Thoughts of wise people... and me

Accidentally found a notebook where just a year ago I was collecting some ideas, phrases and thoughts that I heard or read somewhere as well as my own thoughts. A lot of them still sound vital for me.

“For the whole 15 years since he realized that life was not an easy thing it didn’t seem to be as hard as it was now”.

“Having a character is not that bad for an angel”

John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga

“You can be happy even without money, but when everything around tells you that you can be happy only while spending money you become frustrated. It seems like you don’t exist if you don’t consume. I think, people should learn how to spend not more, but better. You have to know and to feel what you really need. You shouldn’t live in a permanent search of something special – something that doesn’t even have a shape…”

 From the interview with some Russian actor

You can rush about, be exhausted, have grave problems, be sick, but remain absolutely happy.

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

“If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

Ray Bradbury

“Everyone knows that Russian women are the craziest women in the world. Their eyes are full of passion; they often cheat on their husbands and sleep with other guys. However, they rarely have more than two kids. That’s how Allah punishes them!”

“I think there are people of two types: those who come from forest and those who come from steppe. You can get drunk without wine in the East, in the steppe. People are intoxicated by heated wind and hot sand. The steppe world is simple and clear. The forest world is full of questions; it doesn’t promise you anything. But the passion of a soul comes from the forest. A steppe person is able to have only one feeling and to know only one truth. While a forest person has many faces. The steppe creates fanatics, the forest makes creative people. That is the main difference between the East and the West.”

Kurban Said, Ali and Nino

Just cancel tomorrow in your life and you will always have time for everything

“It requires a lot of courage to ask this fundamental question – what things that I demand from the other person I have to do myself for myself.”

James Hollis

I hate the phrase “What’s new?” You can’t respond “I’m ok” and shrug your shoulders with indifference.

“There is time for work and there is time for love. There is no other time”

Coco Chanel

What do I love? Books, history, stories, people, music, piano, leaves, movies, languages, smiles, fluffy hair, dances, surprises, presents, to wake up with sun, snow, letters, kids, to say hello, to love, to write in a pretty handwriting, my students, Saturday, campus at 9 am…

“There is no way back in love. You can’t start from the beginning – everything that happens stays in your blood”

Erich Maria Remarque, Borrowed Life

           - What do you see in this guy?

-        -   Happiness.

“You become incredibly arrogant in our sorrow. We try to show that we don’t need anyone while inside we wish to feel somebody’s arm on our shoulder.”

Elchin Sadarli, I’ll come back

Clocks not only guard the time, they also remind you how quickly the time passes.

“When you don’t know what to do wait for a while. Hide. Live as it goes. The sign will appear sooner or later. The most important is to know that you are waiting and to be ready to meet what you are waiting for.”

Luis Rivera

Come on, accept finally yourself as you are. Imagine that you are a real you.

“Those who are to meet are connected by red, invisible thread in spite of time, place and circumstances. This thread may stretch out, may tangle, but it will never break off”

Old Chinese proverb

Death doesn’t leave you a chance to play a role – it reconciles everything and everyone.

“Life is too short to waste it on diets, greedy men and bad mood.”

Faina Ranevskaya

I’m so happy today. I have a little secret – there are much more good people than bad ones. Much more.

One of the signs that you live abroad – you use Google more often than Yandex.

Your charm is your happiness that shines in you.

-       You know what? The best photos are made by your memory.

The deepest feeling of freedom – to walk barefeet…

Sexism in Russia: to be or not to be?

Yesterday my friend asked me what target audience my stories address. I wasn’t really ready to answer that question so I asked him what his opinion is. And he told me that my stories can have some political influence because they talk about women, their perception of the world, their creativity, about their way of self-expressing etc. He also told me that my stories can inspire women to talk, to write, to develop their personalities. But the thing is that I never thought of it. I was just writing about feelings and emotions that were close to me, that I knew by my own experience. And I didn’t think about addressing someone particular, for me these stories were about everyone. This conversation made me thinking about the problem of feminism and sexism in my own model of the world and in my country.

Today we also had a discussion about sexism in Russian culture in my department, where we talked about Pussy Riots, Femen and even sexism in Russian literature. This discussion made me shape couple of ideas of how I see that problem in Russia. First of all, sometimes I don’t see a problem in that sphere at all. Even the opposite thing: a lot of women in Russia who talk about “gender discrimination” and “women rights” actually want men to remain “gentlemen” and “knights” which means carrying heavy bags, paying for jewelry and cocktails in the bar, taking care of all the problems, etc. Those women like the phrase “Can’t you just be a man?!” But they start shouting about “women rights” as soon as their men limit their “freedom” to make career instead of taking care of the family, to hang out in clubs with friends instead of making dinner for their husbands, etc. Those women want to see “knight” around but they don’t want to live in the Middle Ages. I mean, ok, if to be a man means to be a gentleman and to feed and to defend his family, then what means to be a woman? To be a beautiful precious thing for a man to take care of, a carefree creature with a freedom to do whatever she wants? Then how about a sexism of judging a woman only by her appearance? Having certain rights always mean having certain responsibilities on the other side.

