[I]t may be objected, if man does not act from free will, what will happen if the incentives to action are equally balanced, as in the case of Buridan’s ass? [In reply,] I am quite ready to admit, that a man placed in the equilibrium described (namely, as perceiving nothing but hunger and thirst, a certain food and a certain drink, each equally distant from him) would die of hunger and thirst. If I am asked, whether such an one should not rather be considered an ass than a man; I answer, that I do not know, neither do I know how a man should be considered, who hangs himself, or how we should consider children, fools, madmen, &c
–Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Book 2, Scholium
And so Spinoza argues that a man who sees each of two options as equally compelling cannot be a rational man, or act on free will. I quite agree with Spinoza. The problem is… how does one choose between the food and the drink? Just how does one decide which is the more compelling?
I was thinking of this on the way to the school today. I bought a very thick and weighty biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton before I left London. Shackleton has always been something of a hero to me. Unlike Scott and Amundsen, Shackleton brought all his men home safely from the Antarctic, and gave up his dream – in part – so that those who remained with him should be safe. And yet he never gave his dream up fully. He launched expedition after expedition, spending all his time and energy when in England to raise money to support the next attempt at the Antarctic. That was all he did. That was all he could do.
My mind immediately lapsed into a plaint for the golden age of terrestrial exploration. “Where is there for me to go?” I thought. Then an image of Sir Ranulph Fiennes came to mind. He is the true heir of someone like Shackleton – a modern explorer who has given his life in pursuit of adventure and renown in out-of-the-way places, and lost most of his fingers – and other limbs – in the process. Exploration is all he does. It seems to be all he can do. Like Shackleton, as soon as he is becalmed, he again longs for the storm.
I don’t have that problem. I have what seems to be the opposite problem… but might really be the same one.
There is not one thing that I can do – or want to do – for the rest of my life. Yes, I want to achieve the Seven Summits, but when those are done, so am I. Yes, I want to travel, but I don’t want to spend my life doing so. To be always on the move for the next 60 years is not my aspiration. To explore inwardly, rather than outwardly, is something I wish to do, and am doing. Yet there is a time that that, too, must taper off – if not altogether cease. There will be a time (which is not in the forseeable future) when what can be mapped of the inner regions is mapped. Eventually I must turn outward.
I want to do a lot of things. Sometimes it feels like I want to do everything. I want to be a Renaissance man – jack of all trades – or do I? Buridan’s Ass with 50,000 piles of hay stacked around him, each as tasty-looking as the next. But… it’s all hay! Where’s the smoked salmon with caviar and champagne? (Though I must say a donkey would probably not find that very tempting.)
The fact that I do not know what I want to do with the rest of my life does not scare me as much as it once did. It does not drive me mad with impatience, as it once did. I am not yet chafing to receive the next commandment – to either complete or bitterly fight against. The fact that I’m not even sure if there’s an answer – I’m not sure if I will ever find The One True Calling – is a little more worrying, but… perhaps it is a mark of the inner mapping that (slowly, tentatively, sporadically, falteringly) I’ve begun doing over the past year.
The regions which I’m currently mapping include the ones that lead me to chafe at inactivity. To spur and goad myself into doing something – anything – no matter the cost, emotionally, physically, or psychologically. That part of myself that turns everything into a race against other people, and tells me that if I “lose” I will be reviled, hated, and forever unhappy. That part of me that ensures that I never win – that I never can win! that it’s not possible to win! – and then brings to mind images of men like Shackleton, who moved the earth to accomplish their goals.
I understand – partially – why that part is there, and I cannot fault it. It has, after all, gotten me through the times when – had I not been my own first and greatest critic – I may well have broken under the criticisms of others who did not wish me happy, as they were unhappy. The fact that it is active, still, is a function – and also a cause – of a lack of inner peace. How the process of working with – instead of in opposition to – this part will go, I do not know. And yet, I am not – as before – totally inquiet about it.
Let me not fool you: that impatience and inquietude and restlessness is still there. That feeling of being Buridan’s Ass or Aristotle’s starving and thirsting man is still there. Maybe the solution is this: I don’t choose. Maybe it’s not supposed to be an ego-driven thing. Maybe there’s not one “person” out in the van, leading the charge towards a goal only he has chosen or defined, dragging the others along unwillingly.
