“The world has kissed my Soul with its pain, asking for its return in Songs.”

---Rabindranah Tagore

Imagine you were born in the working class of nineteenth-century Russia. The whole world to you is filled with starvation, filth, disease, violence, and even murders. Your mother and sister had to live off your mother’s pension every month, and they still needed to save money to send to you. Your sister attempted to make some money by taking a job as a private tutor, yet she was sexually assaulted during her job and became a heathen in everyone else’s mind. To help with your career, she had to accept the proposal of some middle-aged merchant who sees her as nothing but a tool, a toy. The closest thing you had to an understanding friend was a drunk government official you met at a tavern who lost his job due to his alcohol addiction. His stepwife forced his daughter to be a prostitute to put food on the table. Yet he still sold the clothes his daughter bought for him for money to drink at the tavern. You could not even rebuke him, because you owe almost as much to your family. You needed to pawn your father’s watch and the ring your sister gave you just to survive.

And you just happen to be a university student.

You learned so much knowledge in the university; you have read myriads of books, understand the law, and have been affected tremendously by the famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. You understand countless amounts of ways to make the world way better. Yet as days pass by you realize the good people never get a good life while the evil people usually live luxurious lives. You, a student who dropped out of college, who could not even afford his food, and are on the edge of becoming a maniac, still think you can achieve a tremendously successful career, still think there is something you can do to make the world a better place.

What could you do to gain inner peace?

The protagonist of Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov, bearing his hate for this dark world, chose the evil path. He murdered the old pawnbroker who kept ripping money off him. Raskolnikov did not think his murder is actually for his money; for that he buried all the money he found. He takes his hate out for this world at the pawnbroker; perhaps at one point, he thinks he can start a revolution, just like Napoleon who keeps appearing on his mind throughout the book. Yet the sense of guilt is the last straw. Rationally he never thinks he did anything wrong; he thinks he is the “superior” human and he should not be bothered by the death of someone normal, he is justified to take any approach needed for the “greater deed”. However, his soul is still tortured by himself.

No one can answer if using crime against crime is the correct approach or even the simple question of “what is crime fundamentally?” Limited by the brevity of our lives, we may be never able to answer the ultimate question of good and bad, kindness and sin. We could perhaps follow a simpler approach, follow what our heart tells us. Immanuel Kant, who spent his life discovering the truth of human ethics, said: “Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” If we could not answer the question of good and bad, is it possible that the answer is just within something we already know a lot about? Perhaps not a lot of people realize that our consciousness is as great a miracle as the myriads of stars above our head because we are so familiar with it.

The only thing I could feel for Raskolnikov is pity. I pity that he attempts so hard to justify his behaviors, yet his worst problem is that he cannot love. He blames the world for torturing him, yet he never thought about loving what he already has; he never thought about the people who loved him. His mother, his sister, and his salvation, Sonya. As Dostoyevsky said in his other book Brothers Karamazov, “I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” Raskolnikov’s inability to love this world is what caused this tragedy.

Maybe the lawmakers, the judges, and the lawyers know what could punish the crimes, yet the only true way to eliminate crime is the answer we hear from our consciousness, love.

The world kisses my Soul with its pains, yet I sing back to it in love.