts came up. It may be valid, and I have no trouble understanding it, but I do not think it ever gets that extreme. There are thought you suppress as a human. It is human nature. But we suppress these ideas because society tells us that we must. If we were cavemen for example, there would be nothing holding us back. No wall. This is what is scary. Now society and its norms are the walls. I am also a very up front and verbal person. If I have a problem I will say it. I think this results in less of those thoughts that I must suppress versus someone who is rather shy and bottles everything up. When things get complicated and frustrating, everything bottled up just blows up. These are not necessarily suppressed thoughts, and they were definitely not in our subconscious.

            Apart from that, I really thought it was worth reading this book. The analysis is the only reason that I understood and although it was a long process, I enjoyed it for the most part. There were some times that I got annoyed with the thoughts that the book was demonstrating, such as religion. This bothered me because there must be faith and the religious quality was ridiculed. This is something that some people truly believe and they do not want to hear something like that. Do we necessarily know it is true? No, Nothing is absolute. That is something that I learned quite well with this novel. The infinite is scary, and I learned also about human nature. There are some contradictions that frustrated me though. He is telling us to accept the answer that there are no answers. This novel really made me stop and think, as well as change the way I view different situations. I can also relate it very closely with my term paper bog book, Zen an the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There are many similar themes and philosophies. For example, the journey versus the destination conflict is a recurring theme in both novels. I really like the novel for the most part and was able to take in what it has to say. This helped me broaden and define my ideas and beliefs. Thank you.

Final Post

Just to be rebellious and because I can (a decision that I think is very reflective of Notes from the Underground) I am going to start with the last question. You ask “what will you most remember?”. What I will remember won’t be a specific theory that Dostoyevsky presented; instead I think I will remember his how he felt. I had always aspired toward intellectualism (which I now realize sounds very foolish) and Dostoyevsky is the epitome of an intellectual. As we discussed in class, Dostoyevsky’s character analyzes and dissects every side to every argument, decision, and thought that he would encounter. In class we described him as being render inactive for being the most indecisive human being on earth, but I saw him as paralyzed. He talks about how amazing and beautiful free will is and the advantage it is for humanity, and yet for him it is a curse. He lives for nothing other than death because that is the only thing he knows for certain, and I cannot seem to wrap my mind around that, this also leads me to think that it may be easier and happier to be blissfully ignorant than paralyzed and in pain.

I know for me when everyone was analyzing his or her passages from the novel I would frantically be going over the next paragraph because I was so afraid I would be called on next and I would not have anything to say. But I also agree that two (three?) weeks of lecturing would have been rather monotonous. I am being completely sincere when I say having the discussion and hearing the other students analyze the novel gave me the chance to hear other student’s perspectives which at times made it easier to understand and relate to Dostoyevsky’s theories.  But my conclusion on the discussion is that the anxiety of having to speak to the class made it hard to solely concentrate on the discussion and in the end the discussion, for the lack of a better phrase, never found its rhythm.

Lastly my answer to the first question is a slightly stronger than weak yes. I can’t even imagine what I would have been like to read Notes from the Underground when it was first released. If I had been asked “was it worth reading” in 1864 it would have been a very, very strong yes. But 150 years have passed since the novel was released and his theories, though revolutionary at the time, have been repeated and used so many times that it no longer sounds new. But I still feel pretty cool when I tell people that I have read the novel so I think reading Notes from the Underground was worth it.