He’s a kind, well-meaning boy, and awfully sensitive…But let me tell you, the whole trouble stems from immaturity and sentimentality! It’s not the practical aspects of socialism that fascinate him, but its emotional appeal – its idealism –what we may call its mystical, religious aspect – its romanticism…and on top of that, he just parrots other people.
And I would add that in the same sense that small children can sometimes be reflexively cruel, so, too, do frustrated idealists become violent cynics, for the simple reason that the world, which does not cooperate with their simplistic and unrealistic visions, becomes hated.
This child never grows up, but he does lose his romanticism.
This quote is from this excellent article: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/12/16/dostoevskys-6-nightmare-prophecies-that-came-true-in-the-20th-century-part-one/1/
I picked Dosteovsky to riff on for a reason.
Edit: I have not read that in a while. It still fills me with deep emotion. It was hell writing, but ultimately very therapeutic. To climb, you need rungs, and that piece served that purpose for me. We build our own ladders out of Hell.
I am extremely sensitive; very, very sensitive. I feel the world around me directly in a way I cannot communicate with words. I have a well developed capacity for dissociation, which is why the psychologist who diagnosed me with PTSD said I would do well in a concentration camp, but at heart, when I am myself, I see and feel everything.
I feel the evil in the world well–I of course also have a well developed instinct for danger–but am only slowly growing to feel the Good. Just yesterday I had a split second of clarity, and felt how it would be to love everyone I met. It is not a burden: it is health. And I am growing healthy. And I wish you the same.
One day, perhaps, this mass nightmare will end here on Earth, and our potential as spiritual beings be fulfilled. It is impossible to know, and I am not and never will be in the business of making predictions I cannot defend. But one can always speak to the truth of ideals, and visions of what could be.
Is universal peace possible? Yes. Yes it is. I work daily in my small way to move in that direction, starting first and foremost with working on myself.