In Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky's protagonist gets shoved aside by an officer in a tavern. A nothing moment. The officer doesn't even register him. The Underground Man spends years thinking about it.
He drafts letters demanding an apology. He fantasizes about challenging him to a duel. He imagines, bizarrely, that they become friends. He plots elaborate revenge. His grand confrontation: he bumps into the officer on the street, on purpose, wearing an expensive coat he bought specifically for the occasion, and even took out a loan (two weeks pay mind you) to replace the raccoon fur collar with beaver. The officer doesn't notice.
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Dostoevsky notes two types of people: the man of action and the man of acute consciousness. The Underground Man is the latter -- so consumed by thinking that he cannot act. Every cause leads to a more primary cause. Every decision dissolves into infinite regression. He thinks himself into paralysis.
"The direct, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is inertia -- the deliberate refusal to do anything."
He envies men of action. They're stupid, he tells himself. They don't see the complexity. But really, he envies that they do things. The tragedy is that he only thinks. The duel never happens. All that intellectual energy, turned inward, rotting.
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I've been guilty of both. Thinking too much to act. Acting without thinking at all.
But you -- your default state, right now, is to do nothing. You're probably not even thinking about what you just read. You're not a man of action. You're not a man of acute consciousness. You are the default path.
Consider this an open invitation to a duel.