Sometimes he remembered having heard how soldiers under fire in the trenches, and having nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. It seemed to Pierre that all men were like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in government service. ‘Nothing is without consequence, and nothing is important: it’s all the same in the end. The thing to do is to save myself from it all as best I can,’ thought Pierre. Not to see IT, that terrible IT.
We are always looking for something to distract us from the thing(s) we fear most. Sometimes, those most frightening things come into clear focus, and we see how very vulnerable we are. Not fun. It’s easy to rush back into those distracting occupations that shelter us from reality and give us comfort. Whole industries (often, our most successful industries) are built up around this.
It used to be that men of all classes joined the military to seek glory as soldiers. Seeking refuge from life as tools of megalomaniacs seems a lousy idea to me. Maybe it was the thing to do in the past, but a really bad idea in the modern world.
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