thiinks

anyway, another day comes but everything feels even more complicated than before. people are more inscrutable and mean for no particular reason. and i have to find my own drive no matter how much i want to sleep or how hopeless i feel about my existence. the numb movements of my body glide up and down. get up, wake up! is it really so hard to understand where everything moves or where i move particularly? as it appears it is hard. my head is a big blue cloud. and sometimes i even enjoy the slow motion of it. sometimes.

evening after evening i look into the dark starry skies. it feels like this deep dotted dome has all the answers. it grows colder moment after moment. the autumnal cold is refreshing. i feel alive again. but i don't know how long it will last. and it doesn't matter. nothing lasts. all my recent dreams have fallen apart. again. it's uncomfortably dull, i must say, this dreamless drifting. i have to start over but for now i don't even know where to start. i just gaze into the endless nights searching for answers. but there are none. after all, maybe there's no tomorrow.

i wonder what is the point of becoming better if all you get is a bad attitude from strangers and disdain from close relations. if you're bad at something they don't like you but if you're good at something they start openly hating you. from now on no matter what is happening to you, good or bad, their words will always be stained with either jealousy or gloating. and for you there won’t be anything but this huge existential abyss of misunderstanding and alienation anyway. so what's the fuss about then? learn to recognize life in its true appearance. right, right...

the new day rises up, laying endless misty possibilities in front of us. tonight we're going to live life to the fullest. at least it seems so. the sun is shining bright and smiling at us, +20°c  so late into the autumn, that's something. i don't want to think about dragging gear bags or trying to solve organizational problems or be distracted by some insignificant rubbish. i want to know what i am going to feel tonight. i am all anticipation.

we come to the venue and there's no one there for us. few years of being around must have left marks apparently. no longer you are an exciting foreigner, now you are a part of the everyday scenery. a pure triviality. should i count it as an ultimate sign of acceptance? are we now part of the ship, part of the crew. no one chats “one-of-us-one-of-us” though. this acceptance is passive and silent. if you want to play - play, nobody minds. on the other hand, nobody cares how it's going to be done. no one wants any responsibility, no one wants to be bothered. i'm trying to adopt this careless attitude but it's a poor attempt at self-deception - i will never be able to live like this, even though at the moment i do. nevertheless. grand meanings and great importance! yeah, that's what i am talking about. welcome, welcome into my life. i hope that the audience doesn’t share this passive attitude, otherwise we are doomed.

we have adjusted the lights and made the last tweaks to "the stage", which isn't a stage because what we call a stage tonight is actually a corner. a concerned woman approaches and asks when we are going to start the show. you see, her child has got drowsy and needs to go to bed as soon as possible. this can't be a good start – i’m thinking to myself. i cross that thought out with another, more potent one: "whatever!" and we start to play.

i feel the slow swaying of my body, the electricity of it fills the room and everyone starts to sway along with us. you smile, i smile back. it looks like we let go of every little imperfection, of every petty grievance. everyone is wide awake in the room and the child and his mother don't think of sleeping anymore. or are they gone? i can't really say. the fingers are gliding up and down the strings, the shiny metal of the strings and the white marble of the keys reflect in the eyes of spectators. strangers turn their heads falling deeper into our stream of energy. it's a pulsing pleasure that passes through the space making everything around grander and full of meaning in some way. the scenery behind the windows has already changed from the smoky city and pinkish mountains to the bright lights sprinkled all across the horizon. wine spills and so the inner spirits of some people. there are two types tonight in the room: the ones with the jealous gazes and the ones with the inspired radiance. the first is hard to tolerate, it's so pronounced, thickly visible. and it is not a pretty sight. ugliness is laying open on their faces. i wonder if they are aware of it. it’s strange that i can't get used to it, it's such a banality nowadays and, probably, always has been. some strange girls come in, utter some incomprehensible rubbish, pout their lips and turn rapidly away as if trying to tell something irksome. i can't imagine what upset them so much, could it be our music? it is a sweet melancholia, but maybe it's too much for them. they distract me for a while but soon they disappear like a gust of cold wind – swift and imperceptible.

the second type is streaming unfiltered joy right into my heart. they don't even need to speak to me. i can sense their feelings with my closed eyes. sometimes they speak and sometimes it clicks. and instead of a passing stranger you get a possibility of a friend. maybe it's only tonight and maybe it's all unreal but so it is even more precious. and sometimes they do become your friends, rare understanding souls that you accumulate like precious jewels in your lonesome life.

everything swirls and swims and i don't want it to end. but i blink once, twice and everyone is gone except for the owners of the venue and one drunk who spits my name on the dirty floor and stomps on my euphoric elation. he doesn't go away, he sticks around asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions. i can see the ugly curve of his mouth, he can't hide his detest. even though he says that we're the best and that he enjoyed our show tremendously, his mouth doesn't lie. a white foam formed in the corners of his lips. the aperture never shuts and spits and spits. his jabbering swings from phony adoration to questionable insinuations. i can't believe that he lays himself so openly for anyone to read. maybe it's because he's drunk. or maybe not. he can't stop himself and now gives all sorts of bad advice on what is right and how one should live. chirp, chirp angry bird, i’m done listening.

the lights are out of the wooden deck and so are the tables and chairs. the last preparations before everyone leaves the place. the lonely guy with the drooping mustache is smoking on the porch, he looks lost in this darkness and i can feel his sadness. maybe he is grieving about the past and the loss and that like everyone he has nothing to hold on to. maybe it is only a shadow that falls on his face and reshapes his expression. maybe both.

i'm tired and so is everyone else around. dogs don't stir either even though the night is their favorite time. we put down the fancy wine glasses and feast on the last bites of the fresh turkey sandwiches. then we assemble our gear, fold the cables and shake off the dust. we call the taxi and we get an extra passenger on board, a sad guy who had one too many drinks tonight. it is clear that he can't navigate through the night and making him walk through the hilly town seems too cruel. come in, lost child of the night, we’ll sail together. ready, steady, go!  

my head is buzzing, the road feels too stretched. the driver looks suspiciously at us, either he doesn't like the nocturnal driving or could it be us? white-faced mysterious unreliable reckless nocturnal creatures? well, we'll never know.

very soon i will step into my beastly furnished room and will have only one desire - to close my eyes and enjoy the unreality of my life. while unreality is so alive and breathing passionately down my neck, engulfing me fully with its vital force.

next morning i get up and don't even notice how a couple of prostrated days are over and we get on the road again. the new jolly taxi driver proudly flashes his flash drive in front of us, full of carefully assorted blues and rock and roll, then presses “play” and starts the engine of the car. he fills the space with his unfiltered overjoyed countenance and outgoing communicativeness. i feel trapped in some way and distracted. the beauty of the mountain road eludes me. the blues is floating from the speaker and it makes me blue too. in the middle of the road we stop at the gas station and meet a fellow artist who rides in the opposite direction. he is very stiff. his face always looks like it’s made of stone. no natural smile, no other emotions, just a plain immobile visage. he always tries to get some information out of you or attempts to be involved in some way. he is a hugger but his hugs feel lifeless, as if two robot arms are stretching in the pursuit of understanding, or rather calculating what human warmth is like. it feels pointless and i can never get along with this frozen soul. it's like communicating with gray stones and even those are more beautiful in their own way.

we come too early to the venue, no one is there. but outside is splendid weather, the last rays of the sun are touching my hair. i enjoy the noises of the big city. a woman passes by, smoking, i haven't seen that in a while. in the small village where i live it's unacceptable for local women to smoke or to drink alcohol in the open. have i gone rural, if it looks so bizarre and unusual now? go figure. the honks, the traffic, the lights, the wild mixture of scents of perfumes and food, the posh bright people, everything is tempting. it seems that life is happening right here and right now. the forgotten elegance of the capital is screaming from every corner. it feels like i just woke up. i want to stay in the middle of the road and embrace it all, caressing every little crevice of the shimmering street with my wide open eyes. suddenly a policeman shoves me in the shoulder breaking the mirage and i wake up into the cold and callous human civilization. while i was indulging in this ice-cold beverage of delight my train has arrived to the next station, the inevitable disappointment.

