“Alyosha the Pot” by Leo Tolstoy
This short story is so refreshing, looking at life from a completely different angle. Published in 1905, it teaches us that we don’t have to have ego and opinion to live this life, and instead we can just work hard at anything that’s being given to us, with a smile on our face, without any complain and comparison.
Yes, as we see in the story, the downside of this approach is we don’t get to dictate our lives the way we want (which is part of ego), but life looks so much lighter and easier when leaving all to faith or nature or circumstance, without having to bother or worry about personal ambition.
Of course, I can never live the way Alyosha lived, I think none of us can. Heck, even he eventually cracked when he found someone he loves but wasn’t allowed to marry. I guess that’s just being human.
But I see the novel as somekind of utopian mind state that we cannot possibly achieve but serves as the ideal goal. Who knows, maybe getting as close as we can to that mind state (i.e. living life with less ego, less opinion, less complain, less comparing, and – dare I said it – less ambition) might just be the healthy antithesis of living a stressful life because of our struggles to reach our ambition, our opinions on what things should be, our complain of injustice or hardship; all of which are making it harder to bear.
And in contrast, look at how it ended with Alyosha. Sure, he had nothing, knew little, achieved little, didn’t get what he wants; but he also live life lightly, with no burden, with no friction between what’s happening and what he thinks should happen, without a care in the world, and with an incredible calm acceptance of his last fate. Now that at least mount to something.
THE CHAOS THEORY 