oh shi~

My vision of the future has changed with age. And I am talking not about a general vision of the future for the humanity, but rather about the idea of my personal life. The very thought about working standard 9-to-5 job would scare me when I was 14, but now I find a blessing calmness in the perspective of stability. The Czech lifestyle influenced me a lot: now I understand that one can live a small mediocre life without any significant achievements and still be happy. One does not have to prove anything to anyone, and it is OK. The idea that most Russians might find depressing and shamefully unambitious – the ugly cargo-cult of American hustle culture. And I feel that I am not alone. Why do more my peers refuse the idea of the pursuit of success and prefer slow calm life? Did we just get older or there is something else?

I think the reason main reason – and here I can say not only for me, but for my peers too - we do not expect anything from this world anymore. When I was a child, the world was big and open, even though I learned it through cartoons and series. Now, when I am relatively adult, the world is close: my peers cannot afford to have a house, or to make a child. My father in my age raised a second son, and what about me? Living in a little room in a student dorm and watching gaming streams on Twitch, procrastinating in a state of perpetual childhood. And I am not alone: the whole generation of people were promised a safe open world, but we found ourselves trapped in a capitalistic cage of endless consumption that preys on our primal impulses, that was built by our parents. I feel we are disconnected and polarized as never before.

Honestly, I get sick watching YouTube videos on this topic. And it was not the touch of leftism of some speakers – I am quite used to the cliché about evil corporations (which I cannot disagree with). I rather felt desperate and powerless in front of the twenty first century slavery. And the worst of it, this slavery is voluntarily: we pay to buy the newest version of a digital slave collar and feed it with our personal information. We go out of our way to be overstimulated, we compete in a performing consumption and conforming to an imposed lifestyle. Our brains are drained by pornography; our relationships are devalued by Tinder. Nobody made us to live like this, it was our free choice. But was it conscious?

I often come back to the thought I heard several years ago. It says that previously only the rich people were able to afford using the Internet and technologies, and poor people had to live offline life. Now it changed dramatically: only rich people can afford offline entertainment, gatherings and so on, meanwhile watching series and playing computer games is a prerogative of the poorest ones. Is it a conscious choice too?

Several years ago there was a broad discussion about the book The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. He insisted that nowadays there is less violence in the world than ever before. Today, 15 years later after release of this book, everything is not that certain. But even if we agree that there is less violence (with I highly doubt), are we happier than, let us say, 70-100 years ago? We traded slow pace of life for an iPhone, changed religion for psychotherapy, replaced physical labor with rat race, and sold freedom for an illusion of stability and safety of digital gulag. Algoritms are proved to be even more dangerous and disconnecting than good old physical violence.

today i had a dream. someone made me drink an alcohol shot. i was extremely angry and tried to vomit, but i couldn't. i felt absolutely helpless and miserable in this dream

I looked at it and it literally took my breath away. my heart started beating slower, but stronger. my breathing slowed down. no matter how beautiful a photo I take in prague or anywhere else in europe might be — it’s not my beauty. not my colours. not my memories!!!!

looking at this photo, it occurred to me that I never really had a romantic experience among russian panel blocks. well, technically there was one time, but it’s hard to call it romantic. just an experience, even if a foundational one (the first kiss and everything that came with it).

there’s a feeling that I’ll return to russia only to fall into a short romance for a couple of months, live it out among grey panel blocks and that heavy, lead-colored, most beautiful sky in the world — and finally close that gestalt.

writing in a foreign language feels like using your left hand when you're right-handed. it's like opening your mouth without making a sounds. it's a random sequence of symbols that doesn't make any sense without exerting a lot of will and spending a lot of emotional energy to process it.

talking to a foreigner is a constant fixation of what is being said without understanding what is not being said. an attempt to understand someone is always a challenge. but the attempt to understand a foreigner is an eight-hour run without shoes on a gravel road made of blades using only one leg while a tiger is chasing you through burning rings. and snakes. a lot of snakes.

i remember that day. or, maybe better, that whole period of my life. it was not long after i fell in love for the first time. i still carried that feeling with me (i didn’t know it would stay for at least two more years), and i wanted to put it somewhere online. it was a strange and difficult time, but probably the most romantic one.

sometimes i miss that feeling of being a sad teenager, confused and overwhelmed by love. i feel like that time pushed me to grow up. now i’m calmer, more phlegmatic, but also less emotional. a long chain of heartbreaks, moving countries, and my first serious relationship changed me so much that i barely recognise that 16-year-old boy from 2015. but i love him deeply.

The end of October

Random recent thoughts:

I am afraid to stay alone with my own thoughts. Not like I am going to think something bad, but I most probably will think about my life, my decisions, what I could have done better. Especially about my past friendships and relationships with people in general. To avoid such thoughts, I turn on streams or music.

Reading books really improves my life. I start seeing more complicated dreams at night, I got the ability to write poems again, my life becomes "slower". I feel better without useless noise from Twitter and other social media.

I stopped using Twitter one week ago. Yes, again. For how long? Who knows. I have noticed that I got more free time and do not push myself into things that do not matter. I feel better, but I still feel that there is a lot of noise and information around me. 

