On Consciousness

No one has ever accused Dostoevsky of pulling his punches. When it comes to life’s struggles, he goes right for the jugular. 

This makes him something of a bummer when life is going well, but truly invaluable when things get tough. 

As a young man, when thinking about the possibility of facing tough situations in life, I remember semi-consciously thinking “well maybe that won’t be me. Maybe I’ll get lucky.” That right there is what Dostoevsky was getting at. Because had I wandered through life like Chauncey Gardiner in Being There, I never would have grown into being a better person. No one gets out unscathed and we are better for it. 

In this illustration, I was initially inspiredby the Greek myth of Athena being born fully-fledged from the head of Zeus. But explorations in that direction yielded too much violence (the horror!), which defeated the point. In the end, I opted for a simpler and less kinetic butterfly wing as a metaphor for consciousness as an uncomfortable but ultimately beautiful experience.

From our latest release, Dostoevsky's Philosophy