VERUM Insights...

The Wisdom of a Genius

History's Greatest novelists but

he is also one of History's Greatest

psychologists his stories contain

depictions of characters who span the

spectrum of human personality from those

of abject evil to those saintly in

nature friedi nche was so impressed with

the works of dostoevski that in a letter

to a friend he stated that dostoevsky's

novels contain the most valuable

psychological material I know in this

video we explore the life events that

transformed dostoevski into a tortured

genius and helped him attain his

unmatched understanding of the human

psyche in the first months of 1849 dooi

then 27 years old was considered a

writer who had not lived up to his early

potential 3 years prior he had published

the book poor folk which catapulted him

to Fame in the Russian literary scene

but his subsequent Works were panned by

critics and largely ignored by the

public and by 1849 many saw him as

washed up dostoevsky's career however

had hardly started in the decades that

followed he would write some of

History's Greatest works of fiction such

as Crime and Punishment the brothers

karamazov the idiot and demons what

transformed dovi from a writer of

mediocre success to one of the most

famous authors of all time was a 5-year

descent into a personal hell DVI was

arrested placed in solitary confinement

forced to endure a mock execution and

imprisoned in Siberia for 4 years where

he lived in filth and squalor with

criminals of the most depraved kind this

experience made dovi intimately familiar

with both the darkest depths and the

greatest Heights of the human soul and

it provided him with ample material for

his stories the cause of 's 5 years of

Misfortune began with his decision to

join the petreski circle a weekly social

Gathering named after its host at these

gatherings participants discussed the

social and political ideas that were

shaping Russia and Europe by 1848 the

number of people who attended the circle

grew and it morphed into a sort of

Debate Club DOI as a pathologically shy

and socially awkward individual spent

more time listening to other people

debating than actively partic ipating or

as he stated regarding his participation

in the group I am far from being a

loudmouth and everybody who knows me

will say the same I do not like to speak

noisily and lengthly even with friends

of whom I have a very few and still more

in society where I have the reputation

of being an uncommunicative reserved

unsociable person at the time dooy

joined the petrify Circle these

gatherings were not illegal but in 1848

as re revolutions broke out across

Europe Russia's ruling class became

nervous believing that European

political and social ideas could

initiate unrest in Russia the Russian

government began to clamp down on

freedom of speech and adopted an

increasingly censorious policy the

petrevski circle was infiltrated by the

secret police and in April of 1849

members of the group were rounded up and

arrested dski was taken from his home in

the middle of the night and locked away

in the Peter and Paul Fortress where he

was held in solitary confinement for 6

months awaiting sentence when I found

myself in the Fortress I thought that

the end had come and that I would not

last 3 days he told a friend in

1873 dovi however quickly learned that

he could adapt to the horrid conditions

of a 19th century Maximum Security

Prison and he discovered that as humans

we possess untapped reservoirs of energy

and an unrealized capacity for

resilience most most of us do not make

use of these capacities unless fate

forces our hand but when it does we

discover that we can cope with

challenges that far exceed what we

previously believed to be possible or as

dostoevski wrote in a letter from his

prison cell a good disposition depends

on myself alone man has infinite

reserves of toughness and vitality I

really did not think there was so much

but now I know it from

experience in September of 1849 the

commission of inquiry into the petrevski

circle completed its investigation They

concluded that the members of the circle

were in general notable for a spirit of

opposition to the government and a

desire to alter the existing state of

things dovi and 14 others were brought

to semenovski square in St Petersburg

where their sentence was announced death

by firing squad to be met out

immediately after hearing these words

doski believed he was minutes away from

Death in a State of Shock he turned to

another of The Condemned men and said we

shall be with Christ but the man who was

an atheist smiled at Doki pointed to the

ground and said a handful of dust

dostoevski then experienced what he

would later in life call a Mystic Terror

a description of which is found in his

novel The Idiot where the character

Prince Michigan recounts a story about a

man who believed he was 5 minutes away

from Death by

execution he divided up the time that

still remained for him to live 2 minutes

to say goodbye to his companions 2