Perhaps, once I get some people around a table – for something other than a council of war – it’ll work out. I look forward to that day.
“…And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.”
And so Constantine, the eleventh of that name, called Dragases – and, like the first Constantine, son of the devout Helena – threw off the Imperial Purple, and crying “The city has fallen, but I yet live!” jumped down from his place of command into where the fighting was thickest, and disappeared. His body was never found. Sultan Mehmet – his bitterest enemy, and a very superstitious man – had the place where Constantine died walled up, for the rumor ran that the young emperor was not dead in fact, but merely turned to marble, and when the city named in his forbear’s honor was back in Christian hands, he would rise again to lead it.
All of this is true.
I had a conversation with Stef today. Another fat man dream – fever dream – this morning means it’s once again time for my life to change. It’s time to learn how not to blow up my own statues, and decimate my own new peace.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Byzantium lately. The novel I want to write is, in large part about Constantine XI Dragases and his times. Fascinating man. Fascinating times.
Why that man, though? Why those times?
Byzantium is, in large part, a forgotten empire. Its very name, much less its history and the things it contributed to the world – real, tangible things from which we benefit daily – is barely known to men. I have always wanted to rescue it from such obscurity. To show its beauty, its splendor, its horrors, its wisdom, its triumps, defeats, imbecilities, great and low men, and everything that made Byzantium the world’s jewel for over 1200 years to the yet-unknowing world. To bring to light the glories of its learning and peace, and its wise and good men. To rescue these from the sands of time – from becoming the works of Ozymandias.
All this, I told Stef.
It seems that it is not the Byzantine renaissance or Byzantine beauty and glory that I wish to preserve, and to show the world. It is my own.
It’s going to take a long time to realize that, and to stop demolishing the Hagia Sofia I’m building myself every time the walls get above chest height. To let it rise – and to rise myself – may be the hardest work I’ve ever done.
No practical advice asked. I haven’t even figured out where Byzantium is yet. But I know it’s there. And that’s enough.
That’s enough to begin the journey.
“…Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”
“You’re supposed to be better than this!” I thought.
I wanted to shout it at them, those boys in green, with their frock coats, grey and red hats, and the brown leather dispatch bags of the officers hanging over their shoulders. And the batons – the long, long black batons hanging from their belts. Four soldiers – not one of them over 20 years old – marching down a metro platform.
They, however, are not the ones that are supposed to be better – not those boys.
Not those boys whose mothers raised them to always obey, no matter the order. Not those boys whose fathers taught them to love nothing above Russia. Not those boys whose teachers taught them that a government which represents its citizens is the highest ideal, and that it should be the highest ideal of those citizens to die for their country. Not those boys whose drill instructors would shout at them, beat them, jail them, or kill them if they disobeyed. Not those boys whose government would refuse them exit visas and higher education – and kill them – if they refused to join the army.
Those boys are not the ones who are supposed to be better. Their mothers, their fathers, their teachers, their drill instructors, and their government are the ones who were supposed to be better. The latter two should be so good as to not exist in the first place.
Their mothers, fathers, and teachers are evil and corrupt failures, not the boys. Those boys in their frock coats and grey and red hats.
It made me sad to write the above. I wanted to help those boys on the metro platform. But they are far gone. Beyond my aid. They’re not boys… they’re the men they were beaten and cursed and propagandized into being. Done before reaching their 20s – gone, never to return.
I want to help all of the people I see. I want to help the women in their 5” spike-heeled patent leather boots and short skirts who look depressed and scared. The ones whose clothes scream “fuck me!” but whose eyes almost weep “love me… truly… please, someone… help me. I don’t want to be here.” I want to help the young mothers who impatiently cram their children between two strangers on the metro. The ones whose voices say “you are a naughty child! Sit down and don’t talk any more!” but whose postures say “I am frustrated because I don’t know how to communicate with my child or be a better mother to him. I was never given love… how can I give it now?” The young men, whose demeanor says “don’t look at me. Don’t mess with me. I’m not here – I don’t care” but whose true self… lord, down deep somewhere in there is saying “please… someone see that I am vulnerable and scared of it. All I want is a wife and children I can love… and I feel like I’m being forced into being someone I’m not. I don’t want to be this way.”