the club is all in smoke. technically speaking smoking indoors is prohibited by law, probably that's why everyone is puffing clouds of smoke - the forbidden fruit. there is practically no air in the room and i can barely breathe. i try to stay on track but i swim away on the wings of these thick clouds of toxic fumes. something happened to the atmosphere in this place since our last show. the audience is no longer warm and welcoming, rather it feels cold and indifferent. their faces are glued to the screens of their phones. maybe we don’t know something, maybe something terrible has happened in the world, while we unwittingly strummed our lyres, like that careless grasshopper. or maybe, and it seems more likely, something else, but no less terrible happened to the people of this town – the progress finally crept in, and now, when their attention was stolen and their hopes and aspirations were replaced with like-counts, they are not easily stirred. after all who are we to compete with the ocean of content, with the rush of imaginary success and with the torrents of horrifying news. but we kept on playing and got to the final note nevertheless. for the sake of two or three faces whose eyes were directed at the stage. no point dwelling and asking questions, this is nothing more than the regular chaos of existence. chaos giveth and chaos taketh away.

i take a glass of red wine and it tastes like wild prunes. it is a deep and comforting taste and it makes perfect sense. i relax a little bit and say goodnight and goodbye to the place. a new party has already started around us and we feel like a mere entourage of the place. the ungraciously booming europop rushes onto the dance floor along with a crowd of suddenly materialized strange-looking men and women, who seem to be at ease and entitled, as if they own the place. it feels shockingly shameful to hear those vulgar cheesy tunes after our subtle quiet music, but what can you do? the crowd wants what the crowd wants and i can see now that our train has departed from this place without us, probably taking away anyone who didn’t enjoy the kitsch of this deafening debauchery. i understand now that this evening we were no more than some trivial ambiance for the room, merely staff members whose job was to prepare the space for the main event. all the sleepless nights are in vain. we have met the wrong crowd. even those few eyes that seemed alive hastily grab their coats and rush towards the door. i understand. this is life. some people approach us, they want to talk and try to shout some compliments through the noise wall of the 90’s synth riffs, but they smell of stale alcohol, their eyes are watery and speech incomprehensible. the woman shoves her iphone into my face, apparently insisting that there is something urgent and utterly important on that screen, something more urgent than life itself. i smile and want to go away as soon as possible.

i scramble myself into the car feeling tremendously relieved and we speed away to the brink of the city where a friend is waiting for us. he has tea and a smile and a warm room. i couldn't ask for more. just a quiet little room and the view overlooking the mountain. tomorrow i will think and reflect and suffer anew. but today i can breathe into an imperfect world and see that it still has its superb qualities that i wouldn't want to miss for all the gold in the world. i get all dreamy and plunge deep into my thoughts while abstractions of the past evening swim and shimmer before my eyes. i am alive and feeling and moving and this is what matters.

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every civilization known to us from history inevitably decayed, every empire fell, and every time it was a painful process that cost many an innocent life. but let’s not talk now about the future where the fourth world war is fought with sticks and stones, for it’s been said enough and yet nobody gives a hoot (not to count a few bleeding hearts, whose feeble voices are drowned by the cheers of the stupid multitude). the apocalypse i want to point out is not a cinematographic hollywood-style event with nuclear mushrooms and hordes of zombies. neither do i mean skynet fantasies and other robot uprisal mambo-jumbo. the apocalypse i am talking about is currently in progress. it is slow. it is gradual. it is entirely man-made and man-welcomed. and the worst of all – it is boring. too boring to even begin noticing. not in the masses at least. this is the apocalypse without the squirting blood, without the consuming tsunami waves, without legions of malicious robots or bloodthirsty tentacled aliens, without the one genius mastermind’s world-domination ambition, without cracks in the earth, erupting volcanoes or drying oceans. it is the slow and willing shift in our minds that crawls gradually and occupies our lives without us even registering any change. it is the brainwashing of popular culture, the comfort-worship of consumerism and the narcissism bred by the digital lifestyle that drives this gradual decay of the human in humanity. it is the replacement of the lofty aspirations with the pursuit of fast and quantifiable results, that is encouraged and trumpeted by every tech-company and their apostles, so-called influencers, that turns our lives into a race to nowhere in the hamster-wheel of the cheap and disposable digital substitute for real life.

hardly i will say something new, something that you haven’t heard said yet. every thought that i have on this matter has probably come from reading and contemplating greater minds whose tremendously acute perception made them foresee and predict today’s events decades ago. and yet, nobody gave a hoot. maybe it’s because the dramatic tendencies of the acutely perceptive minds made their predictions and prophecies too cinematic, too picturesque, too impressive to be taken seriously. the sad truth about truth is that the real truth is rarely impressive. in fact it is usually so boring that the news people have to spice up the actual everyday news (however horrifying they initially are) with more and more gruesome details in order to make the common folk turn their jaded eyes to their newspapers and media outlets. maybe that is simply another consequence of the hyper-inflated virtual-reality that we call real life today, with news sensations, astonishing controversies and outrageous displays of misuse of wealth and power flooding our eyes and ears in an unstoppable overwhelming flow, overstimulating our brains and overloading our memory, that made us impervious to the actual truth of life, which unlike its uncanny digital counterpart, walks coyly in the shadows, avoids embellishments and generally tends to be commonplace and unimpressive. and so we float through this river of colors and sounds, drift from one morsel of sweetly-poisonous info-garbage to another, while the actual real life is being strangled in the dark sidewalks in the most prosaic and everyday fashion. and blissfully, in our opiate-stunned endless daydream we glide into oblivion not noticing how our limbs are being sawed-off by hungry cannibals, in order to be turned into quick profits or means to briefly lead the mindless race to the bottom, which we call progress. and nobody gives a hoot.

like any proper apocalypse, this slow modern-day rendition is also advanced by its own horsemen. unlike their literary and cinematic doppelgangers these horsemen however aren’t scary-looking. their clothes aren’t glittering black armor, but rather a bland fusion of pastel-colored office suits, casual catch-up stained sweatpants and homey pajamas; their horses aren’t fiery-eyed raven-black steeds, they are old, fat-bellied and tired-looking; their countenance bears no trace of villainy or distorted smirk of inhuman cruelty – their brows are expressionless, their eyes are bleak, their mouths droop, their frames are slouched and their chinless faces look as docile and submissive as those of old plowing mules. they are no different in their appearance from any common joe or jane and that’s why nobody gives a hoot about them. unimpressive, boring.

despite their uninteresting featurelessness, it is essential for us to notice them and recognize them for what they are. for they have infiltrated every single aspect of our lives and they are destroying us from within with tireless passion and jeweler’s precision.

the first horseman is the gray night of convenience. the most potent of them all, he seduces us daily with countless effort-relieving solutions, life-hacking techniques and shortcut-taking gadgets. this one is as tricky as he is productive and potent, for his food is our laziness which, as we know only too well to admit it willingly, is boundless. every time we think how amazing it would be if only we could delegate another boring task to someone or something else, the knight of convenience already breathes at our necks. his whispering words are honey to our ears. his promising odes to progress and righteous diatribes against work are more seductive than the playful eyelashes and coy smiles of the mythical sirens and mermaids. his strategy is flawless, for he never goes in for the obvious kill, but advances slowly, taking long detours and confusing maneuvers. he creeps into our lives slowly and sluggishly, always starting with innocent attempts of harmless help-offerings. his deeds seem so benign and suggestions so rational, that we barely ever conceive any ill-will behind them. step by step he lures us into his warm, comfortable, velvet-soft cove, where he unleashes his full power on our already spoiled and weakened character and devours us completely. he always starts with small, offering us easy solutions that are only designed to help us advance our main and real cause. he will save our time, thus enabling us to do more for the greater good. he will make sure we make no mistake, thus ensuring our absolute excellence in any art or craft we venture to undertake. he will make our life-journey comfortable, convenient, pain-free and devoid of any errors that our personal imperfections would otherwise inevitably produce. what’s not to like? where’s the harm?

