october 30Tolstoy‑There’s all the great writers in the world, and then way above them in a unique position isTolstoy‑The most common comment that people make about Tolstoy‑“It is not a work of art. It is a piece of life” ‑> there’s nothing artificial about it‑“If nature could write directly without a human intermediary, it would write likeTolstoy”‑These comments are just not made about anybody else‑There is this very unique status that Tolstoy has, and it clearly is not that he is very clever withform‑He understands the world, and human beings, and the human mind, and the relationship withthe mind and the body in a way that no one has understood before‑The wise man who knows everything, who‑‑as people constantly reported‑‑could basically readyour mind (would make a comment about the thought that you had thought but not yetexpressed)‑With that persona, he must have been young at some time…Tolstoy’s History‑Born into a famous and wealthy family‑almost immediately becomes an orphan and is raised by his beloved aunt‑his philosophy‑his first published work is a novelization about his childhood (2nd volume ‑ boyhood, 3rdvolume ‑ youth)‑in boyhood‑he’s discussing what sort of boy he was, how he was obsessed with ideas‑the great idea of romantic love ‑‑ which means there is one and only one persondestined to you in all eternity‑he also describes how he’d be reading the great philosophers (the stoics)‑‑if you trainyour body to endure privation and pain, and train your mind so that you don’t think thatany external thing matters (only your soul matters, and your soul can choose its ownattitude)‑tolstoy as a boy reported how he would hold out heavy dictionaries until his arms achedto train his body‑epicureanism (opposite of stoicism), he’d put down the dictionary and gorge himself oncandy‑he was most captivated by the idea that things only exist as you perceive it‑school‑he was homeschooled‑goes off to an OK university, does not make a really great career as a student‑studies arabic and persian, but he spends most of his time drinking, gambling, andwhoring