And regardless of whether or not you ultimately decide you agree with the Existentialist definitions of "Faith" and "Love," you will need to come to terms with them before you can decide if you agree with them or not. Otherwise we'll just keep talking past each other after a certain point.

Here's the issue we're coming across. I'm not talking past you, you're talking past me. I'm not worried about what Dostoevsky thinks at this moment and I'm not worried about what Kierkegaard thinks at this moment. If I did, I'd pick up their books, read about what they have to say, and form my own opinions on their opinions.

What occupies my mind, in this, are your thoughts and feelings on the matter, you, Odder, as a person. I've been trying to tease it out of you, first by bringing up the concept of what makes a person good. Then by bringing up the concept of why we fall short of our intent to be good and what why it's important we try to overcome it. Then by bringing up the concept of social contentedness and our responsibility to ourselves and each other to shape our environment to empower others to be good. Then by bringing up the issue of why we struggle, why we fail, why we suffer, and why those hardships matter. I figure sooner or later detachment could be brought up, if you really wanted to have this conversation with me. There is a lot of depth to this conversation to explore, because I've had these conversations before and I love exploring these issues, but instead you say this . . .

I sincerely hope that I'm not coming off as condescending here when I say that you haven't even yet grasped what I'm talking about - the idea of Kierkegaard's "Knight of Faith" and Dostoevsky's "Active Love" are complex philosophical ideas that take a rather large amount of effort to comes to terms with, and I am doing them a bit of a disservice by indulging you here instead of just telling you to study the course that I linked five-ish posts ago.

Instead of having a conversation, you keep on leaning back into your original argument, instead of branching out, you're outright saying "I'm gonna be dismissive of your thoughts on the matter and consider them invalid until you read Dostoevsky (and now Kierkegaard)." I don't want to be "indulged" I want to have a conversation. I want to think "Wow, this person here on the internet has some really interesting points" and I want you to think "Wow, this person here on the internet has some really interesting points." But we don't get to have that, because apparently, in order to earn your respect I have to read Dostoevsky, as if that matters more than being an individual with his own books he's read, his own thoughts, his own experiences with triumphs and hardships, his own worldview.

I mean, legit? I could try and talk about r/politics and where that anger comes from and what we can do about it. But why would I want to at this point? You seem to be more interested in championing the thoughts of dead men, however insightful and compelling they might be, than carrying a conversation with a live human being who is more interested in what you have to say. That's not healthy friend, not in the slightest, and it's part of why the world is what it is today. I'm not saying you're an r/politics kind of person, but I will say part of the reason people in r/politics are so angry is because they're more concerned about being able to crow about their worldviews than they are trying to actively engage and connect with the world.

I could read Dostoevsky, but I don't want to. I got all the time in the world for that. I want to talk to Odder, because that's here and now.