That damn Anton

March 26, 2012

That damn Anton:

He's looking right through you.

What Chekhov knows about people − and doesn’t shrink from saying − is how petty we are, and indolent, and not only self-centered but blind; oh, and how easily we give up! We say we haven’t, we’re pressing on; but that we're going forward doesn't mean we haven't given up. We pretend we are hanging onto our ideals, but we have long since let them go; our hold on them was tenuous in any case. If we maintain them, it is only as ideals: this is what we should have done, what we should be doing, who we should be, who we would be if . . . But it’s not possible.

   I mean you have to come to terms with the possible.