I see – or think I see – beyond the clothes and posture and outward demeanor. And I want to help all of these people. To show the young woman that she’s got something lovable besides shapely legs. To show the young mother that compassion and love are what her child needs, not discipline. To show the young man that vulnerability is the greatest strength he possesses.
But I can’t help them. Each and every single one is dying of the plague, and would rather die than take the medicine that will cure them. Each of them is not only convinced that the cure is much worse than the disease. They are absolutely certain – dead certain – that I’m the leper, and they are healthy. I’m the one who gave up their Holy Trinity – god, government, and family – for truth and reason and virtue. “For what?” they think. “What have you gained in return?”
Each of them has, of course, got a vested interest in not seeing the joy, the solid friendships, the self-knowledge and self-trust, and all of the other boons that philosophy brings. They’ve got a vested interest in seeing only the negatives… because it’s just so goddamned hard to put down their crosses and follow reason. It’s just so goddamned hard to work through processing your history. It’s just so goddamned hard to realize that no, there is no god, no, your parents didn’t love you, and no, no matter who has the golden gun it’s still only a goddamned gun and is only good at doing murder.
I used to feel contempt, or impatience. Now… now, it is almost – not always, but getting stronger – a feeling of compassion. I know it is hard, my brothers. Oh, it is so hard to give up the illusion of joy for the real stuff. It is so hard to love the world – and yourselves, and your children – enough to take the bitter medicine and start out across that long desert path towards the oasis of truth. If it wasn’t hard – if everyone was willing to put down that cross – then… why has it taken millennia to happen? If everyone was suddenly ready, then what was missing before?
The degree to which it is difficult is the degree to which you will rejoice when it is done. But oh, brothers, you have a vested interest in not seeing it – and the people who beat and cursed and propagandized you into becoming who you are have even more of a vested interest in blinding you. That, my dears, is why I’ve begun to feel that compassion. Because inside every spike-heeled, impatient, apathetic one of you is the child who was tortured into defending itself in that way. And my god, I’ve begun to have such empathy for that child. I’ve begun – finally – to see that he is there.
While talking about loneliness with a friend tonight, this came up: my thoughts about the soldiers. My friend mentioned that the degree to which I feel loneliness is the degree to which I wish to help people. Am I lonely because I’m a doctor with a cure standing in a hospital ward of plague victims who believe that what I want to inject them with is deadly poison? Am I lonely because where I wish to render aid, I am barred from doing so?
I think that is true. At least partly. And I’ll give it more thought. For now… this is what I have been thinking since we hung up.
…or that’s what it feels like.
After I hung up the call with Stef about… oh, about 3 minutes ago… I started crying – or nearly so. It’s pretty impossible to express, but I’ll give it a go. I want someone to see this. To know I’m here, I suppose. Even though it’s obvious that you do… well, it feels… right now, at least, as though I’m sitting in the wilds of Siberia, with no one for miles and miles. It feels like living at the end of the world.
Russia is a really hard country to be in. In almost every way, the values that people hold here are antithetical to my own. People put much more emphasis on appearance than substance here – which is true everywhere… but so overt here. Women dress over-the-top sexy and put on 5″ spike patent leather heels and tons of makeup even to go grocery shopping or for exercise (only the men go to gyms – the women usually just go for a walk around the ponds… in high heels). I couldn’t give a good goddamn about dressing like a slut. I go the other way, in fact. I look like a dumpy westerner. There was a businessman here who was murdered in part, they say, because he wore a polo shirt to a meeting at the Kremlin. I believe it. It’s that kind of place.
The Russians (women AND men) are not only vain about their bodies, but about their currency. The exchange rate is displayed everywhere here. In metro stations (where there are no exchange kiosks), on the news, on portal websites like mail.ru which have nothing to do with changing currency… everywhere. Are we up or down against the dollar? That’s all they care about. As long as the ruble is doing well against the dollar, who cares? Which is why Medvedev is spending it like water to try to keep the ruble afloat. The entire national pride is based on the economy – which is now shot because oil is down to $65 a barrel. I don’t think they’ll be able to finish the 5 skyscrapers that are currently under construction in Moscow. Including the one with the 3-storey tall beating neon heart hung in it.
