What follows is a view of the world in 1880, as described by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky:

“The world has celebrated liberty, especially in recent times, and what is it that we see in this liberty of theirs? Nothing but slavery and suicide! For the world says: ‘You have needs, therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most illustrious and the richest amongst you. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, nay multiply them,’ such is the present-day teaching of the world. It is in this that they see freedom. And so, what comes of this right to multiply one’s needs? Isolation and spiritual suicide for the rich, envy and murder for the poor, for though rights have been granted, the means of material gratification have not yet been prescribed. We are assured that the longer times goes on, the closer the world draws towards fraternal communion, when distances will be bridged and thoughts transmitted through the air. Oh, do not believe in such a union of men. By interpreting freedom as the propagation and immediate gratification of needs, people distort their own nature, for they engender in themselves a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality, and ostentation. To give dinner-parties, to travel, to have carriages, titles, and slavishly devoted servants is considered such a necessity that, in order to satisfy this need, people will even sacrifice their lives, honour, and sense of humanity, and if they cannot satisfy it, they will even commit suicide. The same thing is true for those who are not rich, but in the case of the poor the inability to satisfy their needs and feelings of envy are for the present drowned in drink. But instead of wine, they will soon quench their thirst with blood, for that is what they are being led to. I ask you: are such men free? I once knew ‘a fighter for a cause’ who told me himself that when he was deprived of tobacco in prison he was in such agony that he nearly betrayed his ‘cause’ just to get some tobacco. And people like him say: ‘I shall go and fight for mankind.’ But where will he go and what is he capable of? A short burst of activity, perhaps – but he will not be able to sustain it for long. And so it is not surprising that instead of being free, people have become enslaved, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and human harmony, they have…fallen into disharmony and isolation. So the idea of service to mankind, of brotherhood and human solidarity, grows ever weaker in the world, and truly it is now treated almost with derision, for how is one to shed one’s habits, whither can the bondsman turn, if he has grown so accustomed to gratifying the multifarious needs which are of his own devising? He is isolated, and the world at large means nothing to him. We have reached a stage at which we have surrounded ourselves with more things, but have less joy.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Karamazov Brothers (1880), translated by Ignat Avsey

Maybe it’s time to take a look at how the other animals do it: Nature can be annoying. Good.