THE DREAMS OF A RIDICULOUS MAN
I am a ridiculous MAN. Now they almost have me for a fool. Which would mean I would have gained in consideration, if I didn't continue to be a ridiculous man. But I don't get upset about it anymore, now I don't hold a grudge against anyone.
Dostoevsky, with his mastery, wrote a short story where he shows a character who decided to kill himself because he is tired of people, misery, pain, evil, mockery, luxury, madness, ambition and contempt of the world. An existential emptiness where he wishes the world would end, nothing makes sense anymore in his own actions, and in people’s actions, and then, the brilliant idea: if I kill myself, the world will end, at least for me.
On the fateful night, when he has the certainty and courage to commit suicide, a little girl asks him for help, and surprisingly, the character feels touched by that image. But how can he feel compassion for the child, if he no longer cares about the world or anyone else?
Once in his apartment, the narrator sinks into a chair and places the gun on the table next to him. He hesitates to shoot himself because of a nagging sense of guilt that has plagued him ever since he shunned the child, denying her aid. The protagonist deals with internal issues for a few hours before falling asleep in his chair. As he sleeps, he has for a very vivid dream:
In the dream, he shoots himself in the heart. He dies, but he is still aware of his surroundings. He gathers the existence of a funeral, and he too is buried. After an indeterminate amount of time in his cold grave, water begins to drip down onto his eyelids. The protagonist-narrator asks for forgiveness. Suddenly, his grave is opened by an unknown and obscure figure. This figure rescues him from his grave, and then the two of them fly through the sky and into space. After flying through space for a long time, the narrator is deposited on a planet much like Earth, but not the Earth he had left by suicide.
The character is specifically placed on what appears to be in Judeo-Christian literature, the earth before the Adamic Fall, or an idyllic Greek island. Soon, the inhabitants of the island find him, and they are happy, happy as sinless people. The protagonist lives in this utopia (an image of a paradise) for many years, all the while impressed by the goodness around him, all the men living in unity, compassion, and loving one another.
One day, the narrator begins to teach the other inhabitants things like lying. In this begins the corruption in paradise. Lies breed pride, and pride breeds an avalanche of other sins. Soon, the first murder takes place. Factions are made, wars are fought. Science supplants emotion, and the members of the old utopia are unable to remember their former happiness. The narrator rails against the people, he pleads for martyrdom, which does not occur. Once a paradise, now the land is desolate, filled with death and crime, and men trapped in a darkness of death and selfishness.
Then he wakes up, a changed man, completely grateful for the gift of life. He decides to spend the rest of his days preaching the truth. And he understands that his main lesson on earth is to love others as himself.
There are things that can be rescued from this story but it ends in a bad way in my opinion because if I had lived this dream I would maintain my conclusion of the meaninglessness of things, I do not see how this experience would change the thinking of someone who is a nihilist. To have experienced the corruption of society would only further ignite the flame of chaos that this fateful existence implies.