Essays on literary works - 2024
Life Is Dull Without Moral Goals (Based on War and Peace by L.N. Tolstoy, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by R. Bach, and Perfume by P. Süskind)
Life Is Dull Without Moral Goals — According to Tolstoy, a Seagull, and a Murderous Perfumer
Let’s just be honest for a second.
The whole “live your truth” vibe we’re all trying to ride? It's kinda dead in the water if your truth is just… vibes. No vision. No fight. Just you, your oat milk latte, doomscrolling through other people’s highlight reels while whispering, “I’m doing my best.”
And yeah, sometimes we are doing our best. But what if “doing our best” is just a souped-up way of saying “I have no moral compass, but I did meditate for seven minutes today”?
Let’s drag that into the sunlight. Because moral goals—not the Pinterest kind, but the painfully earned, soul-breaking kind—are what actually keep life from turning into a grayscale Netflix series where nothing happens and no one dies but somehow you still want to scream into your throw pillow.
To unpack this, we’re triangulating between three absolute literary chaos bombs: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (yes, that dusty tome your uncle pretends to have read), Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (the philosophical fever dream that Gen X swore changed their lives), and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind (aka: what happens when vibes go full psychopath).
Ready? Too bad. We’re doing this.
Tolstoy’s Existential Gym Membership: Morality With a Side of Musket Fire
Pierre Bezukhov is like every Reddit user who went from “money solves everything” to “wait, what if I joined a spiritual cult and found peace through humility?” He inherits a massive fortune, stumbles through awkward social politics, and basically flails his way through the Russian aristocracy like a Sim whose moral meter is glitching.
But here’s the kicker: he doesn’t just flail and forget. He obsesses. He aches for meaning. Not just a hobby or a wellness app, but something that doesn’t collapse under the weight of... everything. Enter: the idea of living morally. Of being useful. Of sacrifice. Of, dare I say it—self-transcendence.
The battlefield stuff? Yeah, that’s core. But it’s not about bullets. It’s about moral gravity. Tolstoy sets moral purpose as the only anchor that stops you from spiraling into existential hell. Natasha tries fame and impulsive romance and comes out spiritually dehydrated. Pierre tries logic and money and ends up in a literal prison camp before he’s like, “Maybe compassion is the real flex.”
Life without moral direction in War and Peace is like trying to navigate IKEA blindfolded. You might stumble on a couch, but you probably end up crying in the kitchen section.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull: Birdcore Enlightenment & The Glow-Up of Purpose
Okay. So. A seagull wants to fly better. Not fly more. Fly better.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is either peak inspirational cringe or lowkey genius, depending on your caffeine level. But stay with me. Jonathan is that one kid in your friend group who decided to learn transcendental meditation after a breakup and came back glowing like a Glossier ad.
But here's what makes this bird different from your average Instagram spiritualist: Jonathan actually goes all in. He gets exiled for flying too fast. Becomes a cosmic bird guru. Teaches others to transcend limitations. And all because he decided mediocrity wasn’t cute anymore.
His arc is morally simple, but spiritually ballistic: he believes there’s more to life than what you're told is enough. More than food, more than the flock, more than safety. It’s the seagull version of moral rebellion—he finds his own definition of good, and it’s all about potential, growth, and (weirdly) quantum physics?
So if War and Peace screams “Build a moral system or drown,” Jonathan Livingston Seagull whispers “You can fly higher, babe—but only if you care enough to try.”
Perfume: The Moral Vacuum Dressed in Sensual Terror
And now—hold onto your nostrils—we get to Grenouille.
Patrick Süskind’s Perfume is not here to make you feel safe. It’s here to show you what happens when you have zero moral compass and 100% god-tier talent. Grenouille is a scent savant. A smell prodigy. He literally builds the world’s most intoxicating perfume... by murdering virgins. Cute.
His entire existence is a void. No moral pull, no internal struggle. He’s what happens when you remove all goals that aren’t about personal gratification. It's not ambition that’s scary. It’s amorality combined with brilliance. It’s what happens when you chase perfection with no ethical GPS.
And what does he do after achieving peak perfumer godhood? He dies. On purpose. Surrounded by people so enchanted by his creation they literally eat him alive.
Like. Come on.
Süskind is showing you the horror version of “follow your dream.” Because a dream without moral alignment is just aestheticized nihilism. And Grenouille? He’s the final form of what happens when the aesthetic wins over the ethical.
So What’s the Vibe Here? Purpose ≠ Preachy
The real tea: Life without a moral arc is just ambient noise. You might distract yourself for a while—status, pleasure, microdosing your way through late capitalism—but eventually the silence inside you gets LOUD.
Pierre tries to be good and suffers. Jonathan tries to transcend and gets banished. Grenouille does whatever he wants and becomes a literal horror story. The common thread? Moral drive = struggle = growth. Amoral drift = aesthetic doom spiral.
And look, this isn’t about becoming a monk or unplugging your iPhone and going off-grid. It’s about wanting your actions to align with something beyond dopamine. Something that costs you. Because meaning isn’t free. And without it? Life flattens. Gets beige. You start describing things as “fine” a lot.
TL;DR, But Make It Brutal:
- Tolstoy: Morality is messy but necessary—otherwise, you become a rich idiot with gout and no purpose.
- Bach: Chase your inner divine. It’s cringe. It’s beautiful. It’s how you grow wings.
- Süskind: Talent without ethics is just serial killing with extra steps.
So yeah. Life is dull without moral goals. Not because morality makes you a better person (lol), but because it gives the chaos of existence a shape. A reason. A spine.
And if you’re scrolling through your feed at 2 a.m. wondering why everything feels numb—maybe it’s not depression. Maybe it’s the absence of moral direction.
Or maybe it’s both. This isn’t a TED Talk.
Anyway. Go be like Pierre (but less tragic), fly like Jonathan (but maybe wear SPF), and for the love of all things holy—don’t ever go full Grenouille.
Write that on your bathroom mirror in eyeliner.