Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky

[Goodrum]

The Pushkin speech was Dostoyevsky's annointment as a prophet in the eyes of Russians.

Interesting his behaviour when Pobedonostsev tried to bring him into the Anichkov Palace Party, his meetings with the tsarevich and tsarevna..

Dostoyevsky came to the Palace, while there, he consistently violated all the rules of court etiquette. He stood whenever he wanted, he spoke first, and in departure he turned his back on the tsarevich, instead of backing out of his presence.

Oops!

This probably the only instance in the life of the future Alexander III that he was treated like an ordinary mortal, wrote Dostoyevsky's daughter.

As according to Dostoyevsky himself, from Puskin's own words:

"Spare us more than all sorrows the master's wrath and the master's love." A wild steer cannot live in a political enclosure. It was impossible for free thought. It was impossible for the writer who wrote, "I have only one moral model-Christ".

[Goodrum]

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!

Change is what people fear most.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

[Goodrum]

Fyodor:

I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

I love that in another time and place another Healer is 'adding' up too :

Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."
— George Orwell (1984)

[Newmarket]

I have read The Karamazov Brothers last christmas.

Wonderful book, and I was especially touched by the parallels with 'healer' Alyosha.

A character hard to grasp, but on a continuous journey to do good. Alyosha, to me, illustrates an interesting point about the healer. In a very intuitive and somewhat mysterious way Alyosha is helping and advising a wide range of people throughout the story.
But he never stays long on one place, always on the move on some idea or quest. The minor interactions he has with people are primarely focussed on helping, reconciling, comforting, in an open ended and democratic way. His motivations for doing all this are not always clear, and Alyosha himself often doesn't seem to know. He moves through the story like he is moved by something 'higher'.

Alyosha himself remains somewhat of a mystery. He seems never getting people involved too close, and maybe because of this and his inherent mission to do good, some of the people describe him with mythical qualifications. Saint Alyosha.

When I have more time I would like to share some more insights on this book and the author.

[Goodrum]

Newmarket, in The Pygmalion Project Love and Coercion Among the Types Volume 3 The Idealist by Stephen Montgomery Fyodor Dostoevsky's Alyosha Karamazov is used as the Healer Idealist character which he refers to as the monastic, (written back in 1993).

[Goodrum]

The Pygmalion Project books being about:


http://www.keirsey.com/mirror_of_fiction.aspx

Excerpt only:

In Greek legend, a brash young sculptor named Pygmalion found the women of Cyprus so impossibly flawed that he resolved to carve a statue of his ideal woman, embodying every feminine grace and virtue. For months he labored with all his prodigious skill (and also with a strange compulsion), rounding here, smoothing there, until he had fashioned the most exquisite figure ever conceived by art. So exquisite indeed was his creation that Pygmalion fell passionately in love with the statue, and could be seen in his studio kissing its marble lips, fingering its marble hands, dressing and grooming the figure as if caring for a doll. But soon, and in spite of the work's incomparable loveliness, Pygmalion was desperately unhappy, for the lifeless statue could not respond to his desires, the cold stone could not return the warmth of his love. He had set out to shape his perfect woman, but had succeeded only in creating his own frustration and despair.

The premise of this book is that, in our closest relationships, we all behave like Pygmalion to some extent. Many of us seem attracted at first to creatures quite different from ourselves, and seem to take pleasure in the contrast. But as we become more involved and start to vie for control of our relationships, we begin to see these differences as flaws. No longer satisfied with our loved ones as they are, we set about to change them, to transform them into our conception of what they should be. No longer able to appreciate our loved ones' distinctive ways of living, we try to shape them according to our own values or agendas. Like Pygmalion, in short, we take up the project of sculpting them little by little to suit ourselves. We snipe and criticize, brow-beat and bully, we sculpt with guilt and with praise, with logic and with tears -- whatever methods are most natural to us. Not that we do this ceaselessly, nor always maliciously, but all too often, almost without thinking, we fall into this pattern of coercive behavior.

[Newmarket]

Hi goodrum, thanks for the link to pygmalion project.
It was indeed this third volume and his descriptions of the monastic that stimulated me to read this book. Alyosha as a (male) healer is a very striking choice, and I am very grateful to him for writing these books.

Personally I prefer the style of the pygmalion books over the more loosely descriptions and links in People patterns (though the books have different goals in mind). It is a shame though that the fourth volume about the rational never got finished/published (I remembered reading something about it awhile ago).

