Pgs 1-15 NFTU Ciara

Honesty, what the actual fuck. It's only been 15 pages and I have already thought harder than I have this entire year. Atlas Shrugged has nothing on this book. Atlas Shrugged is basically a book written about a concept that would take up a single paragraph in Notes from the Underground. 

Dostoyevsky presents ideas that take a while to process, at least for me. I think it's obvious that he is presenting the idea of "ignorance is bliss", but it doesn't stop there; that would be too simple. Dostoyevsky argues that the clever, thoughtful person experiences an intense enjoyment when at his/her lowest point. This lowest point could be pain, shame, spite, anger, etc. After the first few examples, I still was not understanding the direction he was taking; however, the example of the toothache shed some light on his idea. 

When we are in pain, we want people to know we are in pain, and we want to make people acknowledge our presence and situation. The enjoyment comes from having a spout to vent from, and from having the ability to be the person you want to be. Pain provides and excuse for some of our censored emotions to come out with reason, and we love the fact that we can express our faults without explanation or verbal judgment. So we enjoy it.

Or I could be completely off. 💁