Another story is about homosexuality in Russia. I feel like I have to say that yes, it’s not familiar for Russian culture. It has never been. And those who say that it’s a Western influence are right. Russia as a country was created on a pretty poor land with infertile soils, with severe climate, between Asia and Europe, both of whom always tried to conquer Russia. You will never find any homosexuality mentioned in Russian folklore, in Russian historical documents, in Russian culture. People just didn’t have time for that, they had sex to make children (because half of them was dying in their early childhood) and they fell asleep right after a long, full of hard work day. They didn’t have time and forces to ponder over their “sexual identity”.

Time passes and the world changes. Russia also doesn’t remain at the same place; it’s a modern country now. So it’s great that young people become more open-minded, that they ask their identities, they explore their personalities and their sexuality, they experiment with their bodies. The thing is that we can’t discuss sexism and homosexuality in Russia the same way as we do it in European countries or United States. That’s why, unfortunately, these notions are used pretty often as a commercial trick or government’s ruse to distract people’s attention from urgent economic and political problems of the country. In short words, it’s sometimes hard to say whether this is your real identity or it was imposed by the mass media.

I grew up in a family where a husband isn’t ashamed of cooking, cleaning and sitting with kids even every day if his wife has a lot of work to do. It doesn’t mean that his wife doesn’t do the same things when he works a lot or when she just has a free time. There was never a question who earns money and who takes care of the house and kids in my family, there was never a question who has more rights or who has more freedom. There was only a question who loves more. And everyone (including us, kids) wanted to win in this competition. And there were always fragrant coffee on Sunday made by my father and delicious breakfasts made by my mother. There are always fresh flowers in our house because my father is a real gentleman, and my mother is a real lady who makes my father want to be a gentleman. 

Once more

Damn it! Why does it always happen at a most unsuitable moment?! No, please, no, not now… Her computer has just crashed, and the whole text that she was typing online for a translating contest vanished forever. It was unfair and depressing. And it happened at 11 pm while deadline for work submissions was midnight. “Typically, - she thought. – But for God’s sake, why are you so obsessed with this contest? Nobody forces you to participate in it. You have your job, your duties, your house to live, everything is fine and settled”. First, the size of the story she chose for translating was too big (the rules of the contest say the translation should be less than 10 000 symbols). She found another story even though she already translated 3 pages from the first one. Then, she couldn’t convert the scan version of the English text to a word-document. She       typed the whole story in the word-document. And now this… Somewhere deep inside, there was a momentary temptation to quit, to give up.

She suddenly remembered how their dance coach once showed them a complicated dance element that required physical strength and flexibility. He said that those who would be able to show this element during the next practicing in two days will present it in a performance they were preparing for a dance competition. She practiced it for the whole Sunday: did her homework for the university and practiced the dance element for half an hour, read the book for two hours and practiced the element for another half an hour, etc. Again and again. Every time she ended up falling on her back, every time she couldn’t hold her legs at the right angle. Her right shoulder and her right hip became blue of bruises. She clenched her teeth and lifted her legs back into the air. Again and again. Next day, during the dance practicing there was only two people in her team except their coach who could do a “freeze” (breakdance element when you keep your body with your arms and lift your legs perpendicularly to the floor). She was one of them.

Just once more. Because she is too stubborn to give up. So she just took a deep breath and started typing her story from the very beginning. Even when you feel that the whole your strength and power is gone, and you literally CAN’T do it anymore, when you are about to give up, there is always this ONCE MORE that leads you to your success. The difference between winners and losers is simple: losers tried for 100 times, winners did the 101^st one.  

There is something

There is something in my work; it’s not vain at all. That makes me incredibly happy, absolutely satisfied and simply excited about doing more for a future. There are moments when I see that my work gives huge results, when I’m infinitely proud of my students. It’s probably the biggest satisfaction of the teacher. To see that people you teach become the best, to feel that now they like your subject as much as you do, to be able to make people believe in what you believe in. To know that you can bring people a joy, a pleasure and a self-satisfaction as well.

It’s so simple. You give your energy, time and emotions, but you get so much energy and joy back when your students smile because they feel that they make a progress. For half a night you try to create the most enjoyable and the most effective ways of learning super complicated Russian verbs of motion. You look for a good song to show in a class for another half a night. And all together in the class you and your students struggle with exercises and explanations, dialogs and texts.