What books do you like that are described in Pygmalion project?
I really liked the African queen, as my girlfriend is a tough inspector. It was also my introduction to The norman conquests. What a brilliant book and the links to the video material as posted here are too good! Especially Tom, Ruth and Sarah!

Return to topic: when I read the book, I was almost sure that Dostoevsky is a healer himself (I recognize it in his way of writing and formulating in the books (and in other books as well), though this is very tricky because the style of the author can be naturally adapted to the characters involved). To conclude for now, I am almost sure that Dostoevsky is a idealist himself, with healer most likely (though i wouldn't rule out counselor).

[Goodrum]

Stephen Montgomery actually has a new edition of People Patterns. It has three times more film/tv characters btw, so, 15 characters each temperament. That is an incredible amount of research/work. I like the use of Mary and James Barrie (Finding Neverland), having been married to a Supervisor Guardian I quickly recognised the Barrie's challenges.

With the Pygmalion Series, I have read many of the classics, D H Lawrence, Thomas Hardy would have been favorites, anything by those two, Sons and Lovers especially, sidetracking -.also Tolstoy, but for many years now I just don't do fiction, I've really gone down the burrow of research/learning, non fiction, but when I did read it I loved it. Jane Eyre, the Idealist and the Rational is pretty hot.

Dostoyevsky was either the mentoring type Counselor or the reconciling Healer.

[Goodrum]

The philosopher Nikolay Strakhov, (Dostoyevsky's friend) said about him:

"The most routine abstract thought very often struck him with uncommon force and would stir him up remarkably. He was, in any case, a person in the highest degree excitable and impressionable. A simple idea, sometimes very familiar and commonplace, would suddenly set him aflame and reveal itself to him in all its significance. He, so to speak, felt thought with unusual liveliness. Then he would state it in various forms, sometimes giving it a very sharp, graphic expression, although not explaining it logically or developing its content."

-He would feel thought, (he is described as that by people), and also about his evolution(s) of ideas. He is compared to similarly with Aldous Huxley, a novelist of ideas..he wrote and spoke of universal reconciliation, or, 'universal panhuman unification'.

-Incidently did you know FD comparing himself with Tolstoy, called Tolstoy's work that of a historian, not a novelist. FD felt his own work was about grappling with the chaos of the present. He also had an enormous capacity of empathy for the unfortunate and deprived of society, (writing about them), hence, I went with advocating via literature, advocacy via the pen. The Healer being advocate similar to Champion, while Counselor the mentor, more inclined like the Teacher..

-FD had a strong curiosity for the profound sense of mystery of human personality.

-There is an account from a younger student who attended school with FD and he spoke of being attacked or bullied by other students, Dostoyevsky would not hesitate with a willingness to intervene personally against such situations that offended his moral instincts, he would spring to the defense of the helpless and persecuted. Advocating for the underdog.

He had that as a constant throughout his life, the advocating and a staunch independence.

[Newmarket]

Stephen Montgomery actually has a new edition of People Patterns. It has three times more film/tv characters btw, so, 15 characters each temperament. That is an incredible amount of research/work. I like the use of Mary and James Barrie (Finding Neverland), having been married to a Supervisor Guardian I quickly recognised the Barrie's challenges.

With the Pygmalion Series, I have read many of the classics, D H Lawrence, Thomas Hardy would have been favorites, anything by those two, Sons and Lovers especially, sidetracking -.also Tolstoy, but for many years now I just don't do fiction, I've really gone down the burrow of research/learning, non fiction, but when I did read it I loved it. Jane Eyre, the Idealist and the Rational is pretty hot.

Dostoyevsky was either the mentoring type Counselor or the reconciling Healer.

I have indeed read this new version. There is clearly a lot of material there. His goal of the book is giving a brief introduction to pmII and showing the possibilities of temperament studies, but I would have liked it when the examples were illustrated with more detail such as in pygmalion project. But definitely helpful.

I haven't read sons and lovers this far, I somehow got stuck after 50 pages or so. I recognize the preference for reading non fiction. I always read books for information and insight, though with a good fiction book I can get sucked in it. 90% of the books i have read are non fiction though. Especially nowadays with so much information and possibilities available reading the Karamazov brothers was quite an investment. His tendency for ever adding story lines and personages, makes a beautiful landscape, but can be quite heavy when you don't have much time for reading.