minutes for inward meditation one last

time and the remainder to look around

him one final time he was going to die

at 27 full of health and vigor after

saying goodbye he began the period of 2

minutes reserved for inward meditation

he knew in advance what he would think

about he wished to focus his attention

firmly and as rapidly and clearly as

possible on what was going to happen

right now he was existing and living in

3 minutes something would occur someone

or something but who where nearby Rose a

church whose golden Cupa sparkled under

a brilliant sun he could not take his

eyes away those Rays seemed to him to be

that new nature that was to be his own

and he imagined that in 3 minutes he

would become part of them his

uncertainty and his repulsion before the

unknown which was going to overtake him

immediately was terrible

the 15 condemned men were lined up to be

executed in groups of three dovi was in

the second group when the first group

was positioned in front of the firing

squad a cart arrived delivering a letter

from the Zar commuting the death

sentence dovy however was not a free man

as his death sentence was replaced by a

4-year sentence in a Siberian military

prison camp on returning to his cell in

the Peter and Paul Fortress doski wrote

a letter to his brother describing how

flirting with death had changed him when

I look back on my past and think how

much time I wasted on nothing how much

time has been lost in futilities errors

laziness incapacity to live how little I

appreciated it how many times I sinned

against my heart and soul then my heart

bleeds life is a gift life is happiness

every minute can be an eternity of

Happiness if youth only knew now in

changing my life I am Reborn born in a

new form the relief doeski experienced

soon turned to despair as he was shipped

off to Siberia where he would spend the

next four years of his life surrounded

by criminals living in horrid conditions

eating the meager of rations and

spending his days toiling in hard labor

dovi noticed however that none of his

fellow prisoners seem disturbed by the

filth and squalor in which they lived

and this led him to realize that one

thing that defines man is his great

ability to act acclimate to even the

harshest of conditions or as he wrote in

notes from a dead house which is an

account of his life in prison man is a

creature who gets used to everything and

that I think is the best definition of

him dostoevski found that one of the

most exhausting elements of prison life

was the constant presence of other

people no matter what he did or where he

went he was always surrounded by inmates

or guards the inability to escape from

The Gaze of others drove home to dovi

something those in Freedom take for

granted namely the value of a solitary

existence or as he remarked I could

never have imagined for instance how

terrible and agonizing it would be never

once for a single minute to be alone for

the years of my

imprisonment but while always physically

surrounded by others dost's four years

of prison was a time of unending

spiritual Solitude he was in other words

very much psychologically alone and he

never developed strong friendships at

first dovi found his psychological

Solitude to be a burden but over time he

recognized that this Solitude had the

power to initiate a radical self

transformation or as he wrote I remember

that in all that time despite having

hundreds of fellow prisoners I was in

terrible Solitude and I finally came to

love that Solitude spiritually alone I

Revisited all my past life went through

everything down to the smallest detail

pondered my past judged myself alone

strictly and implacably and sometimes

even blessed my fate for having sent me

that Solitude without which neither that

Judgment of myself nor that strict

review of my past life could have been

done I outlined a program for the whole

of my future and resolved to follow it

firmly a blind faith arose in me that I

would and could fulfill it all I waited

I called for freedom to come quickly I

wanted to test myself a new in a new

struggle time in prison also taught dovi

of man's great capacity for evil Not

only was he forced to live with

criminals of the most depraved sort but

observing the prison guards also taught

him of the relationship between power

and evil dovi came to realize that when

an individual is granted too much power

over others the inevitable result is

cruelty many of the guards who worked at

the prison camp were normal decent men

when they began their careers

but the power they possessed over the

prisoners consumed them and warped their

characters in notes from a dead house

dosty warned that those who are

corrupted by the evil that arises from

too much power and control over others

rarely recover from this deformity or as

he wrote a man who has once experienced

this power this unlimited lordship over

the body blood and spirit of a man just

like himself a man who has experienced

this power and the full possibility of

inflicting the ultimate humiliation upon