of course, he will never mention one important detail, the small-print in the contract, leaving it to us to question our choices, so altruistically suggested by him. but who would, when everything he offers is so gratifying? or at least seems so. the small print that he conceals from us has of course been known and exposed to the world by the number of writers, philosophers and thinkers, but as it usually happens the truth is not pretty, hard to accept and tasteless in comparison to the sweet promises of the honey-tongued master of seduction. this truth is quite simple though and it is this: the very things that occupy us and take our time in our lives, the time and hard effort it takes to become good at anything in life, the mental struggle it takes us to solve creative or practical problems and the mistakes we make along the way – all these things that the knight of convenience promises to take away from us – are our one and only claim to the fleeting moments of satisfaction and happiness and essentially are the only ingredients of what we call life. for life, in our human understanding is not simply physical existence. it is not merely a succession of acts of sleeping, eating, defecating and fornicating. it is essentially what we do in between those biologically necessary acts. it is not a coincidence that we call a comatose patient a vegetable – surely it is still life from a purely biological point of view. a person in coma inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide as you and me, receives nutrients and transforms them into feces, like you and me, and eventually grows old and dies, like you and me. and yet we don’t dare calling it life. vegetable existence – yes, but not life. because the stuff of life is not in biological functions. nature created us burdened with cognition, troubled by self-awareness and tortured by recognizing our own mortality. this is a given that we can not change. and for thousands of years human-beings on this planet were coming with new ways of redirecting their tirelessly thinking brains from the horrors of our finality to something else, to loftier and higher goals than merely sustaining biological functions. our work, our efforts, our troubles, our mistakes and detours are what we call life. take that away and what do we have to take our obsessive thinking organs from focusing all their attention on the cruelty of our biologically unpoetic, mundane mortal existence?

and what does the knight of convenience offer, in his ultimate final aspiration of relieving us from all possible efforts, mistakes and detours, if not vegetable existence where we will be left alone in front the uncaring and unfeeling void of the cosmos. sure, he will never warn you about what’s to come. but you are free to wake up from his intoxicating dream any moment. the question is will you?

of course the knight of convenience is not the only horseman of the slow apocalypse. his closest ally and a trusted associate is the knight of entertainment. it is with the help of this merry cheerleader that the knight of convenience is capable of being so efficient in his dirty work of leading us by the nose from life to existence. for, in the end, even the dumbest numskull would inevitably hit the wall of terminal boredom and would be forced to take at least some action. but the stupid and the dull can rest assured – no action will be required from them, because the kind and giving knight of entertainment is guarding them as the great archangel, ready to reach down with his mighty hand and forcefully turn the poor nitwit’s head in the safe direction. the two knights are always working on advancing the force of progress, which in turn gives them an endless supply of state-of-the-art weaponry with which they can induce and immediately defeat the beast of boredom. their watchful eyes never sleep and their collection of high-tech tools is always at their disposal to intervene between you and your rare moments where you are left alone. they created an ideology to fuel their dictatorship and this ideology has proclaimed boredom the greatest enemy of humanity. in their battle against boredom they don’t shun from any available means, for even a split second of boredom in your life is their greatest distress. their preventive measures make sure that at any moment of your life you are equipped with and surrounded by every possible distraction. like all dictator’s ideologies, theirs is resting on the fable which paints boredom as an ugly beast that destroys innocent lives and which must be sought and terminated for the greater good. in their holy war against boredom they employ mass hypnosis and brainwashing propaganda to invent the most atrocious false claims against boredom, so that every child grows up with the inherent fear of this foe and every grown-up builds their life around the sole purpose of defeating boredom with the tools provided by convenience and entertainment.

one might think that there is nothing wrong with the idea of convenience and entertainment and one is absolutely right. just like there is nothing wrong with occasionally eating a fat sweet food – fat and sugar are essential to our biological functions in appropriate qualities. but at the same time it’s no mystery for anyone that nothing good will come out of the diet entirely consisting of doughnuts with whipped cream. for everything, what is good in our lives is only good in moderation. why is it obvious when it comes to food or alcohol, but when it comes to convenience and entertainment it is still the most obscure idea to the general public? ancient thinkers, renaissance philosophers and modern writers were and are aware of it, but not the common joe. because the knights of convenience and entertainment are always there to protect the common joe from this dangerous revelation. gradually they replace joe’s books and artworks with an endless stream of entertaining short-form junk-content and make sure that (in the name of defeating their greatest nemesis – boredom) the common joe never has a single second of his life unoccupied with some or other form of non-demanding entertainment. and even if, god forbid, somehow our poor joe stumbles on something thought-provoking, the stream of entertainment will not allow him a moment of contemplation carrying him ever away from his own real thoughts, erasing his own real memories and refilling them with disconnected fragments of context-less meaningless junk, lulling him into a hedonistic drugged slumber, making him forever watch the colorful kaleidoscope of shreds of impressions and imitations of imaginary someone else’s lives, while his own is passing by, starving, destitute and devoid of any real thoughts, feelings and deeds.

but sure our joe must understand that something isn’t right here at some point, mustn’t he? well, not, at least not as long as the third horseman of the apocalypse is standing sentry – the knight of egocentrism. this cold and ruthless machiavellian monster, disguised in the smooth cloak of self-love and self-respect is the final nail in the coffin of the human soul. together with his friends and accomplices convenience and entertainment they make sure that the human soul not only becomes petrified by impotence, but also blinded by limitless self-obsession and impenetrable to the forces of love and compassion. with the help of convenience the knight of egocentrism replaces human communication with fast and impersonal digital messaging. joe and jane no longer need to see each other, listen to each other, talk to each other, as long as they can exchange non-personal disposable ready-made substitutions. they no longer need to experience the process of the real-time dialogue as long as they “stay connected” by short-text or cartoon driven messaging apps in their smartphones. since they no longer need to face each other, they no longer need to care for each other’s feelings. neither need they care for expressing their own feelings in any meaningful way, since the prefabricated solutions are shoved into their faces on every step. replacing their human communication with non-real time short-form chats they lose the necessity for empathy, thus gradually turning into self-obsessed tactless uncaring narcissists whose world revolves entirely around them, whose sole concern is self-pleasing and whose entire universe is represented by the only human being – themselves. this acquired psychopathy leads to isolation, insecurity, jealousy and hate – exactly the fuel and essence of the modern life-substitute, the all-consuming social media, that within the last decade became the primary focus of entire human life and the only estimation of the worthiness of any given person. the social media platforms in turn dictate their tastes and aspirations and, by means of indifferent and unfeeling calculation, decide who will be favored for the next fifteen minutes of fame and who is to be forgotten, and what thoughts will be thought tomorrow by the millions and which ones are to be erased.

