2.4 A Lady of Little Faith
What does the possibility of nothingness mean for us? Why do we love, and can we love purely for the sake of it? Madame Khokhlakova was fine until she started thinking about it. These sort of questions plague her and make her suffer from her "little faith". She claims nobody else is thinking about it, but in reality, she has spoken for many by daring to make these questions, even if they might make her look foolish or selfish in front of others.
Once someone asked me: "Why try at all if it all ends? What do you think?" and my answer was: "Precisely because it all ends. It's the same for everybody, and we already have it hard as it is. You might as well make things nicer on the way there." Intuitively, Zosima's words of "active love" to Madame K. seemed to mean something of that sort in my eyes. Death for a great idea has been looked upon as commitment to a greater good, but can you live for your "good"? In death, "you" become lasting and static, like your idea. The death you have to accept for yourself may be found in life —in the sense that when you live seriously, you may have to do away with ideas you had of yourself or what is right until the end, you have to kill your fantastic selves. It's tedious, just like most pain around us. Dreams protect us from it like armour, but truly loving entails summoning your courage against shame and disdain in those little moments.
Zosima has a positive outlook on humanity alongside his notion of what it is to be a responsible human being. Man was made to be happy, so one becomes more human by active love. Paradoxically, such advice offered to someone struggling with their faith creates a situation in which the swaying of faith may create a stronger desire to actively love, if one has enough commitment to live seriously... Even if there is nothing at the end. Madame Khokhlakova's answer to her dilemma sits right beside her in a wheelchair, acting. Her great dreams of altruism involve leaving her life in a fantasy of moral martyrdom, but Zosima tells her to do what she can. Loving her daughter Lise unconditionally, no matter how pesky she can be, is the best place to start.
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