another being somehow involuntarily

loses control of his Sensations tyranny

is a habit it is endowed with

development and develops finally into an

illness I stand upon this that the best

of men can from habit become coarse and

stupified to the point of brutality

blood and power intoxicate coarseness

and depravity develop the most abnormal

phenomena become accessible and finally

sweet to the mind and feelings man and

citizen perish forever in the Tyrant and

the return to human dignity becomes

almost impossible for

him it wasn't only the Dark Side of man

that doski became familiar with in

prison he was also awakened to man's

boundless capacity for good when he

first entered prison dooi despised most

of his fellow prisoners and looked down

upon them he saw little of worth in

these criminals and as an educated

member of the nobility he doubted that

the uneducated and often illiterate

surfs he was forced to live with would

have anything to teach him this view

however changed as over the years he

learned that under the rough Persona of

some of these prisoners resided a

greatness of character and an advanced

moral Integrity uneducated by way of

book these men were miles ahead of most

others in terms of wisdom of world and

particularly of the inner world of the

psyche or as dosky wrote in prison it

sometimes happen happened that you would

know a man for several years and think

he was a beast not a man and despise him

and suddenly a chance moment would come

when his soul on an involuntary impulse

would open up and you would see in it

such riches feeling heart such a clear

understanding of his own and others

suffering as if your own eyes had been

opened and in the first moment you would

not even believe what you saw and heard

if you would like to support our work

become an aoi supporting member and

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ideas.com

members prison also made dostoevski

acutely aware of man's need for meaning

and purpose this awareness stemmed from

his observation that almost all his

fellow prisoners adopted some form of

hobby or side business to escape from

the monotony of hard labor dostoevski

points out that these Hobbies were

technically outlawed but prison

officials looked the other way in the

realization that if they rid the

prisoners of these purpose and meaning

giving activities the prisoners would

Riot recognizing how crucial meaning and

purpose is to psychological well-being

dooi suggested that if you wanted to

drive a man mad or force him to take his

own life all you have to do is compel

him to spend his days laboring in some

form of pointless work such as moving a

pile of rocks from one spot to another

and then back again

this meaningless and purposeless

existence would be an unbearable torture

or as dovi wrote in notes from a dead

house it occurred to me once that if

they wanted to crush to annihilate a man

totally to punish him with the most

terrible punishment so that the most

Dreadful murderer would shudder at this

punishment and be frightened of it

beforehand they would only need to give

the labor a character of complete total

uselessness and meaninglessness if he

were forced for instance to pour water

from one tub into another and from the

other into the first to grind sand to

carry a pile of dirt from one place to

another and back again I think the

prisoner would die rather than endure

such humiliation shame and torment to be

sure such a punishment would turn into

torture revenge and would be meaningless

because it would achieve no reasonable

purpose decades later Doo's thought

experiment was put into practice in a

Nazi concentration camp the prison ERS

of this Camp worked in a factory but the

factory was destroyed by a bombing

campaign not wanting to give the

prisoners a respite from hard labor the

prison officials forced them to perform

the type of meaningless work which

dostoevski had imagined Eugene heimler a

survivor of this concentration camp

explained how the commander of the camp

ordered a few hundred of us to move sand

from one end of the factory to another

and when we had completed this task we

were ordered to move it back to the

original place at first we thought that

our guards must have made a mistake but

it soon became clear they had not from

then on day after day week after week we

had to carry sand to and fro until

gradually people's minds began to give

way even those who had been working

steadily in the factory before it was

bombed were affected for the work had

some use and purpose even if it was for

the Germans but in face of a completely

meaningless task people started to lose

their sanity some went berserk and tried

to run away only to be shot by the

guards others ran against the

electrified wire fence and burnt

themselves to death prison life also

taught to dovi that hope in addition to

meaning and purpose is crucial to

psychological health and integral in

sustaining a man through hardship

dostoevski observed that prisoners who