All of the other infrastructure is crumbling to hell. The roads and sidewalks here are pothole-filled mud puddles. Water comes brown out of the tap – literally, again – for the first minute or so in Moscow. You can’t even brush your teeth with the water in St. Petersburg because the bacteria that cause dystentery are in the water supply there. The water is only marginally less dangerous in Moscow.
Journalists are murdered, here, for speaking out against the government. Well… only one journalist. That’s only because no one else dared speak out after she was gunned down on Putin’s birthday two years ago. Happy birthday, Mr. Putin! We’ve killed the only journalist who dared speak against you. Businessmen who have challenged economic policy here have been exiled or jailed. Anyone who opposes, who bucks the trend, who tries to make anything better is impoverished, or exiled, or jailed, or shot. Literally. All literally.
Again, this all happens everywhere. Only it is so much more overt in Russia. But… there is this mentality here. Not a “fiddling while Rome burns” one… but a sort of… they’re watching Rome burn and are either completely apathetic or just out to see what they can grab before flames consume it. The prevailing attitude is “even if it’s broken, don’t fix it.” Inertia is the great value here. Even if you suggest an easy, simple change for someone to make to their routine that will save time and money, they will not do it. Why? Because everyone already knows the current system, and even though it doesn’t work, it’s… known! No reason to change anything, ever. There is not only no call for innovation, but all attempts at innovation are blocked.
This apathy can’t be real. I cannot imagine a person who can sit by and let his… or, yes I can. My family have all sat by and let inertia carry them into living death. It is normal. It happens everywhere. And the rot is society-wide in America too. But it is SO, so so so so so so so so overt here. It’s like being brought face to face with your own death. Like seeing the hour you’re going to die, and the manner of it. Except in Russia you’re being brought face to face with the way that all the world is currently dying. This slow, slimy, creeping living death that seems to be swallowing the world. Jesus Christ, it’s enough to make you a nihilist. Where’s my landlady? I’m going to kill her and become the Nietzchean superman.
(I didn’t understand Crime and Punishment before. I disliked the book intensely. NOW I understand. The entirety of Russia is contained in that book, just as it was during the time Dostoevsky wrote it.)
No one will talk about the problems plaguing Russia. No one will say a single word of bad about the country. People look back over their shoulders when you ask about Soviet times, and grow silent. The FSB (come on, people, it’s the fucking KGB just given a new name) is known to tap phones, especially of westerners in Moscow. Sdrastvoitye, you bastards. The Russians have three values: Church, Family, State. Each of these is worshiped with absolutely over-the-top enthusiasm and adoration. Their faith in all three is devout – and becomes more devout as the objects of worship become more obviously corrupt.
The food is… 95% of it is not salable in a western supermarket. I’m talking about things that are obviously rotting or putrefying being sold. There are about 5 varieties of vegetables that you can get fresh, and maybe 2 more that you can only get frozen. Fruit is mainly apples and oranges – over-ripe. There is no fresh milk. It’s all sold in shelf-stable packaging. Most people eat tons of meat – for at least 2 meals a day, in combination with vegetables swimming in oil. By the end of the afternoon on Sunday, grocery store shelves are empty. Literally. With people squabbling to see who gets the last loaf of bread. Again, literally.
Old people get $200 a month in pensions. University professors make about $300 a month. That is not enough to live. Old people sell whatever they can get on blankets laid out along the main streets. They’ll starve if they don’t. Degrees are worth very little because the professors make so little that they can easily be bribed to give poor students good grades. There’s no such thing as a full-time student. Everyone studies at night, and works during the day. The Moscow Times says that banks are delaying payment on student loans. One bank has only ever given out 900 student loans in all the years its done business. 732 of those students are still in school. 125 of those students have not had their (already approved) tuition paid out, because the bank doesn’t have any money to pay. So the students can’t take their tests. Nothing has changed since the fall of Communism. The same people are making money – only the job they supposedly hold has changed. Party members became “businessmen” – like Putin’s best friend Oleg Deripaska, who is Russia’s richest man. A billionaire self-made by nefarious practices. His billions are all government money.
