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| QUOTATIONS 2006-2024 |
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| 2006. It has allegedly been said by one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, perhaps, but I'm not sure) that if God didn't exist he should have been invented, implying the practical usefulness of the idea of God to the general welfare of mankind. Following this as a guiding principle one may say that if Jews didn't exist, they should have been invented as well. For considering that they're universally held to be the lowest of the low the Jews provide every scoundrel with a feeling of superiority which seems so vital to self-esteem even of the most despicable scum. Also, since while everyone dislikes each other, all hate Jews, the Jews help to create and maintain this universal brotherhood (from which they're naturally excluded) so much celebrated by the champions of love and peace. 2007. Ideal society? Very interesting subject, but I am afraid writing about even the possibility of an ideal human society, never mind proposing the shape it may take, is against my deepest convictions. I simply don't believe that even a reasonably tolerable society is humanly attainable. To begin with, society is just an abstract term – in reality there are only separate individuals, or as Aristotle puts it – the universals have no real existence, only the particulars. So, both sooner and later, it all comes down to the particulars – the individuals. And it is hard to deny that each individual is by nature a self-serving egotist, whose notion of "ideal society" is such in which he fairs the best, and lets God or Devil take care of the rest. The few altruists amongst us, as precious as they are, do not make that much difference in the greater scheme of things. Of course, if one believes Adam Smith, the efforts of each individual, made free to pursue his self-interests, lead inevitably to the common good. Alas, the tragedy of Scottish Clearings and Irish Famine, the horrors of Industrial Revolution, the devastation of the Great Depression (and we are talking here only about English speaking world, with which Adam Smith was intimately familiar) long ago refuted this optimistic proposition. All this outrage has been committed by the individuals pursuing their self-interests. Has "an individual" today is any different then 100, 200, 1000 years ago. I don't see evidence of that. So, what gives us hope that anything done by the same "individuals" ( because it is them who are responsible for everything happening on this planet, and not some abstract society, system, ideology, etc.) will be any different in the future. For as we learned from History (if we learned anything) any religion, any ideology, any policy are as good as the people (individuals) who actually believe, embrace and implement them. And people, contrary to the popular platitudes, basically are not good. I don't derive this view from the revealed Religion that believes in the Original Sin and claims that all men are inherently evil. I based my misanthropic convictions on study and observation of the real people. Again, we are speaking about the rule not the exceptions. Recently, I re-read Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". The Yahoos still dominate this planet. They may speak different languages, pray to different gods, eat different foods, etc., but they are all the members of the same race – Yahoos. So, as far as the mankind and its prospects I am with Jonathan Swift, rather than with Adam Smith. Which brings us to my original statement that on the subject of "ideal society" I can only speak for the negative and never for the affirmative. 2008. America is the only true cultural democracy in the history of mankind. It is one and only country on this planet when the ordinary men, i.e. mediocre, badly informed, ignorant, tasteless and often downright stupid, do not suffer from inferiority complex but actually feel proud of who they are, because everything and everybody cater to this mediocrity, celebrates it and declare it the greatest virtue. Only in America "the poor in brain" are the salt of the earth. Nobody is going to tell them that Mozart is better than Presley, or Shakespeare than Three Stooges. If you like stupid sitcoms we will produce them by the dozens for your enjoyment. If you like them to be even more dumb, no problem, we can do it too. If the lowest common denominator is still too high for you it could be lowered more, and more, and more into the bottomless pit of idiocy and vulgarity. Do you feel your president is too sophisticated and hard to understand? No problem. We have some real dummies to replace him. How dumb you want him to be not to threaten your ego? Just ask. And the best of all, no efforts are necessary on your part. You don't have to improve yourself. You are perfect as you are. After all, you are real American. 2009. The beginning and development of irrationality often displays the dynamics closely resembling that of a chain reaction, when one irrational thought or act leads to and is reenforced by the next one on the higher scale, which in its turn is supported by the subsequent act and thoughts of even greater irrational intensity. And if this process is not interrupted and brought to a close or better still is reversed it could escalate into the real madness with all its horrifying consequences. 2010. The youth rush past – everything in a blur. The old walk slow – they notice things And see them clearly. 