lacked any hope for a better future

struggled to survive the mental

challenge of prison and if the capacity

for Hope was completely destroyed this

this was a sign that Madness or death

was not far off for example one of

dostoevsky's fellow inmates lost all

hope in the future and in this state of

utter despair he attacked one of the men

in charge of the prison seeing a

martyr's end as better than a hopeless

life having gone out of his mind the

Bible reading prisoner who attacked the

major with a brick was probably also one

of those in despair those whose Last

Hope had abandoned them and since it is

impossible to live with with no hope at

all he invented a way out for himself in

a voluntary almost artificial martyrdom

no living man lives without some sort of

goal and striving towards it having lost

both goal and hope a man often turns

into a monster from

anguish the hardships that dooi endured

between 1849 and 1854 also taught him

important lessons about nervous

disorders of which dooi had suffered

immensely for most of his life for

example he was consumed by debilitating

social anxiety so much so that he once

fainted upon being introduced to a

beautiful woman at a party dostoevski

was also a hypochondriac he had a

neurotic fear that he would fall into a

deep sleep be mistaken for dead and

buried alive this fear was so intense

that he left notes around his home to

inform anyone who might find him dead to

wait several days before burying him he

even went through a period where he was

so panic strick Ren that he felt himself

to be dying or as he said in a

conversation with a friend 2 years

before Siberia at the time of my various

literary difficulties and quarrels I was

the victim of some sort of strange and

unbearably torturing nervous disorder I

cannot tell you what these hideous

Sensations were but I remember them

vividly it often seemed to me that I was

dying and the truth is real death came

and then went away again after emerging

from prison dooi was able to form his

brother that his 5 years of immense

ordeal had cured him of his neurotic

ways if you believe there is still

anything remaining in me of that

nervousness that apprehensiveness that

tendency to suspect that I had every

conceivable illness as in Petersburg

please change your mind there is not a

trace of that as of many other

things above all else what dost's arrest

time in solitary confinement mock

execution and a 4-year prison sentence

taught him is that a man is stealed by

suffering comfort and ease are a recipe

for weakness and mediocrity while those

who voluntarily or forced by Fate do

battle with adversity rid themselves of

their Petty weaknesses and Ascend to a

greater level of their potential without

enduring his 5 years of personal hell

dooi would have been incapable of

writing the great works of fiction he is

most famous for and would likely have

remained a neurotic man and a right wrer

who never lived up to his potential pain

and suffering he wrote in crime and

punishment are always inevitable for a

large intelligence and a deep heart the

really great men must I think have great

sadness on

Earth

History's Greatest novelists but

he is also one of History's Greatest

psychologists his stories contain

depictions of characters who span the

spectrum of human personality from those

of abject evil to those saintly in

nature friedi nche was so impressed with

the works of dostoevski that in a letter

to a friend he stated that dostoevsky's

novels contain the most valuable

psychological material I know in this

video we explore the life events that

transformed dostoevski into a tortured

genius and helped him attain his

unmatched understanding of the human

psyche in the first months of 1849 dooi

then 27 years old was considered a

writer who had not lived up to his early

potential 3 years prior he had published

the book poor folk which catapulted him

to Fame in the Russian literary scene

but his subsequent Works were panned by

critics and largely ignored by the

public and by 1849 many saw him as

washed up dostoevsky's career however

had hardly started in the decades that

followed he would write some of

History's Greatest works of fiction such

as Crime and Punishment the brothers

karamazov the idiot and demons what

transformed dovi from a writer of

mediocre success to one of the most

famous authors of all time was a 5-year

descent into a personal hell DVI was

arrested placed in solitary confinement

forced to endure a mock execution and

imprisoned in Siberia for 4 years where

he lived in filth and squalor with

criminals of the most depraved kind this

experience made dovi intimately familiar

with both the darkest depths and the

greatest Heights of the human soul and

it provided him with ample material for

his stories the cause of 's 5 years of

Misfortune began with his decision to

join the petreski circle a weekly social

Gathering named after its host at these

gatherings participants discussed the

social and political ideas that were

shaping Russia and Europe by 1848 the

