David McElroy

For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been obsessed with Leo Tolstoy’s 1878 novel, “Anna Karenina.” I haven’t yet finished the massive book, but it’s been keeping me up late and giving me new things to think about. It’s a literary masterpiece that lives up to its reputation.

For most people — and certainly for movie adaptations — the book is primarily about the affair between the married Anna Karenina of the title and her lover, Count Vronsky. Although that story is filled with drama and pathos, I’ve been taken instead by the subplot involving the relationship between the characters of Konstantin Levin and Princess Katerina (Kitty) Shcherbatsky.

At every turn, I’ve found myself identifying with Levin, so much that it sometimes makes me feel as though the long-dead Tolstoy has been reading my private thoughts and feelings.

In the earliest parts of the book, we discover Levin’s love for Kitty in a scene which evokes my thoughts and feelings when I’m in love to an uncanny degree. Levin is drunk on the ecstasy of his love for Kitty but he’s also sick and terrified that she might reject his offer of marriage.

When a confused Kitty refuses him — believing that Vronsky is planning to propose to her as well — Levin is devastated and humiliated. In hurt and shame, Levin returns to his estate in the country to try to suppress his love for Kitty — and this is when the real story of the book starts for me.

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I met a dead man in a dream a few nights ago. I don’t know who he is, but I have a feeling I’ll meet him when I die.

I’ve had death on my mind a lot recently. I’d like to say that I don’t know why, but that’s not entirely true. I’ve had death on my mind because I’m afraid of dying — and there’s a growing part of me that fears death could be closer than I think.

I’ve never wanted to die, but I’ve always believed I had many decades yet to live. Lately, though, I’ve felt a horrible, gnawing fear of imminent death. This terrifies me, because I don’t want to die. I haven’t lived yet.

I don’t know who the dead man was, but I know he went to a lot of trouble to find me. He somehow asked me to come to a small place — a room which seemed like the waiting room of an old railway station — which was the only place where the dead and the living could talk.

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I can tell you how to fix yourself. I can even tell you what’s wrong with the world around us. But please don’t ask me to fix myself.

We’re all held prisoner by something. I didn’t understand this for most of my life. I was blind to the chains that have held me — and most people are blind to whatever is holding them prisoner, too.

Most of us aren’t held behind bars. It’s not iron locks or chains that hold us. We’re held captive by invisible things in our minds and hearts. False beliefs. Self-limitations. Fears. Confusion about what we really need in life. And we’re mostly blind to those limitations. We see how other people are held back. We notice how our friends self-destruct. We even think we understand how the world needs to change.

But most of us are blind to all the ways in which we’re locked up tight in chains of our own. And even though some of us finally see our chains — and know we need to change — it’s easier to try to fix others. Or change the world.

So we hide our problems as well as we can — even from ourselves — and we lecture others about how they ought to fix themselves. I‘m really good at that.

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