“I felt that something had broken within me on which my life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that morally my life had stopped. An invincible force impelled me to get rid of my existence, in one way or another…

Yet, whilst my intellect was working, something else in me was working too, and kept me from the deed—a consciousness of life, as I may call it, which was like a force that obliged my mind to fix itself on another direction, and draw me out of my situation of despair…

During the whole course of this year, when I almost unceasingly kept asking myself how to end the business, whether by the rope or by the bullet, during all that time, alongside of all those movements of my ideas and observations, my heart kept languishing with another pining emotion. I can call this by no other name than that of a thirst for God.”

Tolstoy felt that he could not do anything with his life until he understood why anything mattered. His sentiments echo across the decades, striking very particular chords in me. I wonder if I should just follow his writings and save myself all the trouble he went through. But he already had achieved prominence when he felt this way.

I have nothing to show.

(via snip-snap-beep.blogspot.com)