number of people who attended the circle

grew and it morphed into a sort of

Debate Club DOI as a pathologically shy

and socially awkward individual spent

more time listening to other people

debating than actively partic ipating or

as he stated regarding his participation

in the group I am far from being a

loudmouth and everybody who knows me

will say the same I do not like to speak

noisily and lengthly even with friends

of whom I have a very few and still more

in society where I have the reputation

of being an uncommunicative reserved

unsociable person at the time dooy

joined the petrify Circle these

gatherings were not illegal but in 1848

as re revolutions broke out across

Europe Russia's ruling class became

nervous believing that European

political and social ideas could

initiate unrest in Russia the Russian

government began to clamp down on

freedom of speech and adopted an

increasingly censorious policy the

petrevski circle was infiltrated by the

secret police and in April of 1849

members of the group were rounded up and

arrested dski was taken from his home in

the middle of the night and locked away

in the Peter and Paul Fortress where he

was held in solitary confinement for 6

months awaiting sentence when I found

myself in the Fortress I thought that

the end had come and that I would not

last 3 days he told a friend in

1873 dovi however quickly learned that

he could adapt to the horrid conditions

of a 19th century Maximum Security

Prison and he discovered that as humans

we possess untapped reservoirs of energy

and an unrealized capacity for

resilience most most of us do not make

use of these capacities unless fate

forces our hand but when it does we

discover that we can cope with

challenges that far exceed what we

previously believed to be possible or as

dostoevski wrote in a letter from his

prison cell a good disposition depends

on myself alone man has infinite

reserves of toughness and vitality I

really did not think there was so much

but now I know it from

experience in September of 1849 the

commission of inquiry into the petrevski

circle completed its investigation They

concluded that the members of the circle

were in general notable for a spirit of

opposition to the government and a

desire to alter the existing state of

things dovi and 14 others were brought

to semenovski square in St Petersburg

where their sentence was announced death

by firing squad to be met out

immediately after hearing these words

doski believed he was minutes away from

Death in a State of Shock he turned to

another of The Condemned men and said we

shall be with Christ but the man who was

an atheist smiled at Doki pointed to the

ground and said a handful of dust

dostoevski then experienced what he

would later in life call a Mystic Terror

a description of which is found in his

novel The Idiot where the character

Prince Michigan recounts a story about a

man who believed he was 5 minutes away

from Death by

execution he divided up the time that

still remained for him to live 2 minutes

to say goodbye to his companions 2

minutes for inward meditation one last

time and the remainder to look around

him one final time he was going to die

at 27 full of health and vigor after

saying goodbye he began the period of 2

minutes reserved for inward meditation

he knew in advance what he would think

about he wished to focus his attention

firmly and as rapidly and clearly as

possible on what was going to happen

right now he was existing and living in

3 minutes something would occur someone

or something but who where nearby Rose a

church whose golden Cupa sparkled under

a brilliant sun he could not take his

eyes away those Rays seemed to him to be

that new nature that was to be his own

and he imagined that in 3 minutes he

would become part of them his

uncertainty and his repulsion before the

unknown which was going to overtake him

immediately was terrible

the 15 condemned men were lined up to be

executed in groups of three dovi was in

the second group when the first group

was positioned in front of the firing

squad a cart arrived delivering a letter

from the Zar commuting the death

sentence dovy however was not a free man

as his death sentence was replaced by a

4-year sentence in a Siberian military

prison camp on returning to his cell in

the Peter and Paul Fortress doski wrote

a letter to his brother describing how

flirting with death had changed him when

I look back on my past and think how

much time I wasted on nothing how much

time has been lost in futilities errors

laziness incapacity to live how little I

appreciated it how many times I sinned

against my heart and soul then my heart

bleeds life is a gift life is happiness

every minute can be an eternity of

Happiness if youth only knew now in

changing my life I am Reborn born in a

new form the relief doeski experienced

soon turned to despair as he was shipped

off to Siberia where he would spend the

next four years of his life surrounded

by criminals living in horrid conditions

