addict

it feels too good to stop
i know it's wrong
it's all i have relieve me
i've been addicted too long

i need a quick fix
just this once
last one i promise
just this once

it fills the void in me
even if it's just for a second
i feel alive and loved
even if it's just for a second

i need more, it isn't enough
i need to feel something
i want to stop, i've had enough
i need to feel something

i'm going to quit
i'm going to be free
i'm going to feel alive
good riddance to the old me

it's harder than i thought
i've failed more than i like to admit
it's going to take something more
but someday i will quit

...

Peace

exalt yourself
be humbled
humiliate yourself
be exalted

pride is on the rise
this is the start of my demise
i won't make it
i won't get the prize

it's worth my life
i tell myself time to time
i don't make it
i feel a part of me die

i haven't won
i don't feel love
will i make it
i won't give up



i don't hate my sin enough
maybe that's why i can't let go
i don't love God or people enough
that is why i'll never know

i can't shake that feeling
temptation gets the best of me
i want to believe
i need to be relieved

i'm addicted, i can't stop
i want to, but i forget about what's involved
i only see the end and not the struggle
i'm missing a piece of the puzzle

i don't get it

i don't understand grace
i don't understand love
why would God care enough
to be put up on a cross?

i do what i want
i do what i hate
i want to do right
i have a choice everyday

i always choose now
i don't care about the future
i'm not scared to die
i'm scared of what come after

am i a walking disease
is there a cure for me
is it ever too late
i won't know until i'm dead

is it possible to be perfect
is it possible to be truly good
well i haven't met anyone perfect or good
i've only seen pride and lust

will faith do me good
will hope do me justice
have i ever tried?
will i ever try?

out of faith, love, and hope
love is the greatest
i'm so desensitized
i can't feel it

love to obey
obey to love
where do i begin
i have none of the above

for now i can't feel
i can't see
i feel bad
because nothing bad happens to me

i do bad, but good happens to me
is this love?
guilt overwhelms me, but i still do bad
i feel the same after confession

i don't understand faith
if i just believe
will everything be ok
or will my sins haunt me

i have a choice everyday
i can choose faith
or choose the same fate
it's not a hard choice

i choose the same fate
i feel guilty again
i choose faith
i live

i have a choice everyday
the decision isn't hard to make
i want to live
but today i feel guilty again.

