Keeping it real

"He had the unlucky capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious part in life. Every sphere of activity was, in his eyes, linked with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, he always found himself repulsed by this knavery and falsehood which blocked every path of action. Yet he had to live and find himself an occupation."
Tolstoy, War and Peace (about Pierre Bezuhov)