O Idiota Dostoievski Here

He tells a woman she is beautiful when it is socially awkward to do so. He forgives an enemy before the enemy has apologized. He offers help to the man who just tried to ruin him.

Perhaps being an "idiot" today means logging off. It means saying "I love you" first. It means admitting you don't understand the crypto market. It means crying at a movie. It means choosing sincerity over satire.

But in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky—the master of psychological torment—wrote a novel called The Idiot . And if you pick it up expecting a story about a man with a low IQ, you are in for the most uncomfortable spiritual sucker punch of your life. o idiota dostoievski

We have pathologized kindness. We tell our children, "Don’t be a pushover." We tell our friends, "They don’t deserve your empathy." We have decided that to be good is to be naive; to be moral is to be a mark.

Because in the end, the only thing worse than being called an idiot for loving too much... is being praised as a genius for not loving at all. He tells a woman she is beautiful when

We call this "being street smart."

But Dostoevsky offers a terrifying counter-argument: Maybe the "idiot" is the only one who has solved the puzzle. Perhaps being an "idiot" today means logging off

Because Myshkin’s compassion is a mirror. When you look at a truly good person, you don’t see their goodness; you see your own flaws. Myshkin doesn’t judge anyone—he pities them. And nothing enrages a guilty person more than unearned pity.