but let’s not forget the ever-present help of the knight of entertainment, whose highly demanded job, not without the clever assistance of convenience, is to make sure that in pursuit of exterminating boredom (which is in fact just another word for such forgotten expressions as “quiet contemplation” or simply “thinking”) not a single person has time, stamina or patience to use their free time for anything intellectually demanding. you’d think that reading a book would be the remedy against boredom. but how can one sit for a few hours and read a book, when one constantly feels pangs of impatience nagged by yet another app that pushes its, so conveniently and blatantly obviously called push-notifications into one’s personal space, making one feel constantly ill at ease, eternally fearing to miss out on something hot and important. surely a book can wait, while the endless instagram or tiktok feed can’t. but if one doesn’t read, one is deprived of another form of human connection – for reading is a way, in the words of arthur schopenhauer, of wearing someone else’s thoughts for a while. reading is essentially getting into other’s heads, feeling their joys and pains, experiencing their triumphs and tragedies, and, therefore, learning and developing empathy. it is empathy, the ability to project someone else’s feelings onto yourself, that makes us kinder and more humane. and it is empathy (sharply named “emotional intelligence” by modern day psychologists) that makes us recognize, and therefore control and direct our own impulses, base instincts and brutish emotions. without it we turn into cruel parasites, self-absorbed vegetables. without empathy we become beasts. but worse, actually. beasts, at least and in their defense, aren’t as self-aware as us, beasts need not to think about the future, nor do they need to contemplate their mortality. beasts can devour each other with no regret, because thus they are created by the force of nature, and their cognition is of such limited spectrum, that they do not and can not project the pain of their victims upon themselves. but that is not the case for human beings. we are painfully self-aware. we, down to the last psychopath, are subject to the fear of death. and therefore we aren’t suited to the beastly existence. surely, some people, namely maniacs, criminals or enthusiastic military heroes are totally fine with the dog-eat-dog paradigm. but they are exceptions upon whom we look with horror. do we want to lose the very essence of what we call humaneness – our empathy – and turn ourselves into the callous crowd of brutes? i don’t think that i’d see many agreeing nods even among the stupidest blockheads imaginable. because for the most part all we want is to enjoy life, experience happiness. even the stupidest blockhead will recognize the danger of living in the society of vile cruel beasts, for in the end no one wants to be torn apart and eaten alive, right?

and yet, the three horsemen of the slow apocalypse are moving unimpeded and progressing daily in their disgusting jobs: the night of convenience in exterminating work, the night of entertainment in exterminating boredom and the night of egocentrism in exterminating empathy.

will we watch them destroy our lives? or will we resist?

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- greetings, vif and bes, and thank you for taking the time out for this interview with me. first of all congratulations on the new release, “sentimental craving for beauty”. there's an inherent sense of desolation and sadness that is quite obvious in your music, among other nice factors. your songs are full of contrast like life itself: melancholy, pain, anger, joy, dark.... what was your state of mind like while composing your songs? is veiila your way to deal with these feelings? is this a kind of catharsis or has nothing to do with it? didn ́t your soul and heart hurt when you write them?

vif: thanks jose. it was a hard time for us. there was no way to cope with reality anymore and out of this entrapment the album appeared. i think we wanted to capture this pain in its raw state and try to transform it into something beautiful. bring it to a place where beauty has all the meaning in the world and you can look upon it and find something that will help you to go on with your life. definitely, the process of making this album helped us to cope with some of the depressions we had... anyway, music for us was never a place where we just played the instruments or exercised the vocal cords; it has always been something bigger for us. a place where we can be free and open to the extreme. essentially a place where we can find beauty.

bes: by the way, this is an interesting touch, how you list desolation and sadness as “nice” factors. from this statement alone i can say that we're on the same wavelength. i think all art comes as the artist's way of dealing with life (at least art as we see it), so yes, this album for sure was a catharsis in many ways. we never felt adjusted to reality, but in the last several years reality took new, completely absurd shapes and the maladjustment on our part became tenfold more acute. of course it is no secret that these songs are full of pain. i can only hope that this road of pain at least had some destination, that we managed to work out some of those feelings and turn them into something beautiful, as this was always our goal and our striving: to convert pain into beauty. whether we achieve it or not, it is not for us to judge, but for my part i can say that both the process and the result had sense. call it a therapy, a search for enlightenment or an existential journey...

- you had composed some songs that in the end i think you didn't record for this second album, is that right? how do you feel you evolved artistically with your recent songs? i also wanted to ask about another thing, so actually what were these changes that you introduced and how influenced these changes with the songs?

bes: we have quite a few songs that didn't make it into the album and a lot of those songs that are in the album were actually completely re-written and re-recorded during the process. we sort of had the idea of this album for a long time and at some point we even considered it ready, but life was throwing stones at us at the moment, making us jump through hoops, so to speak, and i think it gave us the opportunity to take a step back and detach ourselves from our work for a while. and when we had a more peaceful time, when we could sit back and reflect, it just turned out that we could no longer associate with what we heard in that version of the album. i look at it now, in the retrospective, and i think we grew artistically, emotionally and intellectually during this time (not a modest thing to say, but i hope it won't come out as blatant show off). what i mean is: we went through a phase of change and also a rectification. we rectified our aspirations, our artistic goals and we came back to square one, but in a purer shape. if 18 months ago we still felt some anxious urge to say something socially relevant, later on we came back to the idea of “art for art's sake”. that is: we realized that we just wanted to express our souls in the most basic way, by conveying the human feelings that we felt, not reflecting on social events or the state of the world. what i'm trying to say is this: when the outside world (which we always tried to ignore, to be honest) swept us away, we lost the ability to ignore it for a while, but i am proud to say that we didn't succumb to writing slogans or commenting on the news reports and in the end we pulled ourselves out, took a step aside and just wrote music. i see it as personal growth.

also on the technical side of things (and i think it has the same philosophical undertone of detachment from the “real” world) we reconsidered many things. with this album we focused more on the music (melodies and harmonies), rather than production and sound-design. this is also something that was therapeutic in effect, as we reverted to a more natural way of composing music, oldschool in some way, with less post-production and more actual musicianship. and i hope we'll explore this path further on, because it was very rewarding.

vif: i think we evolved drastically with this album. not in the least because we approached songs in a new and different way. but the most important thing, i think, was that we were able to dissolve in the process and get the best that we had inside of us at the moment. and by the best i mean the strongest feelings and emotions.

- does a sunny day inspire you to create music? are there more gray days than blue days? what motivates you to continue composing?

vif: any day is good for creating music. i don't think that there's ever a question of should i create or not. it's always out there on the table. another question: do i have the motivation to get out of bed or not? if i do, i know what to do, i don't need to wait for inspiration. it's always around in this or that shape.

bes: honestly a sunny day inspires mostly to take a hike. i guess i am more inclined to be inspired by clouds, fog and rain. but i don't think it's a determining factor. it's a hard question to ask, what really motivates us. i think this is just something that is as natural for us as breathing or sleeping. if we can't devote enough time to music for this or that reason – this is when we feel wrong.

- often i ask musicians about the music they listen to and many times they don’t listen to the genre they play. are you among them? could you tell me about the musical education of people involved in veiila and their background, by the way?

vif: i listen to different genres of music. if music moves me – it's all i need. so it isn't really that important what genre it is.

we are self made musicians. my creative path started with writing poetry and trying some melodies on the old piano that we had in the house. when we met with bes, this was, essentially, the moment of understanding what i wanted to be, and in what direction i wanted to move.

bes: i'm not entirely sure i know what our genre is, this is always a tricky thing to figure out, but i think it's safe to say that what we listen to finds reflection in what we write. we love many different artists in many different genres, from electronica, to jazz, to rock, to classical, and honestly genre is irrelevant. what's important is the feeling and whether the songs speak to you personally.

as for our background, it's actually funny, now when i think about it, that long time ago, back when we only met each other and started our first band, vif played the piano and i played guitar, and now the roles are reversed. but none of us formally studied piano, guitar, production or sound-engineering for that matter. we are strong believers and advocates for self-education.