It is not just because of Communism. There is a reason why Communism could take hold in Russia in the first place. Nationalism in the 19th century was especially strong in 2 places: Bismarck’s Germany, and Russia. Germany got Hitler. Russia got Stalin. WHY? Why those two places? Well… Russia is essentially medieval. So many of the attitudes I have read about in historical Russians – of the very prince who founded Moscow in the 1200s – are present today. Russia lives still in the middle ages. Why? Why did the Renaissance and Enlightenment not come here? There has got to be a deeper reason. There has got to be a reason why this country, above all others, is so overtly on the verge of collapse.
Again, my plaint is not that any of this is unique to Russia. Just that – like under the hole in the ozone layer – the sun’s rays fall harshest here. They put everything in the west into sharp contrast. Let those countries paint an inch thick… to this end they must come. Oddly enough… I like Russia. In a way… it is more comfortable that the vanity, that the violence, that the medieval mindset, that… everything is so much more overt here. Perversely, it’s almost easier to deal with. Because it’s just as dangerous here as in the west… but in the west you can’t see the danger so much. People’s defenses here… talking with a Russian is like talking with a walled city. First you’ll get the bland denial. Then the over-the-shoulder glance for FSB agents. Then you’ll get the half-smile and the words “…but I will not say anything bad about Russia.” Then the accusations of it being worse in the west. Then the high-flying rhetoric. Then the appeal to the strangeness of god. And after that, the Russian will light a cigarette and no longer talk to you.
But… everyone is like a walled city in the west too. Only their defenses are not as overt. The blandness, then the uncomfortableness, then the accusations, then the “heh… well, you don’t know” then… nothing. Shut down. Blank out. People really are the same everywhere.
My problem is not a problem with Russia. This post is not even specifically about Russia. It’s about everywhere. It’s a problem with this entire civilization on the verge of collapse. And I’m glad it’s on the verge of collapse! Not because I’m some sort of nihilist who wants to watch the world burn. Quite the opposite. I love this good earth, and what we can do here, and the possibilities – such possibility! – in humanity. But I am glad that this set of contradictory, self-mutilating, confused, superstitious “principles” the world holds will not let society stand. I am glad to know that (as our theory holds) these false principles and false morality lead always to misery and destruction – or at the very least confusion and frustration and intertia. Because if they didn’t, and if things kept chugging along happily… what the hell have we taken the hard road for? What the hell have I deFOOed for? If we could live happy with bad principles… why would we not?
I seem to be going round and round, though. What has this got to do with me? That’s what… that’s what I wanted to express on the phone, but… couldn’t. Didn’t feel I could. That everything is more overt, and that… that it is very hard. I’ve been brought face to face with… the finality of seeing other people’s principles in action. That world that Rand described in the last third of Atlas, when absolutely everything is falling to hell? That’s NOW! That’s Russia! I’m frightened and feeling quite lonely and alone. And I don’t want to do this on my own. I want people around me – need them. Not bland bloodless people like my flatmate – although she is nice enough to talk to. I want people who see and want to make things better. People who hold the same values and are working towards the same things as I. People who have ambition and care for innovation and want to drag the whole goddamned world, kicking and screaming, out of pre-history. People who are like me.
You.
I’ve been asked to do what new teachers are almost never (or shouldn’t be) asked to do: to teach two advanced level and one elementary level class. New teachers are invariably (or should invariably be) given intermediate-level classes. I have one… but only one.
Two of these classes – one of them advanced level – are classes of teenagers. 15- and 16-year-olds who do not want to learn English, and let you know it. Defenses and projection abound. I understand why this is and I feel sorry for the children – their parents and culture have conspired to completely fuck them up – because it’s not really their fault. However, in 2 hours a week, I can do very little to break down their defenses. Especially not when they come in groups of 10.