I became addicted to this noise and at the same time I suffer from it. I would like to be more grounded, to focus on what matters, but instead of it, my attention is still messy and thoughts are chaotic.

I am happy with my daily routine and my loneliness in my room. I still see my friends and spend time with my partner (we spent last week being 24/7 together), but I am glad to be back to my small cosy life doing what I like and what I have to do for my uni.

What occupies my head: 

Nostalgia for when I was 16-17. I would like to feel this vibe. The time of both calmness and solvable problems. Feeling of something new, the world was so small and unexplored. So was I. 

I miss being in a group of friends. I used to have a group of friends, but it is ancient history. Now I communicate with my friends face to face, and never in a group. My friends do not know each other and I do not want them to.

I hate it, but I need to go to a dentist. HATE IT!

Work? Money? I want to work and I need to work. But at the same time, I do not need it and do not want it. It is complicated!

I read the poem “Kral Majales” by Allen Ginsberg about the time he spent in Czechoslovakia in 1965. He visited several places in Czechia, mostly Prague, and told about his experience in this poem. But after reading it, I have got a feeling that there is too much Allen in this poem and too little of Czechoslovakia. Even though the country is mentioned in this poem, and its name is in the Czechoslovakian language, it has nothing to do with Czechia nor the Czech culture. For him, Czechoslovakia is a symbol of an opposite world, and he uses the symbol to criticise communism for its hypocrisy. He criticises capitalistic America for its violence, too. However, I find it interesting how he depicts Czechoslovakia not as a country, but as a bearer of the opposing ideology of communism and, what is even more important, he uses the country as a decoration for his own adventures. It is not about Czechoslovakia, it is all about Allen and America. 

The recorded version of the poem I found on Spotify reveals more about the poem and Ginsberg’s motives to write it. Before my first reading of the poem, I decided to find the record of the author reading it — I like listening to the authentic author’s reading when it is possible. While listening, I could not help but notice that some parts from the audio are different from the written poem. I Googled the poem in other sources, and it was the same, missing some parts appear in the recording. Sometimes something that was not said is more important than something that was said. In our case, something that was not included in the final version of this opus. Especially, the line “murdering whom they can in Vietnam” which does not appear in the written version of the poem. The anti-war movement was strong in America at the time and Ginsberg makes use of it in this poem. It is his way of self-representation, it is important to him to share his clear position on war and, maybe, to seek bonus points among his anti-war-minded audience. It is all about Allen and America.

On the record, the audience is laughing in several parts of the reading. At some point, Allen waits until people get calm so he can continue. I highly doubt that the people who were listening to him were Czechs — the recording of such a reading would be probably banned in the socialist Czechoslovakia. Most possibly, the audience is American: I can imagine Ginsberg coming back home to the USA and reading his recent works in public at a special event that was recorded and distributed. He just finished his adventure to another world, visiting Czechoslovakia, Poland and even the USSR. For his audience, it should have been highly entertaining to listen to a fellow American telling about the exotic Eastern European country and his beatnik-style experience in a country of communism. 

What makes it even more absurd — on the website https://www.best-poems.net, this poem can be found under the name “Kraj Majales (King Of May)”. The editors of the website do not even care about following the original name of this poem in Czech. I wonder how many anglophone readers are even aware of the name written in Czech, and not as senseless gibberish. Does the name of Czechoslovakia say something to them? Or is it just one of the small European states that can be easily confused with Romania or Hungary?

I am not able to create cosiness

I wanted this autumn to be something special. I always start to feel this fragrance of light melancholy and cosy loneliness when the daylight hours are starting to decrease, and leaves become to be yellow and red. I always look forward to it and expect the following autumn to be magical and full of atmosphere with a lot of forest adventures, reading, warm drinks and other features of tumblr aesthetics.

It's never like this.

Actually, somewhere in the middle of October I find myself in my usual life, but with more university work and related stress. Autumn always turns out to be simply a dark time of the year with getting a cold, the lack of sun, freezing in the harsh wind. Well, it's not that bad here where I live, but anyway I start to feel a sudden nostalgia for the past summer, the blue sky and wearing shorts.

I wish I could make my life feel more romantic and aesthetic, but I don’t have this ability and I don't know how to learn it. I know some people (all of them are female, btw) who are able to create magic and cosiness out of nothing, their presence itself is a guarantee of special atmosphere, but I'm not like this. I live my usual normie plastic life (which I am totally happy with), but sometimes I feel like it could have been more inspiring and beautiful. I live in a lovely place and try my best to notice beauty in small details, but I find it hard to share this beauty with the world or transform my routine into something aesthetic.

I’ve just started a totally new episode of my life. I feel more adult and responsible now, and I’ve never been there before: I’m doing my masters degree in a European university. Gosh, 12 year old me would scream of joy if he heard it. 

Also, this summer brought something very special. It was my first summer in a serious relationships. We spent most of the time together, learnt about each other, and learnt from each other. I feel it – I became more adult and grounded thankfully to this. And I don’t think about my past anymore. 

It’s like if I let it go and stopped thinking about my past life. I stopped thinking about the people I used to know, about the boys I used to like and cry myself to sleep about. None of this matters anymore.