- the title of “sentimental craving for beauty” is taken from galsworthy's forsyte saga. that trilogy is a magnificent portrait of english society in the last third of the 19th century. what’s so special about this literary work for you? are you guys influenced by poetry, painting or movies?

vif: it is a great trilogy written in a beautiful language. i remember showing some lines out of this book to bes and this line in particular stuck with us for years until the glorious moment came when we were ready to merge those beautiful feelings that these words recalled with our music and to create something new. i think we gravitate to anything beautiful. be it poetry, movies, paintings... i don't think i can live a day without something inspirational of this or that kind. you know, as sensitive souls we need a good bubble to survive in this unfriendly environment which is real life.

bes: honestly it's a line that means something personal for us. even though vif picked it up from this book, the title of the album is self-contained and i would steer away from connecting it to the forsyte saga in any conceptual way. not that there is anything wrong about galsworthy or his work of course. it's just that we don't want our music to be in any way politically or socially connected to anything. and once you start talking about society (and we've done that in some heated emotional moments) everything becomes acutely relevant, meaningful. the last thing we want is for someone to see our songs as some kind of a slice of the time, a snapshot of the current events. no, on the contrary, for us “sentimental craving for beauty” is the most pure aspiration. in this way we are always influenced by art, literature, music, but the most powerful impressions are those left by the works of art that are the least contextualized. and most personal too. i mean, one can talk about the portrait of the english society of a specific era in "forsyte saga". but one doesn't need to be aware, and concerned with it really, to appreciate the beautiful writing and to feel compassion to the basic human drama. the brilliance of the literary, musical or other artistic masterpieces is in their ability to speak directly to the soul in the language of feelings. great art doesn't have to be contemporary, doesn't need the manual to understand it. sure one can appreciate galsworthy deeper if you take the history into account, just like one can appreciate, say, orwell's “burmese days” deeper if one knows the devastating history burma or bulgakov's “the master and margarita”, when knowing the context of soviet oppression of the intellectuals, yet not knowing the context didn't prevent me from being completely taken by “the master and margarita” when i read it for the first time being a teenager or being practically smashed to the ground by “burmese days”, while when i started reading it, i'm not sure i even knew what burma was. and in this regard i just hope that the music that we write can speak to someone just as it is, without one needing to know the context. in this regard the sentimental craving for beauty (the feeling itself) is the driving force behind everything we do.

- it seems that most bands don't want to talk about certain topics. and in this way be politically correct. so it ́s much easier to write about fictitious worlds and empty talk. reality is always harsher than fiction, isn't it? does it bother you that there aren't more bands writing lyrics committed to our society?

vif: in my world art is above news. certainly some events can't be ignored and they get through your system anyway. they hurt you, ruin you, change your entire world – and as this happens your art changes too. but i wouldn't want my art to be a set of slogans – it's already too much shouting everywhere, too loud, from every corner. i think perceptive people need something more mysterious, some place where they can be free for a moment, where they can dive in and dissolve. just for one beautiful moment - this is the kind of art i appreciate. art which is free of logic, gliding on the surface of our dreams.

bes: it is a strange time we live in. from some point, as we mentioned, we try to avoid direct social references, but for the reasons personal and artistic, not for the sake of being politically correct. i think it is a very bad tendency that people need to self-censor. don't get me wrong, i don't see anything bad in phrasing yourself the way that you would avoid offending someone or hurting someone's feelings. tact and ethics are the most important factors, as i see it, in human communication, and i for my part, don't like to allow myself unfiltered emotional outbursts (and yes, it happens from time to time). but restricting oneself from expressing one's opinion is not a solution. unfortunately i think we live in a world dominated by lesser minds and the lesser minds are prone to shouting, blaming and throwing stones. either internet bullying or “canceling culture” are equal symptoms of intellectual decay. and when i see intelligent people falling into these traps, saying things that the lowest common denominator wants to hear, or silencing themselves in order not to hurt the feelings of “the stupid multitude” (it's actually the term that i picked up from the 18th century poetess mary alcock), that is when my heart really bleeds. to put it short, for me the only thing worth saying is the truth. the truth is absolute and universal. of course the truth isn't always known and in search of it we will make mistakes. but when we start avoiding or silencing truth – this is the beginning of the end.

- i think people don't think much now. everything is just a click away. every day that passes we have less to think about because everything is given to us. the science fiction of the 1960s where machines ruled over humans seems a little closer now, isn't it? are we condemned to be slaves or is there still a chance to get out of this?

bes: you're preaching to the choir, my friend! we spend hours talking, discussing and heatedly agreeing with each other on this subject on a daily basis. i don't even know if there is any way for us to get out of this sticky situation that we call progress. i mean, you can't stop it. you can't stop people from asking google every silly question, instead of using their own brains to answer it, because it is there, it's available and it's easy. everything we have now, that is everything the progress gave us, is designed to relieve us from thinking, deciding, choosing. if it goes this way we'll just turn into some creatures, no better than pigs raised for slaughter. in fact, open the news, see the war reports, brain-washing propaganda that gets less and less inventive, and it seems that the majority are already there. i hope i'm wrong, i really do hope it's just an anxious pessimist talking inside of me. but everything seems wrong. i read “the glass bead game” admiring this version of the future and i ask myself: what went wrong? weren't we supposed to develop the intellect? weren't we supposed to grow, to become smarter, wiser, more aware, more compassionate, more humane? why does it seem that we only become angrier, shallower, sillier, less inclined to analyze and quicker to judge? i can only blame progress. sometimes i think the renaissance ended with industrial revolution, with equalization of society. alas, now we have it: shut up, consume and serve the algorithm. it looks even worse than what vonnegut described in the “player piano”.

vif: i also don't have a very optimistic outlook on life in this regard. but i know for sure that there are people who resist drowning in this virtual madness. who share the same views on art and life, the same “slow” appreciation of the world, if you will. they are not many, but it makes them precious even more. everyone shouts that you have to get millions of likes here or millions of views there and if you don't then you're some kind of a loser. but i think that a few real like-minded human beings who can feel our music can make us much happier than millions of faceless accounts, by-passers who don't really care.

- i don’t want to get into your personal life, of course, but i know that you have and are still suffering from the effects of russia's war against ukraine. how’s your life nowadays? do you prefer the isolation, avoiding contact with others or you like to be surrounded by people?

vif: well, it depends on the mood and chance pretty much these days. the war doesn't stop. apparently, no one can do anything to stop it otherwise it would stop already. thus on my part there's not much belief in humanity... but we had a few concerts in december and it felt wonderful meeting like-minded people.

bes: to be honest, we always preferred isolation. nothing changed in this regard. like any proper introverts we can be carried away in conversation with one like-minded person (this interview is the proof of it), but when we are surrounded by the crowd of people, we inevitably start calculating the escape path. as for the effects of war – it is still extremely painful and mentally devastating. but i think the capacity for suffering is finite after all and i notice that we start drifting into neverland again. i mean we check the news less often, what happens with society in russia feels now more distant, less acute, less surprising. of course the whole thing is utterly horrible, but after almost two years of it you start realizing that you can't change anything, that people don't want to listen to the voices of reason, that hatred prevails and at this point it all looks like some alien life from another planet. or maybe it's we who are from another planet.

- what is your environment like?? how can this affect your music? do you think that you're based in other city or country your music would sound different? why/why not?

vif: we live high in the mountains now. it's so beautiful here that i can sit in front of the window and dive into this beauty and melt down in these mysterious fogs. some days it's so quiet that it doesn't leave any options but to dive into creativity. on the other hand with our impulsive natures some days it drives us nuts and we want to move, to play, to manifest all the energy that we've collected. i don't know what our music would be like if we were in a different location but sometimes you don't have that much of a choice and you just take what is there for you... and there's always some light to be found...

bes: yes, the mountains and forests here are beautiful and serene. and i do believe that it affects us in a good way. sometimes we walk in the mountains and looking around it seems fascinating and astonishing that nature can exist in such serenity and peacefulness for centuries. it puts our ridiculous human life into perspective. a day doesn't go by without some human calamity, drama, disaster, tragedy or something else. yet a tree in the forest can grow for hundreds of years in perfect harmony with other trees, the moss, the grass, the birds and insects. this is something worth thinking about.