I refuse to be around adults whose defenses and general attitude make it impossible to communicate with them… so why – especially when it’s extremely unfair (and absolute crap for the students as well) to have a new teacher put in with advanced students – should I teach classes that I don’t want, and with which I can do nothing?
I talked with the assistant director of students this morning, trying to find a way to give these classes to more experienced teachers. He basically told me to suck it up. I understand and don’t fault him – he must look to the school’s bottom line, after all – but… it made me extremely upset to know that I’ll be stuck trying to make the best of this until June. I felt trapped. I felt hurt. I felt invisible. One thing J kept saying is that “All teachers feel this way initially.” I’m sure they do. When you are trapped, it is a horrid feeling.
I was on the verge of tears and decided to take a walk. Without initially knowing where I was going, I headed off in the direction of Kuntsevskaya Metro – away from the school. As I walked down the hill amidst birch trees filled with chirping birds, I realized something:
I’m not trapped.
Despite what J made the situation out to be, there are at least two options. One is to go off-contract, which means that I could choose the classes I want – but it also means that I have to arrange my own flat and my own visa, which is extremely expensive. The other option is to leave Russia altogether and head for Czech Republic or Turkey – or Berlin, London, or Buenos Aires, for that matter.
My problem is not with Russia. It is not with teaching. I like Russia- I do not love it, but Russia exerts a strong pull on me. The people here make almost a religion out of worshipping strength. It is fascinating to observe Russia, and Russians. I do not want to leave. I also do not have a problem with teaching. My adult classes – both the pre-intermediate and the advanced ones – are lovely. Even the 10-year-old children that I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays are sweet – and great fun to teach. I do not want to stop teaching them.
Is my problem even with the teens? Not really. They are inevitably what they have to be here, and their feigned indifference is their best and only defense. Fine. However… I do not think that I can do a good job with teaching them. I refuse to sit idly by and let them spend the entire class chatting in Russian… but I’m also not willing to spend my time and energy reaching them. I probably could, on a level… but to tell you the truth, it’s just not worth it to me.
As bad as it sounds… they’re just not a priority. Reaching them is not a priority for me. It is not something I wish to plow 110% of my time and energy into achieving.
The teens deserve a teacher who is willing to put in such time and energy. Someone who wants to make this a career, or at least wishes to improve their teaching to a level that will enable them to get through. I also deserve to have my needs met – not by J or by the school, but by myself. J does not owe me the right to refuse to teach teens – it is in my contract that I cannot refuse – but I owe myself the recognition of my own priorities, needs, and desires.
That’s what I learned on the way to Kuntsevskaya Metro. Not that I don’t want to teach teens. Not that J doesn’t owe me anything. Not even that I’m not trapped. But that I need to do all I may to improve my situation, and meet my needs and desires, and honor my feelings.
J has requested another parley. Here it goes. :)
…I’m sitting here at Tverskaya school. There’s some sort of obligatory seminar that I have to attend about how and what to teach to advanced level students. It might be useful… but I don’t want to be here.
I want to be about 8 years in the future, standing in a university classroom with a Raphael painting projected on a screen and a group of about 8 students ranged in front of me.
I began thinking this morning: my favorite professor does not have tenure. She does not make 6 figures. She doesn’t get any time “off” in the summer – it’s all spent in researching. If you count the amount of time she actually spends preparing for lessons, she makes about as much as a Wal-Mart manager.
What, exactly, is so wrong with being a professor, if that’s what you want to do? If that’s what you love? If that’s what you’ve wanted to do since you were 12 and – try as you might – NO argument will eradicate that desire from your soul?
I began thinking this in the shower as I was getting ready to leave for this bloody seminar. I kept giving myself arguments why I should not do what I want to do. I walked to the metro. By the time I got to Filiovsky Park, it was settled. Two stations passed. At Bagrationovskaya I began to wonder whether this is not just a reaction to my first few days in Russia, which have gone hard. Two stops passed. At Kutuzovskaya (amusing how Russia’s two greatest generals – my two favorite “real” people in War and Peace – are separated by only one metro stop) I realized… I don’t want to go back to Columbia. The desire is not to run to the “safety” of the university. The desire is what it has always been: to teach. NOT English – I am resenting that right now… which I hope will go away. This resentment of having to teach English is… sigh.