Suddenly, they get the point and give right answers and you both feel as if you have finally climbed the highest peak in the world. And there comes a day when they sing you a complicated and beautiful Russian song (after having learnt Russian for only 4 months), the song they chose, they like, and they enjoy performing. At that moment you know that you did something great. You feel that if you die tomorrow you wouldn’t regret about your life. 

Winter

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that there is no bad weather, there are bad clothes. And that our perception of the weather conditions is very subjective and depends on our mood. But I still can’t help hating winter. I mean, sure, these big, beautifully falling flakes are romantic and pretty. Definitely, this fresh, frosty air wakes you up and gives you energy. I should assure you that one of my favorite holidays in the year is this magic New Year with tiny, bright decorating lights, the smell of mandarins, a fragrant, bushy fir tree and happy smiles everywhere around. And yes, I love skating and skiing as well as making a snowman and playing snowballs.

The point is that I can like it for about a week or two. That’s it. After that period of time I become sick of winter. Of dry skin and weak nails all the time however much you care of them and however many fruit you eat. Of permanent tiredness and laziness when you wake up in the morning with the same amount of energy as you had in the previous evening.  Of this omnipresent white color without any diversity and originality (honestly, white color is the most unemotional and lifeless for me). Of this Kingdom of Sleep when you wish to be a bear to go to bed in the fall (well, I can enjoy like two weeks of winter and then go into hibernation) and wake up in the spring. Of this “just-to-survive-till-New Year” December when everyone is super busy and super tired and when an exciting process of looking for New Year presents turns into a hasty search of useless trifles. Of this infinite waiting for a miracle, for warmth, and for… summer.

Today I came to my class before the scheduled time in the firm belief that my class starts at 2 pm (while it actually starts at 3 pm). And it's gonna be -30C tomorrow. I think it's time for me to go into hibernation...

A lie

It’s bad not to tell truth. I guess most of us learnt that from our parents when we were little kids. But did they explain to us why it’s bad? Did they define what the truth is? I mean the main point that I remember from my early childhood is that lying is immoral. Pretty strong word, isn’t it? Not really helpful though, when the real life happens. How about “let’s not tell mom, she’ll be worrying” or “I’ll say that I was sick so that professor wouldn’t be upset that I’m not interested in his class”? A white lie? And I learnt rather quickly that there are 3 types of lie:

1)                   The worst one: when you are scared of saying the truth because you did something wrong and you are afraid of taking the responsibility (should be corrected if you want to feel better)

2)                    The ambiguous one: when you lie because it makes the other person happier or it safes him from unnecessary stress (yeah, you just say what the other person wants to hear)

3)                   The “ok” one: when you just don’t say something (well, the question is whether it’s lie or not at all?)

I also learnt that you obviously feel really bad when you use the first type, but you sometimes succeed in persuading yourself that you used two other types for good or at least that you didn’t do any harm to anyone by using them. Sometimes. But it doesn’t mean that you feel ok when for some reasons the truth is suddenly discovered and it stresses the other person even stronger. On the other hand, who knows, a lie can have save somebody’s life. There are dozens of example in the history; just think about the movie Life is beautiful. I meant, kids shouldn’t be brought up in the glass palace without knowing the real life, but seriously, who tells their children the whole truth about the world right away?

There is another question regarding truth and lie that actually bothers me even more the ones mentioned above. What is truth? I’m fine with facts: German army either crossed the Soviet border or didn’t, your boyfriend either slept with another girl or didn’t, your kid either got D- in his geography class at school or didn’t. There are no doubts what is truth and what is lie, there are facts. But how about all other areas, everything around facts, our impressions from facts: how about words, ideas, emotions, feelings, beliefs, opinions? Ok, we can agree that tastes differ and there is no absolute truth in opinions, everyone can have his own opinion and that would be his own truth. I must say that I met so many people in my life who doesn’t agree with that and who insist that there is one absolute truth in the world (and for sure it’s their truth).

The most obscure area is emotions and feelings. It’s so easy for me sometimes to persuade myself that I actually feel this or that emotions, that I actually want this or that, that I am actually happy with having this or that. The power of human imagination is enormous. I actually can persuade myself that I love black olives (while I really hate them) and I’ll be sure that it’s true! I can persuade myself that I like the book, the movie, the class, the story, the person…

My mom used to say that everything exists in our head; the world around us is how we see it. And I still don’t know how to understand then what the truth is, whether I really feel certain emotions or I just imagined them for myself, whether I really want to live that life or that role just became my essence? Because it was what I wanted at that time, because it was just easier in the situation, because I just wanted to make someone happy…