“I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness – a real thorough-going illness.”
~Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from the Underground
For the people who contemplate the convoluted complexities of life, there is a tendency to struggle with an existential anxiety and depression, sometimes to a disabling degree. It feels overwhelming to know how everything works, or think one does, leading to all kinds of paranoia and insecurities, including a sense of inevitability or hopelessness to change anything – the feeling that the dead weight of the world is upon one’s shoulders. And there is no cure for this, no medicine to transform the deep thinking soul into the simple-minded outlook of a task oriented human being, as Dostoevsky so elegantly pointed out with his insect metaphor.
© 2021 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
Notes from David 