eating the meager of rations and

spending his days toiling in hard labor

dovi noticed however that none of his

fellow prisoners seem disturbed by the

filth and squalor in which they lived

and this led him to realize that one

thing that defines man is his great

ability to act acclimate to even the

harshest of conditions or as he wrote in

notes from a dead house which is an

account of his life in prison man is a

creature who gets used to everything and

that I think is the best definition of

him dostoevski found that one of the

most exhausting elements of prison life

was the constant presence of other

people no matter what he did or where he

went he was always surrounded by inmates

or guards the inability to escape from

The Gaze of others drove home to dovi

something those in Freedom take for

granted namely the value of a solitary

existence or as he remarked I could

never have imagined for instance how

terrible and agonizing it would be never

once for a single minute to be alone for

the years of my

imprisonment but while always physically

surrounded by others dost's four years

of prison was a time of unending

spiritual Solitude he was in other words

very much psychologically alone and he

never developed strong friendships at

first dovi found his psychological

Solitude to be a burden but over time he

recognized that this Solitude had the

power to initiate a radical self

transformation or as he wrote I remember

that in all that time despite having

hundreds of fellow prisoners I was in

terrible Solitude and I finally came to

love that Solitude spiritually alone I

Revisited all my past life went through

everything down to the smallest detail

pondered my past judged myself alone

strictly and implacably and sometimes

even blessed my fate for having sent me

that Solitude without which neither that

Judgment of myself nor that strict

review of my past life could have been

done I outlined a program for the whole

of my future and resolved to follow it

firmly a blind faith arose in me that I

would and could fulfill it all I waited

I called for freedom to come quickly I

wanted to test myself a new in a new

struggle time in prison also taught dovi

of man's great capacity for evil Not

only was he forced to live with

criminals of the most depraved sort but

observing the prison guards also taught

him of the relationship between power

and evil dovi came to realize that when

an individual is granted too much power

over others the inevitable result is

cruelty many of the guards who worked at

the prison camp were normal decent men

when they began their careers

but the power they possessed over the

prisoners consumed them and warped their

characters in notes from a dead house

dosty warned that those who are

corrupted by the evil that arises from

too much power and control over others

rarely recover from this deformity or as

he wrote a man who has once experienced

this power this unlimited lordship over

the body blood and spirit of a man just

like himself a man who has experienced

this power and the full possibility of

inflicting the ultimate humiliation upon

another being somehow involuntarily

loses control of his Sensations tyranny

is a habit it is endowed with

development and develops finally into an

illness I stand upon this that the best

of men can from habit become coarse and

stupified to the point of brutality

blood and power intoxicate coarseness

and depravity develop the most abnormal

phenomena become accessible and finally

sweet to the mind and feelings man and

citizen perish forever in the Tyrant and

the return to human dignity becomes

almost impossible for

him it wasn't only the Dark Side of man

that doski became familiar with in

prison he was also awakened to man's

boundless capacity for good when he

first entered prison dooi despised most

of his fellow prisoners and looked down

upon them he saw little of worth in

these criminals and as an educated

member of the nobility he doubted that

the uneducated and often illiterate

surfs he was forced to live with would

have anything to teach him this view

however changed as over the years he

learned that under the rough Persona of

some of these prisoners resided a

greatness of character and an advanced

moral Integrity uneducated by way of

book these men were miles ahead of most

others in terms of wisdom of world and

particularly of the inner world of the

psyche or as dosky wrote in prison it

sometimes happen happened that you would

know a man for several years and think

he was a beast not a man and despise him

and suddenly a chance moment would come

when his soul on an involuntary impulse

would open up and you would see in it

such riches feeling heart such a clear

understanding of his own and others

suffering as if your own eyes had been

opened and in the first moment you would

not even believe what you saw and heard

if you would like to support our work

become an aoi supporting member and

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members prison also made dostoevski