Crime and Punishment

“If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Fyodor Dostoevsky said this with words, but illustrated it through his book Crime and Punishment. The first laws given to man are known as the Ten Commandments, given to man by God. If God does not exist what room is there for morality or law of any kind? What is man that he has the right to tell other men how to live? Fyodor Dostoevsky articulates, through Raskolnikov’s struggle with guilt and pride, that God must exist.
After Raskolnikov kills the pawnbroker and her sister, Raskolnikov is struck with panic and paranoia. Raskolnikov is sometimes delusional in his ways because of his crime. Raskolnikov tried to be “extraordinary” in trying to overleap the boundary that stood in his way of committing a lesser evil for the greater good. Raskolnikov indirectly tried to deny God’s existence by being a logical thinker. By being reasonable Raskolnikov tried to permit his criminal actions by justifying it through what the world deemed “good intentions.” Napoleon was used as a figure to represent the world and secular desires. Napoleon murdered millions of people to bring peace to the land and was therefore justified. Raskolnikov tried to do the same thing, but he did not get to justify his means because he never got to them. Raskolnikov was overwhelmed by the murders that he left the scene as soon as he could. The initial thought would be that Raskolnikov fled the scene and did not steal much from the pawnbroker because of guilt, but that that is not so much the case. It is pride that has struck Raskolnikov, and his failure to justify the means with the end sickens him to the point where he walks around delusional with a guilty conscience damaging his pride.
The concept of guilt is that it is what makes humans, humans. When a person does something wrong, the initial feeling is guilt, a feeling of repulsiveness and regret. The feeling of guilt indicates that something is wrong, that a law or unwritten rule has been broken, that something did not go as it was intended. Guilt indicates something deep down inside a person, something that has always been there. Guilt indicates that man was meant to live in a certain way and if man doesn’t live that certain way then man feels as if something is wrong, that a law or rule has been broken. Guilt proves if an action committed is wrong or not. If someone has killed another and is not guilty, the world would deem that person mad. This is why people such as Napoleon and Hitler are looked down upon rather than admired. Napoleon tried to bring unification to the land by murder and Hitler tried to cleanse the world by murder. Both tried to justify their actions through their “good intentions.” Both are looked upon by the world as mad men while ironically both men thought they were doing the world good. Both men did not feel guilt. This is where Raskolnikov differs, he does feel guilt, he is haunted by the actions he committed. Napoleon is looked upon by Raskolnikov as something more than a man. Raskolnikov sees Napoleon as a god because Napoleon has overstepped the boundary set by God, do not murder. Raskolnikov thinks something is wrong in that he cannot bring himself to overstep the boundary. Raskolnikov’s pride is injured in that he is not more than a man, that he is not a god.
Raskolnikov realizes that he is just a human, an ordinary man who is subject to God’s law. It is shown that while overstepping God’s law may make someone more than a man, it is not intended for man to become something more, and being more is not always meant to be good. Keeping the boundary of God’s law gives man freedom to live life as it was intended and though it may not seem noble to live within the boundaries of law; that is what sets man free from not only guilt, but of pain and suffering. Raskolnikov realizes that he is dead, that committing crimes has killed him on the inside. Raskolnikov wants to live, to be resurrected. Sonya is the messenger of good news, telling Raskolnikov that the only way to live is to confess and suffer for one’s misdeeds. Raskolnikov is yet too stung by his pride to do anything about it, but because of Sonya Raskolnikov confesses and suffers. Raskolnikov is man, and man would’ve lived in peace for eternity if man hadn’t fallen into sin, trying to overstep the boundary of God’s law. Now man must live to endure the pains of life and all else to live within the boundary of God’s law, to be resurrected into the eternal life that man once had.
There are many Biblical allusions in Crime and Punishment to Christ and Lazarus involving death and resurrection. Crime and Punishment’s themes involves the death of man due to sin, but also the redemption of man through suffering. Dostoevsky incorporates Christian ideology into a story that says pride is man’s downfall and there is redemption through self-sacrifice. As God created man to be good, Raskolnikov is not shown as an evil person. Raskolnikov helps out Marmeladov and his family by giving the family money and trying to get a doctor to save Marmeladov’s life. Dostoevsky shows that man was initially good through Raskolnikov’s good nature. Through Raskolnikov’s theory that a man can become “extraordinary”, something more than a man, he falls into sin, out of morals, and out of place with God. Raskolnikov becomes worldly by thinking he can be more than a man, thinking he can set up his own rules and live in his own world. By murdering, Raskolnikov admits that he thinks he can be more than he was meant to be. The guilt and pride of Raskolnikov prove to him that he is not, that no one is “extraordinary” and if that person is then that person is not human. Sonya is an example of a sinner not yet resurrected, but knows the way to freedom, to life. Sonya leads Raskolnikov to repentance, confession to make peace with God. Raskolnikov’s way to confess the crime is, as Gibian said, suggestive of “Christ’s passion on the road to Golgotha.” Raskolnikov voluntarily goes to confess and takes his punishment like Christ to be resurrected. To make a new life for himself, Raskolnikov sacrifices himself for the sake of others like his sister, Dunya, who was willing to marry Luhzin for money. Even though Raskolnikov confesses he does it unwillingly, accepting Sonya’s ideology hesitantly. When Raskolnikov goes to confess and finds out that Svidrigailov has committed suicide, Raskolnikov walks out without confessing, but seeing Sonya in the distance he goes back to confess.
There is no remorse in Raskolnikov, no regret, his pride is still hurt and he has not gotten over it. Raskolnikov confessed for Sonya and his new convictions of Sonya’s beliefs in redemption. There is still something missing. It is only because of Sonya that Raskolnikov has hope. Through all his agony of living with the consequences of his actions, Raskolnikov still lacked one thing. Raskolnikov was haunted by images of the victims of his crime, he walked around delusional and anxious with paranoia, and he couldn’t take it all by himself. Raskolnikov went to Sonya thinking she could relate with him and she led him in the right direction. Raskolnikov suffered mentally for his actions, and he was willing to take in the new ideals and beliefs that Sonya offered to be redeemed, but he lacked an emotion. That emotion is love. Without love or any kind of selfless emotion, Raskolnikov couldn’t have changed or resurrected even if he tried.
When Raskolnikov is sentenced to prison, he doesn’t feel any repentance, no change. Raskolnikov feels as if an error has been made on his part and that his crime was no more than a miscalculation. Pride has made Raskolnikov think that his confessions were a result of a weakness rather than an honest attempt of living a new life. When Raskolnikov dreams of a virus that sweeps the world into thinking that everyone is “extraordinary”, Raskolnikov realizes the error of his ways. If everyone in the world was “extraordinary” everyone would destroy one another. Raskolnikov meets with Sonya and realizes that he loves her and through love Raskolnikov is able to change, to resurrect himself to redemption.
The entire theme and main point of Crime and Punishment is to prove that indeed God exists. Deep down inside, man knows when something is not right and something is not going the way it was supposed to. Guilt and pride makes everyone human, and also flawed, but love redeems the worst of men. Man fell from God trying to be “extraordinary” and suffered the consequences of man’s own actions. Man realized that trying to be more than what man was created to be was wrong and tried to start fresh, anew. Man realized that man could not do this alone and certainly without paying the price. Man pays the price, to suffer for man’s sins, to repent, and to love. Love brought hope and that brought light to an end of a dark tunnel. Through deep psychological and emotional characterization in Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky said simply man may not see the evidence of an existing God physically, but through actions and consequences every human holds the evidence of an existing God in his soul.









Bibliography

George Gibian, "Traditional Symbolism in Crime and Punishment," PMLA, Vol. LXX, No. 5, December, 1955, pg. 970-996.

Francis Hackett, "Crime and Punishment,” Horizons: A Book of Criticism, B.W. Huebsch, 1918, pg. 178-185.

J. Middleton Murry, “Fyodor Dostoevsky: A Critical Study,” Martin Secker, 1916, pg. 263