...And the Observed Life is Depressing

So basically what we were talking about today is the whole idea that Dostoevsky feels like a mouse under the floorboards- an intellectually superior inferior human being who simply cannot associate with the masses. I cannot help but be reminded of the quote accredited to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living" which I think Dostoevsky would clearly agree with. But I think it is quite obvious that he would have to follow up with a long book about how depressing it all is. According to Dostoevsky, the unexamined life is the life of the man of action, while the examined life is that of the intelligent man- the man of action being the happier of the two. But I think that he believes happiness to be the necessary sacrifice for a life worth living, I think he genuinely believes that those who act rather than think are not experiencing their lives to the fullest extent, but at the same time those who think rather than act are not experiencing their lives to the fullest extent. I think it's a question of the grass always being greener on the other side- I think he has created this scale where there is no winning for anyone, everyone is missing out somehow, and that's why he has all this internal back-and-forth. He believes himself to be superior, but acknowledges his depression as a side effect and he's just constantly struggling with that.