2011. Why throughout recorded history anticipation and dread of the imminent end of the world has always endured, and at some crucial points was even openly wished for? The answer comes from the simple sense of justice, ingrained in every human heart, i.e. that the horrible things we witness and are ceaselessly subjected to through no fault of our own have no moral right to exist. But since they do, the simple logic of justice demands that the world which begets them has to be destroyed and replaced with a new and just one. Thus apocalyptic longings are not just about destruction but rebirth as well. As a matter of fact it is driven mainly by yearning for the renewal, for the better life to come. 2012. Contrary to a popular assumption a man blessed with a good wife, i.e., kind, attentive, helpful and forgiving is more prone to commit adultery than one cursed with a shrew – bad tempered, quarrelsome, demanding, jealous, and vindictive. In the first case due to the quite common mistake of making a generalization based on insufficient data– one good woman– a lucky husband assumes that his wife is a typical representative of the whole womanhood and would be looking for and expecting the repetition of the same pleasant experience again and again. In the second case, misled by the same law of premature generalization, the abused husband develop hostility and mistrust toward all women in general, and being always in fear that the next one will be as bad as his wife avoids involvement with women altogether – once bitten twice shy. Ergo– a man fortunate in marriage is more likely to be unfaithful to his wife than the unfortunate one. Accordingly, a wife who thinks that treating her husband well would guarantee his faithfulness is mistaken, for often it produces the opposite effect. Of course, there is always a risk (life is full of them) that mistreated husband would just quit. But if, no matter what, he stays, the chances are he would never even think about adulatory – the very idea of being tormented by yet another shrew would fill him with abhorrence and fear. 2013. Be it politics, ideology, religion, arts, etc., all I ever ask from people I'm having discussion with is intellectual objectivity. I fully appreciate the enormity of such a request given the long process of indoctrination one is subjected to from early childhood up to and during one's adult life. To come out of it with one's openness of mind intact, to preserve one's individuality is very difficult for it goes against socializing side of human nature – one looks for safety in belonging to a group and belonging means to share, at least ostensibly, politics, ideology, religion, taste in arts, etc., with other group members. To be a member of a group is like to be in a house, protected from elements, while to be an individual is to stand alone outside of it being exposed to them. And very few would choose hardship instead of safety –it is unnatural, and so is maintaining one's individuality. And if this is true demanding from my interlocutors to be intellectually objective is essentially futile. 2014. Sure, like every other writer I want people to understand what I'm trying to say. But since true understanding comes from empathy and my writings are but an attempt to explain pain and unhappiness of my own life, what I actually expect (or even ask) from the reader is to have a life which is as painful and unhappy as mine. And this, undoubtedly, is to much to expect and to ask. 2015. One's strength, especially when is too much relied upon, can often be a source of one's weakness. One of the greatest delusions of my life was (and still is) to believe that if I am right and manage to articulate it clearly (which I was always good at) the people would understand and agree with me. O, how naive I was! How naive I am! For not only people never agree, all the clever arguments notwithstanding, with something they disagree from the beginning, the more eloquent, the more persuasive I am the angrier my opponents become and the less and less they are willing to acknowledge the strength of my arguments as if they resent me being eloquent even more than me being right. And to think that I have been blind to this all my life. What a colossal waste of time, of intellectual and physical energy, of deeply felt emotions! My words are falling to the ground Unable seems to penetrate The wall of silence built around The souls of men with bricks of hate. 2016. An average life resembles a salad with many, sometimes too many, ingredients. The thing is, it is often hard to tell which one determines the taste of it all. 2017. Contrary to Freud who saw the root of all evils in sexual repression and frustration, I am not sure sexual liberation, freedom and promiscuity (to use a less edifying, but more realistic term) do more good than harm to one's state of psychological well-being. For since sexual relations are relations between two people, the other, dark side of sexual liberation is a freedom of one to betray and abandon and a "freedom" of another to be betrayed and abandoned. So, in a state of sexual freedom, there is always a winner and a looser. And some , especially men are not "the good losers," as proliferation of "crimes of passion" has shown. In general, sexual freedom is good for young and good looking, ones with "hot pants" and cold hearts. For the rest, who are not, being one of many rejected (and suffer from sexual frustration) may look more attractive than being one of many accepted and suffer from jealousy and abandonment. 2018. About this old business of "know thyself," which keeps resurfacing in my mind again and again. I am less and less sure about its purported wisdom. As a matter of fact I think it's rather redundant. Most os us know ourselves quite well. Certainly more than anyone else will ever do. And not for some special gift of self-perception we posses. First, we know all about ourselves, and, not to put a too fine point on it, doesn't it amount to the same thing as "knowing thyself?" We are what we do, aren't we? And, as far as the others are concerned, we simply aren't open enough for any one else to know us well. 2019. It is one of the great misfortunes of humanity that its glory days are also too often its gory days. 2020. It is a tragic curse of the few great to have their legacy be invariably trivialized by the mediocre many. 2021. At this stage of my life (67) when working for a living is thankfully no longer a necessity, I have finally a luxury if not of doing what I really want (this is too lofty an ambition for anyone) but at least not to do what I definitely don't want to. So, I think the time has come to unburden myself of all those thing I don't care anymore about but continue nevertheless to carry on out of pure habit and inertia. For doing them not only take a lot of real time. It also wastes the time of imagination, of contemplation, the time spent in conversations with myself and the others completely inside of my mind, the time of sorting things out, in a word, the time of inner life. And since I consider such time as the most valuable of them all, from now on I resolve to do only the things I really care about. I know it's not going to be easy, for other things and especially people will continue to lay a claim to my time. But more and more often I would have to be firm and to demur – I don't have too much time left. 2022. While truth like a good wine is getting better and better with age, even the best lie sooner or later becomes undrinkable. 