- as soon as “sentimental craving for beauty” was released projekt records also made it available as free download on your homepage. why do you share it for free? aren't downloads killing music in some way? do you think that the real devotion for the music is about the content and the feeling, and not the format? it becomes harder and harder to sell music in physical format.

vif: well, the thing is that music is already practically free for everyone. it's not that important. it's just a matter of convenience for some people. and the physical format is more of the elitist or collector's format, even though i still fondly remember the times when it was so enjoyable to pick a cd at a store. to touch it, to enjoy the artwork, to give yourself space to hear the whole album.

bes: but we agreed to accept the world as it is and to move on. because, yes, everything is free anyway. you can listen to any album for free on spotify or youtube, but at least we can hope that if one downloaded the album from bandcamp they will listen to it in the best quality and the least disruptive way, without being lured into the matrix by “suggested content” and all that. as for the physical format being less popular, that's only logical, not many people have the equipment to play cds or vinyls. it's all in the cell phone now. i think we are going through a transitional phase and i hope that the real art appreciators and the real artists will stick with each other in real life, while the rest, for whom music is just some background ambiance, will surf through streams of generated “content” and never notice anything. good riddance if you ask me.

- i really like your "dive" ep but it sounded more optimistic, at least musically. am i wrong? for example the wonderful song "set me on fire" is a very danceable track, although the lyrics are quite uneasy. can you tell me about that particular song, please? thanks.

vif: well, you got that right. we were completely different people at the time. people who didn't touch yet the darkest fabrics of profound depressions. i feel quite disconnected from that ep. it was transitional in many ways and i would say juvenile. but i still like the song dive...

bes: huh, maybe it is more optimistic... i too really feel so disconnected from those songs that it's like some other band to me. “set me on fire”.... yes, we were into dance music. it's funny, it just feels like not us at all. frankly speaking we don't play any of those songs anymore. i can't even judge if they are good or bad.

- close your eyes and tell me... a)what animal do you imagine? d) a toy of your childhood. c) a film soundtrack which strikes a nerve. d) a place you have never been to before and would like to visit.

vif: a) eagle d) hippopotamus and a stamp album c) schindler's list d) any new place would do

bes: a) cat b) strangely, can't remember any particular toy c) max richter “on the nature of daylight” from arrival d) grand canyon

- i’ve read that the band's name is a reference to a demon (or a siren?) that lures men into its cave by singing and then devours them. i love it!!! throughout history, magic has played a primordial role, both to dominate and surprise as well as to deceive, trick and bend wills. in the field of personal relationships, especially in love, numerous characters played the role of witches, soothsayers and counselors, influencing interpersonal relationships, both with the use of aphrodisiacs and spells, poisons and black magic ceremonies, aimed at obtaining the love of disdainful lovers, innocent young people. do you think witches and love/hate spells still exist? if so, how do you think they work today?

vif: i like the idea of magic. some days are filled with it and it feels wonderful. and if witches are there they work as they should in mysterious obscure ways which you can only feel but not fully understand.

bes: that's interesting. i'm a bit of a rationalist, my brain tends to be mathematical. so it is unnatural for me to state anything that i can't provide an obvious evidence to. that being said, i want to believe, with all my heart, that magic exists. wouldn't this make this world a little bit more fun?

- almost all the covers of your releases are photos of vif. is there a specific reason for this? they are really beautiful.

bes: thank you very much. i believe that art and the artist's personality aren't separable and that a human connection only strengthens the connection with the art. this way when someone sees a person on the artwork, and then listens to this person's voice this makes one listen more attentively, more personally. maybe it's not like this for everyone, but it is so for me.

- vif, bes, what are you afraid of?

vif: some things. but i strongly believe that speaking about one's fears doesn't help anything and only makes fears bigger and uglier.

bes: i was brought up with the notion that fear is unworthy of a man and even if some think this idea is outdated today, i think that fear is something one must conquer in one's personal inner battle.

- ok. i would like to thank you for your willingness to answer my questions. wish you lots of health. do you have any last words for our readers? and for the human race?

vif: thank you, it was our pleasure. i'd wish for all peace and beauty.

bes: it would be nice if people took more time to reflect and think for themselves. the rest will fix itself!

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i want to know their angle, i want to know what gives. probably i am a hopeless sentimentalist, a broken romantic who still believes in magic and unicorns. so what? i want to believe in magic and unicorns. i want to find that tiny straw to which i would cling with utmost passion and which would carry me through the ruthless rapids of the river of pain to the vanilla shores of the blissful utopian happiness where instead of gasping for air in horror i would look upon the gloriously violet sky, the blindingly green forests, breathe in the fragrant smells of flowers and smile a beatific smile of unchallenged rapture. there is but one little implication: i want to believe in the impossible. and i know it. thankfully the fuel for the engine of our civilization is absurdity and absurdity never stops providing. hence my genuine interest in knowing what gives, when it comes to other people. but that is just it: the chaos is omnipresent and the absurd is endless. whenever i strike a conversation with a new acquaintance (which happens ever less often with the progress of time) i know without doubt that in spite of my wild hopes i will only find the unavoidable emptiness behind the shaky fence of poorly assembled bits of common wisdom and pathetic cheerful assumptions made of unicorn droppings and context-less excerpts from pseudo-utopian leaflets. i know and i do not doubt it, for i walked that path many a time before and everywhere i found the same stale defense of the arbitrary rootless meaning of life that can’t hold even a third-rate attack of semi-reasoned and semi-mocking questioning. why is that so? for, sometimes, i truly want to believe, i am eager to grasp whatever shred of logic there is to be offered. why nothing holds? is it me? am i too demanding? or is it because the very effort is as futile as anything that the poor mutant-ape has been doing for the last two hundred thousand years. according to my imaginary friends, to whom i talk more often than i would care to admit (you might recognize a few of them, as they may be your imaginary friends too) i am not alone in my outlook. schopenhauer, camus, sartre, benatar, zapffe are all in perfect agreement with me. futility is, futility was and futility is to be. then why am i still hoping? why do i still try to find that ray of light that will illuminate some unnoticed logical connection that would lead not to extinction of hope but to something that resembles happiness? and every time i come to this question, i am doomed to fall for the most pathetic cliché in the world, which i swore to never turn to and which i am hopelessly presenting now: i am only human after all. this is it, the moment of shameful defeat. i am an ape. i am absurd. i am a paradox. my will to live blinds and confuses me. no matter how i try i can’t fully face the inevitable horrifying truth that there is no truth, no meaning and ultimately no happiness. i can say it, but i can’t feel it. or rather i can feel it, but only to the extent when it triggers my self-preservation instinct, clouds my mind with nonsensical beastly jabbering and turns me into a brutish stupid caveman, hugging my knees in the light of a faint fire, scared of thunder and the wrath of the sky. please, miracle, come and save me!

it is a conflict of reason and instinct. i can’t win this battle, for i am a mere observer in it. it is as old as consciousness itself. it is that very inherent conflict that makes human history a history of pain, suffering, murder, insanity and death. it is the vanity and futility of our own existence that we can not accept. it is the understanding that we are not wanted, not needed and not meant to be that we fight. yet, how is it even possible to fight it? it is simply absurd. the absurd that surrounds us, the absurd that makes us, that absurd that becomes us, the absurd that replaces us.