But no. To actually share my love of something with people and have them receive it and be interested and love it too. Sitting on the grass with my friends outside a castle and recounting ancient history and having them actually be interested. I want that. I want more of that.
I’m going to stay in Russia. I’m not going to run away. But when I think of sitting in an office for 40 years, I feel sick. When I even think of non-stop travel for the next 40 years, I am not glad in my heart. When I think of the professoriate – even though I will never be granted (and do not want to be granted) tenure, even though my stuff will never be published, even though in a big way it’s the harder road… still, the desire is there – undiminished since age 12.
Given a why, it’s said, one can bear almost any how. In the spring I lost my why, but I think I’ve found it again – somewhere between Bagrationovskaya and Kutuzovskaya on the Moscow metro.
More details to come later. I just can’t WAIT to show you the pics of my flat. Only the best Stalin-era decor going on around here! At least I’m able to steal internetz.
Way to go @ Google for automatically translating all its pages into Russian for me. Maybe it’ll make me learn faster. Spasiba balshoia, Google.
Today I woke up on time, cleaned half my room as I said I would, went out for a 40-minute run (and consequent 3-mile walk back through Regent’s Park) and… it’s so beautiful.
The light is gorgeous this morning. There’s just that small touch of fall in the air, where the breeze is crisp, but the sun is warm. The trees have begun to change, and the green-gold and red of the leaves sparkles against the blue sky. The clouds are lovely and fluffy, and look almost as though they were made from meringue.
As I was walking back through the park I came upon a playground. There were children there, but none of them was using the swingset. I got a bit of a temptation to go on the swings, but the thought passed that maybe it would look silly for a woman grown to swing on them.
I did it anyway.
I haven’t been on a swingset in about 11 years. I’d forgotten the sensation of the wind in my hair and the cool metal of the chain between my fingers. Directly in front of me was the most beautiful clear patch of sky with just one cloud in it. The cloud looked like a little fluffy white dog playing in the grass. I think I laughed aloud.
The time has passed so easily and simply this morning. Today, I think, will be a good and useful one – where I am effective and free to work as I wish – as only I can.
Now off to bathe and take a walk down Gower Street.
…by the Voevoda Bolshoia.
Aucassins!
Why give me such courtly language? I am NOT a courtier.
Don’t try to assuage me – appease me with horseback riding lessons, swordsmanship lessons, or promising to attend the Kaiserball. Why do I want to dance with vapid courtiers? I am not one. Don’t make me one.
I am here, my dear girl, to show you that there is more. More than this. You would kill yourself, I know, if you thought there was no more than this. If it was the ascendancy and rose of the fair state – would you STOP with the fucking Shakespeare?! – for the rest of your days. You want to DO. To BE. Something high. Something more than this… don’t. Stop. No “petty pace from day to day” – you’re not Macbeth, either.
Send me to the war right now. I swear to god, send me back in time and give me a sword and an army and let me work. Let me DO. Let me BE. I want to construct something. Something grand. Something lasting. No, not by the sword, but by the work that makes the sword point moot. Something more than this sitting in a flat and medicating yourself with food and endless internet surfing.
So I took you out. I won’t let you rest. Why do you think you started running as fast as you could? YES! It felt good, didn’t it? To DO something. To get out of this rotting sphere. One part of your life is going so well – yet this other part you hide and let stagnate.
Please don’t importune me for safety. I am NOT safe. Not tame. Nor should you be. Yes, prudence. Prudence, however, is not mouldering. It’s not sitting on your ass for the rest of your born days. It’s not only taking me down off the shelf when you want to play at being Crawford of Lymond. Don’t build your soul around him. Or around anyone. Least of all those jackals we left behind.
That was ME at your back, prodding you on. On to the greater, to the higher. Enough with this selfishness. It was necessary, but build something better. Something higher. Don’t try to medicate me with moving to Egypt either. Following Crawford of Lymond to Russia is quite enough. Where’s your tsar, then?