2023. A standard definition of nostalgia is a longing for a place one originally came from, and everyone who has ever left such a place, be it a village, a city or a country, is familiar to a greater or lesser degree with this emotion. Consequently, a typical cure for this affliction is to return to the place of one's origin, "to come back home." For most of people it works. But not for everyone. There are those who suffer from what could be called "two ways," "shuttle," or "reverse" nostalgia. These people once they move can never find peace anywhere. For example, leaving A and moving to B makes them naturally nostalgic for A. But, when they return to A they become nostalgic for B(from which they were driven by nostalgia for A) and want to go back there. And in some hard cases this can go on for as long as one lives. Thus they constantly move, back and forth, never being able to settle permanently anywhere. But since normal life cannot be spent on a move, unless one is a nomad, one has to settle finally in one place. And those who can't could never be satisfied, for they feel content only while moving from one place to another. 2024. In the country of my origin, Soviet Union, the chronic shortage of food and other consumer goods forced many of its inhabitants to sublimate their material wants into cultural ones – people deprived of pleasure of eating and dressing well learned to derive their satisfaction from reading (50¢/ a book), going to the movies (50¢/a ticket), attending theater, opera, concert($1/a ticket) etc., etc. For some this process of transferring their allegiance from material to cultural goods was relatively easy one, and, undoubtedly, the innate predisposition played an important part in it. I was one of them and enjoying what culture has to offer became as natural to me as breathing. And to such an extent that the quite real scarcity of the most basic necessities our daily existence was so full of, never truly bothered me. In short, I was an ideal member of Soviet state – I wanted what it could and had no need for what it couldn't offer, and both became an integral part of my nature. And I, in turn, became an integral part of the society I was born into. I was surrounded mostly by people who liked what I liked, and disregarded what I disregarded, and who like me preferred the cultural to material goods. In short, I was a part of the community of the like-minded people and a feeling of estrangement was foreign to me. All this changed when in 1972, at the age of 33, I left Soviet Union and moved first to United States and, later, to Canada. Needless to say, I found myself in a completely different world. In the beginning the sheer abundance and dazzling variety of everything overwhelmed me. But very soon I noticed that despite the relatively easy availability of many of the consumer goods my attitude toward them remained unchanged – I still neither wanted nor needed most of them. (In this I empathize with Diogenes who said that when going through the market he is amazed how many things there are he could do without.) As in my previous life I would rather read, watch a movie, go to opera or concert and live in apartment rather than eat out, buy fashionable clothes, a new car every couple years, house, etc. But what made the difference is that this time I was in minority. I simply could not adjust to the new paradigm and join the majority of the happy and eager consumers. To tell the truth I didn't even try. Thus the habits acquired and proved useful, even vital in the land of scarcity became a handicap in the land of plenty, for they put me in unfamiliar heretofore territory – now I was an outsider, an aberration, a stranger in a strange land. And, paradoxically, not because I was an immigrant, but because I could not do what other immigrants were doing and enjoying it – emulating the Romans. I couldn't even find a solace in blaming the society for rejecting me, for it was I who rejected it. All this made me always feel, to use an appropriate metaphor, like a teetotaler in a bar, or like a vegetarian in a stake house, unable to partake in common delights and voluntarily putting myself beyond the pale. And for the first time in my life, I was in the midst of people I have absolutely nothing in common with and experienced the true and profound loneliness, the loneliness of self-imposed internal exile. I still do, and it seems that nothing could be done about it – there are no stronger prison's walls than those that are self-made. Perhaps at this point I ought to make it perfectly clear that what has been said so far should not be misconstrued as a claim that there is some inherent dichotomy between enjoying material and cultural goods. I know people who appreciate both in more or less equal measure. It is just that I, unfortunately, not one of them, due, as I've said before, to both nature and nurture. And while I'm sure not to be the only one who when moved from socialist East to capitalist West found himself in such a predicament, I am afraid that mine is a rather extreme case, attributable, of course, entirely to my personality – whatever the situation I tend to gravitate to the ultimate outcome it has in store. Again, nothing could be done about this either. We are who we are–one's personality is one's destiny. Anyway, I think enough said...for now. |
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