the only remaining question is why do i even care to find someone who would understand me? if i know that everything is futile, if i can recognize the inherent idiocy in my own personal hope, if i don’t even hope anymore to find a glimpse of meaning in anything, why do i still try to talk and listen? isn’t it just as futile to talk about futility of life, as vain to try and explain vanity of existence, as trying to turn a turd into a birthday cake by sticking candles into it? why in the end, no matter what, i still can not accept the absurd by finally succumbing to it and resigning to the fact that absurd is me as much as i am absurd, and therefore there is no point in confronting it, as it is essentially fighting with yourself? i can say it, but can i fully feel it? i think it is obvious that the answer is “no”, for if i could feel it, if i could truly absorb this fact into my cells, my dna, my consciousness there wouldn’t be this torrent of jibber-jabber. i would simply cease to be and that would be the end of the story. or rather not a story, and not the end, for if i truly accept the absurd, then i must accept that there is no such thing as “me”, there is simply a swirl of elements in the cosmic storm of chaos and in the endlessness and omnipresence of chaos “me” is as negligible as one solitary subatomic particle in relation to the vastness of the galaxy. that is simultaneously bad and good news. bad because after all my mental exercise i am as close to the answer as was that daring spermatozoon that started it all for me. but it is also good news too, for as long as i am perplexed, anguished, tortured and consumed by despair i will continue my futile journey from nothing to nowhere and keep shaking the air with my meaningless proclamations and pointless efforts to reconcile the primal and irreconcilable fact that my overgrown brain is just too little too big for me to make happiness and acceptance even remotely possible. silver lining, huh?

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summer was a stunning blaze. slow slithering of disappointments and heat that moved nowhere and brought lots of headaches. is it that all summers in my life must be so bad, i wonder? for quite some time now they have been. i guess it’s not possible for me to change anything, apparently it's just life.

so many faceless days. i can't really tell anything about them except that i was living my life in the only possible way for me. there are days sometimes when i can't really tell what do i want best: face life or run away from it. it tears me, rips me apart until i am totally exhausted. then i start over and try to unravel the chaos of life.

the day was promising. the blue bus with its dangly haired driver was parked just outside the house. he looked at us shyly and smiled humbly saying very quietly through his long drooping mustache: "men in black". and then he pushed the pedal and we departed into the unknown.

we were getting closer and closer to the place where everything was supposed to happen. the bands were playing the whole day creating that special atmosphere of mystery, excitement and sexuality. i could feel the energy of real life in the air. my brand of real life, that has as much to do with everyday reality as the beach vacation of an average office clerk has with the adventures of arthur pym. soon, very soon we will be on that stage too. and i will be one with the place and the happy strangers in this dark magical forest that breathes secrets out of its enigmatic depths.

the noise, the chit-chat, the movement, the glimmering strings of electric guitars, the loud voices, the energy, everything excites and makes me drunk with the night. even the complete mess of organization that makes no sense to anyone around seems attractive to me. people are running and floating around, grabbing the bags, mixing things up, dancing and screaming. for a moment i was completely lost in a confusing mixture of strangers. but then it settled. everyone and everything was detected and found at their proper place.

i found a secret window from which i can watch the performances of other bands from a little distance. the sound is softer here and i can peacefully wait for our own show in the intimate darkness of the room. i like it tremendously. at last everything makes sense to me. i'm in the right place at the right time. the time of my life.

i lazily observe the mixed crowd. rude girls, drunk guys. i don't mind them, as long as they don't disturb me. the cook girl comes out in the center of the room and declares:"attention everyone for fuck’s sake! get them fucking plates back to the fucking station!" and we all, artists, musicians, technicians and drivers alike, start eating quickly, quietly and embarrassed, the food with the aftertaste of crude vulgarity.

our own show flashes by. it's not perfect but what ever is? we play in the deep of the night. i have a feeling that we will wake up some sleepy little animals that are hiding in the woods living their private lives. such a disturbance. i am aware of my frozen fingers, they are going to slip and skip, somehow choosing all the wrong notes. i divert my mind into my inner world, but i have to find the balance, if i don’t want to get lost in there. i look up. i play. i see hands flying in the air, the dances of the strongest, the cries of the most excited in the crowd. they can't sleep tonight. and we sing our nocturnal song in perfect unison in our tiny shimmering pool of light amid the dead silent darkness of the surrounding night.

i take everything that is there for me. i passionately drink the night. there's only us, here and now. how marvelous it is to feel these fleeting moments of happiness and nothing more. there's no yesterday and no tomorrow too. only now, this amazing instant.

tomorrow comes anyway and i shout at the break of day: "go to hell! go to hell!!!!". the show is over but the show must go on. i shall start over and search for some reasonable sense in the chaos. it doesn't come easily. you struggle to find it for me but i can see that you are in the same leaking boat and it's drowning rapidly.

ok, there's no sense again but maybe we just have to begin this day with a cup of coffee and a little piece of bread. my head is splitting. what else could you expect when you go to bed at five in the morning and get up at eight.

it's still ringing in my ears, the lingering soundscapes of the wild night. sometimes you can experience the whole life in one day. it's beautiful but the complication is to shake it off and start over. it's always tough.

pleasant strangers in the house full of spider webs and dead insects. it feels like the veil of dust is descending over my skin. i need to find a free and fresh space before the spiders and bugs creep through the pores of my skin into my soul. we climb the staircase and get to the very top of the building, to the open balcony right under the angular roof and it's like magic. the green fields of the shire. tremendous beauty lies tranquil at the tips of our hands. the owner’s cats are gentle and curious, they rub their fur on our legs and make the cutest soft sounds. i’d like to spend here the whole day or even the whole week, just to gaze intently at the breathing green peacefulness. i feel enchanted and in love and i'm so happy in this very moment that it consumes me whole. for twenty four hours my life made perfect sense.

but the road is calling, the adventure must go on. it's a closing chapter and i want to stretch it. we are lucky, our new driver drives slowly and i can enjoy the infinite road and imagine that it will never end.

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i too talk rubbish. quite a lot sometimes. i must admit it, if i want to move on. if i want to cleanse my conscience of all the garbage that it accumulated over the years, of all the lies i told to myself, of all the idiotic ideas and consuming passions. i want honesty. honesty in its purest form. honesty with myself.

this world is a paradox. the truest are always tortured and lynched, while the hypocrites thrive. more to that, the hypocrites are proclaimed martyrs, while the truest are thrown away and forgotten. it is an axiom and who am i to challenge it. but i’m fed up.

if i say here and now that my cause is just, my suffering is not in vain, i too can be a martyr. and a hypocrite. but i don’t want to lie. my cause isn’t just and my suffering is vain. no, there is no cause at all. maybe while you are listening, i’ll take this moment and make it clear: i stand neither with anyone, nor for anything. at least i can be honest with myself from now on. oh, please, world, don’t get me wrong, i am a creature of no politics, no cause, no conviction and no confession. i want to live, i want to feel and i want to share those rare moments of life when things make sense with only one other being. as for the rest of you: i don’t care, do whatever you deem right and die the way you see fit, just don’t count me as one of you. if i’m against something that doesn’t mean i’m for something else. if i condemn someone, that doesn’t mean i stand with someone (or anyone) else. on my lonely planet i am alone and i prefer it that way, thank you, bye-bye.

there is no justice in this world. what goes around doesn’t come around. the sooner we stop pretending that there is something beyond the visible and obvious truth, the sooner we stop lying to ourselves that everything has meaning, the sooner we stop clinging to the narcissistic idea that we are more than a passing moment, soon to be erased and forgotten, the sooner we will realize that nothing is there for something. the only things that unite us are our insignificance and the indifference of the universe with which we are equally and indiscriminately treated. but there is a catch 22 in it: this is the very thing we can’t realize. because once we do, we step to the other side and there is no way back. take my word for it, for i am one foot there and things don’t look pretty.

