The Golden One - February 02, 2022


A Note on Reading Books – A Note on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

155.94794

Word Count

1,210

Sentence Count

46


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Greetings my esteemed subscribers. Today I want to talk a bit about books.
00:00:27.320 I have a great teaching to share that will hopefully make your reading a bit more rewarding
00:00:32.840 and insightful. Now to explain this I will share an anecdote. A few years back I was at an event in
00:00:39.920 good old Netherlands and there were many supporters of mine there as well. One supporter in particular,
00:00:46.060 shout out to you if you see this, a connoisseur of whiskey. We started talking about whiskey and he
00:00:51.620 had brought some fine whiskey with him. Now as you all know I'm no fan of alcohol, I never get drunk
00:00:57.140 or anything like that. Now I didn't want to pass up an opportunity to gain some new insights so I took
00:01:05.100 a few sips and he guided me through the sensation and basically what he told me and this is what I
00:01:11.640 will tell you to do when it comes to books. So he told me to focus on certain flavors and to focus
00:01:16.780 on certain sensations when I took the sips and it made sense. It made sense in a completely different
00:01:23.700 way. I had tasted whiskey before many years prior to this and I thought it tasted absolutely horrendous
00:01:30.760 but tasting it again with a different mindset it made a great difference. Now you can say the same
00:01:38.100 thing about coffee for example. You can have this gourmet coffee right here and it says on the packaging
00:01:44.220 characteristics. Chocolate, red berries and citrus. Then if you're a connoisseur then you can try to
00:01:52.280 find those flavors within the coffee. Same thing if you're a connoisseur of wine. You try to find
00:01:58.720 certain flavors within the wine. This can be applied to anything including books which brings me into my
00:02:05.980 main point of this video. I read this book a while back.
00:02:14.820 Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. A true classic. Now if you read this with the intention of
00:02:21.540 just wanting to be able to say that I have read this book you will fall asleep 10 pages in and I can't
00:02:29.000 blame you in the least. It's not a particularly good or interesting book taken outside of its context.
00:02:35.400 However, here is the main point. If you know the context of it then it becomes supremely
00:02:41.880 interesting. So what is this you might ask? It's a novel. Yes, but it's more importantly it's a
00:02:48.780 discussion on morality and it's a historical document as it were from Russia during the 19th century.
00:02:58.240 So written a few decades prior to the Bolshevik revolution. So one of the most horrific events in
00:03:04.540 world history. That is what makes it interesting. So if you approach this as a connoisseur you know
00:03:11.980 that why am I reading this? Yes, I am reading this because I want to get a glimpse at the discussions
00:03:18.060 on morality in Russian society leading up to the Bolshevik revolution. That is why this book is
00:03:25.480 interesting. If you don't read it with that in mind it will not be a good book. This is not an interesting
00:03:31.060 book in terms of characters or plot or whatever. The interesting part is the social commentary.
00:03:37.860 Now I read this and yeah, it was quite hard to get through. Not particularly exciting as such but I got
00:03:45.620 a bit of a taste for the works of Dostoevsky so I decided to read Notes from Underground.
00:03:51.620 Now this was much more enjoyable because I knew how to approach the book in a different way so I had
00:03:59.540 learned how to read Dostoevsky. I knew what to look out for in the book. I know what sort of things I
00:04:07.860 could expect so now I actively looked for discussions on morality and this is a good book to start with
00:04:14.420 by the way especially if you want a good discussion on the yes it says the it doesn't say but the
00:04:20.260 underground man the lower that I've talked about before the the mentality so it can be a good way to
00:04:26.420 put yourself into the mind of such a person and whatever you do don't read it just so that you can
00:04:32.340 say that you've read it because then you won't understand anything and you will only waste time.
00:04:36.580 Now of course there are many books if you are just if you are just starting out I suppose all
00:04:41.540 of you are interested in Roman history. I can't imagine I have any subscribers that are not so I
00:04:47.460 can recommend Harry Sidebottom. He is a historian I've mentioned him before I think he writes really
00:04:54.020 well really insightful so this is set in the waning years of the Roman Empire so not the golden years
00:05:00.900 anymore so basically this is historical fiction which is good if you want something that is more
00:05:06.980 easily digestible you can read in the sun whilst relaxing so keep that in mind why do you read
00:05:12.980 something yes to gain a certain insight into something don't just read to be able to say
00:05:18.820 that you've read because that's yeah a waste of time so if you aren't interested in a discussion on
00:05:25.940 morality in the Russian society during the 19th century don't read this don't read it if you are
00:05:34.180 interested in Russian history the social developments that led up to the Bolshevik revolution then you can
00:05:41.700 read it otherwise no. Now what is absolutely mandatory to read of course I've said it before
00:05:47.060 absolutely aesthetic so this as it says it's a handbook this is how you should approach it you
00:05:56.340 should approach it in the sense that you try to find some teachings you can implement successfully in
00:06:01.780 your life find habits that you can implement in your life that is the purpose of it and of course some
00:06:08.660 social insights as well so point being know why you are reading a certain book if you have
00:06:18.020 that understanding i'm reading this because of x y z whatever then you know what to look for if
00:06:25.060 you don't know what to look for you will just yeah skim through it and and you won't get any
00:06:30.100 appreciation for the material so before you begin to read say to yourself okay why am i reading this
00:06:36.420 then you start reading then you know what to look for just as a connoisseur of whiskey or coffee or
00:06:41.780 wine he knows beforehand sort of what to look for and how to enjoy it same thing with these books so
00:06:50.340 anyway that's how you should approach at least dostoevsky in my humble opinion there are those there are
00:06:55.940 those who are much more well read than i am who have better takes on dostoevsky this is just my
00:07:02.420 impression i've read two of his books so by no means an expert but if you read that's how i would
00:07:08.820 advise you to approach the material at least so anyway thank you for watching looking absolutely
00:07:16.340 juicy today if i may be so bold this fine polo shirt is also available at legiogloria.com same page
00:07:23.140 as dauntless so if you haven't already ordered dauntless do so immediately any arguments to the contrary
00:07:31.540 are totally invalid no thank you for watching xxo boom