Sometimes it is better to withdraw into oneself than to remain among people. Nietzsche says that he loses himself in the crowd and returns to the desert to find himself again, [1] and Leo Tolstoy echoes him: how good are reproaches and shame; they drive you into yourself — if there is somewhere to go. [2] Tolstoy is right to make a clarification. Solitude has never been useful for all people (although it does not make it useless for everyone). Sages, saints and prophets, sometimes even poets, have all come out of the wilderness, out of external or internal solitude. It may seem that I have remembered poets in vain: they are known to be frivolous, lost or close to losing themselves… But among the whole host of poets there are those about whom it is said by Pushkin:

‘Filled with golden thoughts,
Not understood by anyone,
Before the earthly crossroads
You pass by, sad and mute’.

They rightly follow the saints, prophets and sages.

Solitude, however, is different. Some even in seclusion feel themselves a part of the world whole. Others — badly secluded — find only a ‘dark country bath with spiders’, according to Svidrigailov; a house without windows; a night without stars. Painful is the solitude that does not enrich. In the ‘wilderness’ the inner voice, as a rule, is louder. If the solitary writer measures with his steps the deserted house of his soul, and sees no image, hears no sound, then he should not have remained alone. Left alone, such a man exclaims with cold fervour: ‘I told you: there is nothing. Silence and darkness!’

A common feature of these ‘badly secluded’ people is an inner coldness, inability to love, indifference or enmity to the ‘idea of God’. I would not say that the root of atheism lies in the inability to love, i. e. exclusively in it, but the inability to love is part of the general spiritual flaw peculiar to such people. This flaw is always somehow connected with extreme self-confidence, in the naturalness, ‘normality’ of their mental life…

Atheism, too, is based on inner experience: the experience of lack of grace, isolation, coldness and darkness. The fruit of this experience is a graceless faith, or rather, unbelief. Even inspiration is denied because it destroys the picture of a cold, dead world. Graceless people are not afraid to say that even Pushkin found it bitter, unpleasant, and tedious to write; that mental labour is dry and cold; that inspiration is imaginary… This is what the restless but completely thankless Leo Shestov said; this is what Lydia Ginzburg said… Why do these people spend so much effort to convince themselves and others that inspiration is a sweet lie? Apparently, for the sole purpose of comforting themselves, though in a strange way: not us — so no one.

Their belief in a cold universe ultimately has no basis other than their own mental torpidity. Everything else is ambiguous, open to interpretation, too shaky to support their cold ardour.

[1] ‘Among many, I live like many and think differently than I do; after a while I feel that they want to drive me out of myself and steal my soul, and I become angry with everyone and afraid of everyone. The wilderness is necessary for me to become good again’.

[2] ‘Quite understood the usefulness of judgements, reproaches, human shame. I realised how it drives one into oneself — of course, if one has in oneself something to escape to’.

Timofey Sherudilo.
From the book Knowledge and Creativity. Essays on Cullture.

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