parresia

This is a continuation of

This is a continuation of sorts from my previous post.

"His mind was also as if fragmented and disconnected, while at the same time he felt afraid to connect the fragments together and draw the general conclusion from all the tormenting opposites he had experienced...It was almost something bordering on despair, an emotion previously foreign to Alyosha's heart."

The quote is taken from Dostoyevsky's Brother's Karamazov: probably one of the top five greatest works of fiction ever written (what the other four are I am unaware). The reader is treated to host of realities/truths/principles formulated in a way so profound, yet uncompromisingly accessable. Indeed, I have found much of my life even within the first two-hundred pages-- what an interesting analogy life is to life, yes? The "karamazov story is a beautifully tragic story of three brothers...Mitya (jeremy stock), Ivan (marco polo), and Alyosha (wayne olson)...or so it seems. Certainly there are ways to characterize the Karamazov brothers in a different fashion; Mitya being Marco, and I Alyosha, for example, but this does not do damage to the analogy as a whole-- indeed, it only strengthens it! (it is important to point out, especially to those who have read the masterpiece, that obviously I do not want the reader to take my analogy too literally; there are many things done in the book by the characters that I do not intend to liken to myself or my cohorts. I know this should seem to go without saying, but I felt it important because there are other aspects to the characters that I find all too exact and applicable to our lives-- at least in mine). The brothers dynamic, educated, passionate, sincere, and hopeful while also brazen, sinful, cunning, and despairing. A world of opposites? Yes. True to life? Yes. (there is more to come on this point)