Yes, you dream of your tsar. He’s not going to come to you sitting in this flat. Work to be worthy of him without even knowing him, as he is even now – somewhere there – working to be worthy of you without knowing you. And if you never come together, what then? You will have achieved as much as you could on your own.
I gave you a year. A year to get to know yourself. A lifetime, I meant. It is not enough. Take what you’ve learned – be secure in THAT and move on. Learning is a wise thing to do – and NOT Seneca, or 72 hours worth of poetry, or how to impress people at an art gallery. Why do you think Crawford of Lymond learned those things? Not for others, but for himself. You want them for others. Which is why I’ve not let you have them.
Peruggino, by the way. That’s why you forget the name every time you stand in front of that altarpiece. You’re not going to dream of impressing people with that. They’re Lynn’s ideas anyhow.
No, you don’t have to burst from the head of Zeus fully formed. But for god’s sake, you want – I want – to build something greater than this. You can’t build it for yourself. That’s the one thing that others get. And they don’t want to see you do it out of condescention. They want to see you do it out of love, which you don’t have yet. Not for anything or anyone real, anyhow. Love yourself first, my dear. All of us. Yes, even me.
I came – I have always come – to show you there is more. These fits of restlessness that are the only time you’ve gotten anything done. Oh, alright, you want me to soften that. It’s true. They’re the times when you’ve gotten the most done. When you’ve moved mountains.
“If only I could work as I can and wish to work!” you cry. You can. What’s stopping you? I am here! We are all strong. We want to move you forward. Those who don’t could bring up valid objections. We will make even them easy with the project if only you will say. If only you will commit to doing something. If only you will not moulder. We’ve sent headaches and tiredness and backaches and neckaches and cravings of all sort and nearly delirium… and we’ve sent Crawford of Lymond again.
Come without us having to send those things. Come with us freely and see what we cannot work out. You are killing yourself as you are – letting yourself go to waste. Why is that? What hold have they still got? That virus of mediocrity that they infected you with. That fear of failure.
My dear, if we go at this, we WILL fail sometimes. Have we got so little faith in ourselves that we don’t think we’ll win through? No, that’s not it. Will we be attacked by people? Will people not like us? YES, sometimes. And that’s the problem, isn’t it. Because you’ve got no self-love yet, and so you must put up with the sham love of others.
My dearest girl, we can help you to that too. If once you start doing great and wonderful things, the self love will come. And the fear of attack and the loss of the love of others will cease to be – cease to matter so much.
Come with us. You are here for much better things – not owed them, but here to MAKE them.
You idolize Chekhov for his plays. Tolstoy and Dunnett for their writing. Holbein and Raphael for their art. Dowland and Ventadorn for their music. Then come make something which will make you stand back with awe.
Today, what did you say to us, looking up at Nelson’s Column? You said “I want one of THOSE in my honor!” turning around, you thought better. Looked at the gallery. “No,” you thought, “I want one of THOSE in my honor.”
Go out and make it. Whether it’s an equestrian monument or an art gallery or a business that will let you keep exploring until you’ve found the Lymond to your Philippa… or, no. No metaphors there. Go out and create until it is time to find your husband. Remember, the one you’ve wanted since the age of 9? You’ve not met him yet, I guarantee.
That is all I have to say. I’m not going to sleep. I’m going to get you through the time until you get to Russia, and the first days there. Then – as you know, as is normal – you’ll start to wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into. Don’t ignore that – they have a point, Betha and Phemie, as you call them. But their point is that you don’t feel strong enough yet. Fine. Stop standing alone then, and shutting the rest of us out. We want to help. For god’s sake, I wanted to be a captain of merceneries! I don’t want to be a captain any more.
What I want is a group that I can respect and trust. To include everyone in here, not just the romantic bits, or the Hamlet-quoting bits, or the shiny bits to impress others. Include the dirty bits too. The bits you’d rather not see. The angry bits. The controlling bits. The cruel and violent bits. The hurt bits. The upset ones. The insecure ones. They’re all you! Every single one of them.
And for god’s sake, stop playing into other people’s narcissism. Helping them evade themselves isn’t going to help you evade us. I say this with all love and sympathy, my dear girl… but trust us. Haven’t we earned it?
