Sometimes I really enjoy reading, and what I read depends on what I am looking for. Some of my favorites are Gibran and Hans Christian Andersen for quick stories, Emerson and Thoreau for essays, and deep thinkers like Hannah Arendt. But my favorite writer of all is Leo Tolstoy, especially the Tolstoy after 1880, during what I would call his existential and apologetic years.
I call those writings apologetics, but you do not need to be a Christian to read them and get something from them. Gandhi was not a Christian, yet he corresponded with Tolstoy and used some of Tolstoy’s ideas in his movement. Gandhi, in turn, influenced Martin Luther King Jr., whose ideas still influence many movements today. So, in a real way, Martin Luther King Jr. was influenced by Tolstoy.
That is very interesting, but it is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Tolstoy’s book The Death of Ivan Ilyich. This will include a full summary, including the ending.
In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, a judge falls ill and is going to die. Meanwhile, his friends at work are looking forward to who will take his place after Ivan dies and see his death as a possible way to advance. There is no real concern for him. His family is in the other room complaining that his moaning is taking away from their own comfort and wishing that he would die soon. This is a cruel summary, and Tolstoy is far more subtle, but without the subtlety, this is what is going on.
Then, toward the end of the book, we meet Gerasim, Ivan’s caretaker, who is patient, kind, and fully attentive to him.
And before Ivan dies, he wonders whether he has lived his life correctly.
Did he love the people who really loved him? Did he befriend his real friends? Was he kind to the people who were kind to him?
And what can anyone say except, Wow.
It is a small book and well worth reading, even if you already know what the story is about.
You may come away with different questions than I did, but for me, the book left me with questions I want to think about while I am healthy and living, not when I am dying.
Am I wasting my life?
Am I living a lie?
Do we sometimes help people who do not really need help while overlooking those who do?
I once heard Jonathan Sacks speak about how we need to read stories from every character’s point of view. We cannot look only at Ivan and the questions he asks about his life. We also have to look at the other people in the story and ask what their actions reveal about us.
Do I wish ill on someone because their failure could help me advance?
Do I ever wish that a suffering family member would simply go away because caring for them has become a burden?
Do I think about what someone may leave behind while that person is still alive?
Those are good questions, but I think the central question is still the first one: Am I wasting my life?
And there is another that is just as important: What kind of person should I be?
I cannot answer those questions for anyone but myself, in this or any other essay. What I can do is ask you to consider them for yourself while there is still time for the answers to matter.
Do not wait until the end of life to decide what life was supposed to be. Do not be like Ivan Ilyich, wondering on your deathbed: Did I make the right choices?
Albert Jr.
Author of The Nature Within Us
Side Trails 🐇🥚🔥
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