acutely aware of man's need for meaning

and purpose this awareness stemmed from

his observation that almost all his

fellow prisoners adopted some form of

hobby or side business to escape from

the monotony of hard labor dostoevski

points out that these Hobbies were

technically outlawed but prison

officials looked the other way in the

realization that if they rid the

prisoners of these purpose and meaning

giving activities the prisoners would

Riot recognizing how crucial meaning and

purpose is to psychological well-being

dooi suggested that if you wanted to

drive a man mad or force him to take his

own life all you have to do is compel

him to spend his days laboring in some

form of pointless work such as moving a

pile of rocks from one spot to another

and then back again

this meaningless and purposeless

existence would be an unbearable torture

or as dovi wrote in notes from a dead

house it occurred to me once that if

they wanted to crush to annihilate a man

totally to punish him with the most

terrible punishment so that the most

Dreadful murderer would shudder at this

punishment and be frightened of it

beforehand they would only need to give

the labor a character of complete total

uselessness and meaninglessness if he

were forced for instance to pour water

from one tub into another and from the

other into the first to grind sand to

carry a pile of dirt from one place to

another and back again I think the

prisoner would die rather than endure

such humiliation shame and torment to be

sure such a punishment would turn into

torture revenge and would be meaningless

because it would achieve no reasonable

purpose decades later Doo's thought

experiment was put into practice in a

Nazi concentration camp the prison ERS

of this Camp worked in a factory but the

factory was destroyed by a bombing

campaign not wanting to give the

prisoners a respite from hard labor the

prison officials forced them to perform

the type of meaningless work which

dostoevski had imagined Eugene heimler a

survivor of this concentration camp

explained how the commander of the camp

ordered a few hundred of us to move sand

from one end of the factory to another

and when we had completed this task we

were ordered to move it back to the

original place at first we thought that

our guards must have made a mistake but

it soon became clear they had not from

then on day after day week after week we

had to carry sand to and fro until

gradually people's minds began to give

way even those who had been working

steadily in the factory before it was

bombed were affected for the work had

some use and purpose even if it was for

the Germans but in face of a completely

meaningless task people started to lose

their sanity some went berserk and tried

to run away only to be shot by the

guards others ran against the

electrified wire fence and burnt

themselves to death prison life also

taught to dovi that hope in addition to

meaning and purpose is crucial to

psychological health and integral in

sustaining a man through hardship

dostoevski observed that prisoners who

lacked any hope for a better future

struggled to survive the mental

challenge of prison and if the capacity

for Hope was completely destroyed this

this was a sign that Madness or death

was not far off for example one of

dostoevsky's fellow inmates lost all

hope in the future and in this state of

utter despair he attacked one of the men

in charge of the prison seeing a

martyr's end as better than a hopeless

life having gone out of his mind the

Bible reading prisoner who attacked the

major with a brick was probably also one

of those in despair those whose Last

Hope had abandoned them and since it is

impossible to live with with no hope at

all he invented a way out for himself in

a voluntary almost artificial martyrdom

no living man lives without some sort of

goal and striving towards it having lost

both goal and hope a man often turns

into a monster from

anguish the hardships that dooi endured

between 1849 and 1854 also taught him

important lessons about nervous

disorders of which dooi had suffered

immensely for most of his life for

example he was consumed by debilitating

social anxiety so much so that he once

fainted upon being introduced to a

beautiful woman at a party dostoevski

was also a hypochondriac he had a

neurotic fear that he would fall into a

deep sleep be mistaken for dead and

buried alive this fear was so intense

that he left notes around his home to

inform anyone who might find him dead to

wait several days before burying him he

even went through a period where he was

so panic strick Ren that he felt himself

to be dying or as he said in a

conversation with a friend 2 years

before Siberia at the time of my various

literary difficulties and quarrels I was

the victim of some sort of strange and

unbearably torturing nervous disorder I

cannot tell you what these hideous

Sensations were but I remember them

vividly it often seemed to me that I was

dying and the truth is real death came

and then went away again after emerging

from prison dooi was able to form his

brother that his 5 years of immense

ordeal had cured him of his neurotic

ways if you believe there is still

anything remaining in me of that

nervousness that apprehensiveness that

tendency to suspect that I had every

conceivable illness as in Petersburg

please change your mind there is not a

trace of that as of many other

things above all else what dost's arrest

time in solitary confinement mock

execution and a 4-year prison sentence

taught him is that a man is stealed by

suffering comfort and ease are a recipe

for weakness and mediocrity while those

who voluntarily or forced by Fate do

battle with adversity rid themselves of

their Petty weaknesses and Ascend to a

greater level of their potential without

enduring his 5 years of personal hell

dooi would have been incapable of

writing the great works of fiction he is

most famous for and would likely have

remained a neurotic man and a right wrer

who never lived up to his potential pain

and suffering he wrote in crime and

punishment are always inevitable for a

large intelligence and a deep heart the

really great men must I think have great

sadness on

Earth