Thoughts on The Human Condition and Restorative Love — An Intimate Ramble

The following comes from a letter I just wrote to a person whose friendship at a critical time saved my life. After sending it I thought it might be a help to others who, like myself, have found themselves trapped in the human condition and have despaired of freedom. I have edited it for clarity and privacy. I publish this in hopes that it may help someone who is facing something like this in their life. I am grateful for this person and hope that I can pass on the kindness they showed me by being that kind of loving non-judgmental friend to others.

“Dear ______, …I recall asking you at my darker point in life to tell me why I should not just commit suicide, I felt it was an honest question. I pointed out that it made sense financially, and in other ways at the time. You gave me a good answer, and though at times that strong temptation returned, your answer was good enough for me and I didn’t follow through. In the early days alone in Prague that thought crossed my mind several more times, but as time, and the children I taught there, worked on me it began to be replaced by a different kind of thinking — acceptance and hope.

I thought of this as I wrote to you yesterday. This thought has been central to my thinking as I have been teaching philosophy again to university students. I have been thinking of it in the context of Dostoyevsky’s concept of love, when I teach the ideas behind “restorative justice.” Dostoyevsky reached beyond the idea that everyone deserves love, to something quite different, and to me something more revolutionary. After his imprisonment in Siberia, when his death sentence had been commuted, and he had gone from the comfortable intellectual life of Saint Petersburg to the hell that was the Tsarist work camps, he had an epiphany. His view of loving our fellow man changed. His argument was not that all people should be loved because none of us is without flaw, his argument was that all people are capable of love, even the most flawed. Even those we most despise. Thus, we must strive to maintain a hopeful imagination. In his books after that time in prison, he always used the device of having the worst character, the one we most despised, the one we felt deserved whatever he or she got, to deliver what could be called “the gospel” — a heartfelt plea for our common humanity in the middle of the worst. It came from his observation and love of his fellow prisoners. Marmeladov’s speech in Crime and Punishment is a classic example of this device. Since our talk about suicide I have begun to identify with that kind of hopeful love.

This is the passage in Crime and Punishment that always gets me. The scene is in a bar, Marmeladov has fallen apart, and everyone has turned on him. The entire place has ganged up to mock him, he will be dead in a few pages. But Dostoyevsky, uses this point where most would say he has it coming to him, he has nothing redeeming about him, no one in the bar has any pity on him, and here he makes his rambling semi-coherent speech. This speech always makes me cry. This translation is ok, though I believe the speech is a bit more rough and anguished in the original.

“Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for it’s not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!… Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have already forgiven thee once…. I have forgiven thee once…. Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much….’ And he will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it… I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek…. And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him… and we shall weep… and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!… and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even… she will understand…. Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard again.”

And here, in the incoherent ramble of Marmeladov, in the face of the hate and indifference of the crowd in the bar, is the thing that I find I cling to. Hope in the middle of the messy human condition, even when I have contributed to that messy human condition myself.

So, back to the suicide question. I realized as it subsided that the thing that is lacking when we face those dark times, when our own death makes sense, what we have lost is the ability to imagine hope. We supposed intellectuals, who spend our time learning and trying to be sure we have facts and evidence for all our thoughts, often look down on imagination as a childish activity. But imagination is essential to life, it creates our reality and allows us to cope with the world as it exists. I was reintroduced to childish activity and its life producing magic while teaching children. Sitting with village children in and around Prague, some of them from their own terrible places and families, some of them refugees, some of them from abusive homes, became my Dostoyevsky in Siberia moment. I watched as some of the most hardened children and sometimes even their parents, under the right circumstances, and with the right care, found the ability to express love. Love was the great leveler. It brought the good, the bad, the privileged, and the deprived together. Love, acceptance, and care, create moments of heaven on earth.

If I could have imagined this then, back when I asked you the question about suicide, I suspect I would have had an easier time. I could, perhaps, have found it in me to “dance in the darkness” as another writer has described. Life today is good. These last years have offered me opportunities to help make the world a little better. I cannot fix or change the past, but I can imagine a better future and do what I can to accept and love the past. This hopeful imagination was the key. This hope that even the worst can find the ability and desire to love.

And, whether knowing this or not, you helped me find that hope. You kept asking the right questions, made the right comments, and when I felt, rightly, that I should be judged, you gently withheld that judgement and allowed me to find a way out of the dark and heal. I wish I could convey again how grateful I am for that.”

I hope all of you can find such a friend. Maybe this moment of honesty is a help to you. I hope so. I have agonized about making these thoughts public. But, perhaps this is where you are too. If so, I wish for you a friend who listens without judgment and can help you through what you cannot change and must accept. Sometimes all we can do is join our voice with Marmeladov, we who deserve wrath and are given love instead, can say “Lord your kingdom come.” Maybe we can find it in us to want a justice that gives everyone equal love and care rather than equal judgment and punishment. Maybe we can at least imagine this.