http://www.open-minds.info Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:51:22 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Failing to find an explaination in knowledge I began to search for it inlife, hoping to find it in the people around me. I began to observe how these people like myself lived, and how they delt with the question that led me to dispair. And this is what I discovered ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/10/04/chapter-7-escape-through-ignorance/ I've been really side tracked by a few other interests and activities of mine. I really don't think tonight constitutes a commitment to consistent blogging on Tolstoy, but rather a break from the routine of the moment. http://www.open-minds.info/2008/10/04/back-again/ Several times I said to myself, 'But perhaps I have overlooked something, or failed to understand something? It cannot be that this state of despair is common to all men.' And I searched for an answer to my questions in all branches of knowledge acquired by man. I sought long ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/06/27/chapter-5-and-6-meaninglessness/ Chapter 4 is a very dark chapter, in which Tolstoy contemplates suicide. His problem was that he discovered that Soloman was right when he said that life was meaningless. I would skip over this chapter, but here lies a key to the rest of the book. There is an old Eastern ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/06/21/suicide/ This speaks to my personal experience in church studies. It's probably influenced by my personality type and others will no doubt have a different take. I seems to me now, even if it didn't at the time, that bible studies are conducted much in the same manner that historians study history. ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/06/11/its-the-question-silly/ I took a week long business trip / vacation, and a couple of weeks to recover, but I am now back in blog-action! Without further ado, Chapter 3! Chapter 3 is quite short, but the gist of it is that Tolstoy is quite lost. Living as I was then, like any individual ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/06/01/back-in-action-chapter-3/ Leo Tolstoy got married  when he was 36, but by the time he was 50 he ran into a spiritual midlife crisis that would place great strains on his marriage. While Tolstoy and his wife shared a common religion, they did not share a common faith. The differences between them ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/05/10/spiritual-bonds-in-marriage/ I was reading one of my daily financial blogs and I read this quote. It's been over a year since I read War and Peace, but the style of writing and logic was unmistakably Tolstoy. I recognized the author even before looking for the source at the bottom. "With the enemy's ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/05/09/war-peace-quote/ I cannot recall those years with horror, loathing, and heartache. I killed people in war, summoned others to duels in order to kill them, gambled at cards; I devoured the fruits of the peasants labor and punished them; I fornicated and practiced deceit. Lying, thieving, and promiscuity of all kinds, ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/05/01/darkness-and-light-chapter-2/ There is nothing new under the sun, only things new to me. The decline of my faith occurred in the way in which it has always happened, and still happens, among those from our kind of background. It seems to me that in the majority of instances it happens like this: ... http://www.open-minds.info/2008/04/24/a-confession-chapter-one/