Cuts Both Ways

In his less well known "Memoirs from the House of the Dead," Fyodor Dostoevsky writes that man is a creature who can get used to anything, and that this may be the best way of defining him. Fair enough. This observation is potentially the most devastating and most uplifting concept of humanity which I can imagine. To think that man could get used to squalor and injustice, this is devastating. But to think that man could get used to loving, even in squalor and injustice, this is uplifting. Some Christians prayed while others burned at the hands of a tyrant -- a commentary itself on the diversity of human nature.

Perhaps getting used to luxury is a disadvantage after all. Perhaps trials are the road to freedom.

Why the blog title then? What does this have to do with anything?

Well, it seems that life is about people -- or should be, anyway -- and people exist alongside one another. Which means that one can get used to people as people, or one can get used to people as those other guys. Life need not be egocentric -- but one can get used to that too. And I, in my sporadic moments of ethical lucidity, would rather get used to people not as objects of my observation and of my will, but as equal subjects, acting and loving as best they can.

Or perhaps not. Because everyone is, to a degree, egocentric. How ugly to become used to that! and how beautiful to become used to fighting it.

I'd like this blog to be a space for reflection, of sorts, where I can sort out the good kind of getting used to something and the bad kind; I want to get used to the good. That might mean literature, or music, or poetry, or just stories from my life -- I don't particularly expect anyone to read this anyway. But if you do, I guess now you know what to expect.

Occasionally I'll try to post something worthwhile. We'll see how that works out.

Peace and peaches,

T