oh i wish i could return to the blissful past. i wish i could believe that my life, my pain and my dreams mean something. i wish i could float through the air on the wings of my ignorance, share it with the multitude and become one with them. i am lonely here. i can see their passionate faces, their contorted smiles and fiery eyes and i can affirm that they are much closer to happiness than i’ll ever have a chance to be.

i wish i could, but i can’t. because i have looked beyond the veil of self and i have seen that there is nothing. the space is void. time kills and destroys everything and truth doesn’t persist. nothing persists. it is the will to live, that very essence of existence that makes us run around with our pumped up insane self-obsession that i am losing. and while i observe myself losing it i don’t even regret it. i shall silently resign from anything and i am not sorry, thank you, bye-bye.

all i want is to find something to hold on to, something that will help me make my vain suffering that we call existence bearable enough. i don’t want to change the world. if anything we have already done too much changing, it is time to stop. the world was beautiful before us and i believe it will be beautiful after us. it is us what makes it ugly. our egotistic passions that possess us. our insane megalomaniac drive that makes us do whatever it takes to prove yet another ridiculous idea to a herd of other self-obsessed mutated apes. i don’t want to prove anything anymore.

a wise man, who like me suffered in vain, said that hope doesn’t die last. you die last. hope dies much sooner. mine died some time ago. there was no burial and there is no grave. like everything in this world it perished unnoticed. and i don’t care. i’ve seen worse, i’ll live.

i am just another selfish ape with an overgrown brain too big for such a clumsy creature. the ape that doesn’t belong to anyone and doesn’t believe in anything. whatever i say is nothing but noise. i don’t believe neither in my supreme purpose, nor in yours. my principles? call them quirks. i guess my main problem is that i don’t want hypocrisy in my life anymore. but hypocrisy is what makes the world go round. so, come on world, let’s settle it. count me out. i confess here and now: i don’t believe in anything. there is no god, no divine purpose, no spirituality, no sacred meaning, no supreme design. i am a mere accident on my way to disappear. as for the rest of my fellow mutated apes: i’m not with or against you. and i am happy to give you my blessing (not that anyone needs it): live or don’t for all i care. so long.

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another apartment but not another life. this race is for the strong. we are survivors apparently.

in the middle of the day i recall her face and her pace, her calm and peaceful motion. but she has gone forever into the blind darkness of non existence. she gave up this life and i can't blame her. it's rather unpleasant at times i must admit. life is a chain of little and big sufferings sprinkled by the tiny drops of hopes and joys. and unfortunately it's impossible to see the enormity of someone else's despair. i run around with my own desperation so... farewell, farewell i hope you found your beauty in another world.

here is another girl. i know her but she pretends that she doesn't. small town mentality or just a dislike? "hey!" - i say, and she responds with recognition - "of course i remember" - she says as if she didn't walk around with this haughty expression on her face, always looking the other way, ignoring everyone but her huge ego for the last couple hours.

i let go of her and this overheated day and the past conversations that are still ringing in my ears. the acid violet of the paintings is too big in this room, it overwhelms and offends the sense of style. i have to keep away from this space. it makes me feel cheap and embarrassed somehow.

another scorching evening came. it's almost night and i feel as if there's too much clothes on me. maybe i should strip down and walk home naked. will it cool my inflamed body and soul? i don't know. the town won’t get over this major offense though and i still need a place to work on my vision.

so here i come again with my daily whining: i don't belong to my country, i don't belong to my family, i don't belong to the new country, i don't even have a stable place of living and don't know if i will have enough money for food. it's crazy. c'est fou.

i can't rely on anything and if i think about it, it hurts tremendously. i let go of the pain too. it's a drag anyway.

so if i don't belong to anything why am i here? i run around with my big speeches about the soul and feelings, the art and its huge importance but who gives a shoe? no one. and that’s the way the cookie crumbles, i suppose. normal conclusions for a normal life. ha ha.

i find the strength to look another day in the eyes. i look at the face of the man, yesterday he was just a passing stranger. and today i look at his dark features and try to figure out what he is trying to wash down with alcohol. it seems to me that it's the same feeling i had two years ago. this giant senseless abyss that opens up its enormous mouth and tries to devour everything that we hold on to. you can't turn away from this feeling, you can't swallow it, you can't place it somewhere else, on a top left shelf of your mind. it's there hanging over your head and biting and biting. you have to get over it sometime and somehow. it goes slowly as if trying to imprint pain on every cell of your body. the moment you give up on trying to rid yourself of it, it will be gone. leaving you exhausted and hopeless. i gather it is the price of new beginnings and the general meaning of life. some people understand it early, others later. but there's no escape.

after all these big speeches i recall a fellow musician who told me recently that sadness can be of a nice quality as if it’s joy almost. i knew what he was talking about but this train departed a long long time ago. when i was fifteen perhaps. and now there's a sorrowful abyss and its depths have no limits.

kaleidoscope of faces, strangers with new energies. i feel that it's too much for me already but there's no other choice but to face them. i push forward as if by inertia only. i listen to my breathing pattern. it's shaky, uneven. i am already beyond controlling it. okay, it's okay, i repeat to myself realizing that nothing is okay about it. a new phase of adjusting to a new place, to a new attitude. unpredictable universe, why can't i get used to the change? i didn't cry today so maybe i am adjusting after all.

the fresh room has its pleasant qualities. the light falls softly on the couch, the wooden floor creaks with cozy mildness and i still can see a bit of mountain above the rooftops. i hang the picture on the wall, the one that says "broken toy". i guess here comes the moment where i should say "hello my new home and a warm welcome to you". but i don't, it all doesn't feel right.

the dogs are barking 24/7, the cars are warming up the engines, the babies are crying, the men are talking. same old story. i just try to find peace inside without trying to explain to myself the confusion of life.

i wake up and try to find my routine. it's a crazy one but it keeps me sane. coffee, more coffee, sing, little bird, sing your morning song. i go out and a stranger, an old chap, comes to me and starts speaking. he is from the same country, from the same city, and it makes him feel close to me. he likes me but doesn't like my weird name, he says it's not russian. can't argue with that. still he invites me to his home and promises to treat me with a big jug of milk and everything else to support the beverage. i nod and agree and actually want to go away and enjoy my peaceful walk. at last he asks me to lose the glasses and look him in the eyes. he says that my eyes are as blue as the skies. it's funny because i always thought that my eyes were as green as grass. but maybe it's none. he hugs me and shakes my hand with his big calloused palm. after all that i feel like i was a heroine of a movie and it feels like it was a good closing scene after all.

i go through the park and a brand new bunch of stray puppies are all around me. an adorable clowder of joyful animals. they make me feel good for a long while. i pass by the bakery and take a chocolate mousse cake shaped like a dog (with perverse attention to precise anatomical details) and melt my senses in this chocolaty deliciousness. i indulge myself in the sweetness of the instant. if only i could hold on to it.

honk-honk. another driver greets his acquaintance, immediately receiving an appreciative honk in return. the sound is screaming and screeching, falling like a sharp razor on my nerves. every few minutes i meet someone i know this or that way. it feels very claustrophobic. i miss the last place i lived. it was quiet and fresh and the night was breathing peace. and now i have to forget it, learn not to feel the pain of departure. but still... i am grieving, it's a process, you know.

maybe one day i will reconcile with this feeling of the constant road. maybe i will be able to let go of any possible ground. i will be a groundless essence. an easy going breeze. but probably it won't be me anymore...

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it seems to me that just about 70-50 years ago humanity had a chance of redeeming itself and the chance looked real enough to some cheerful optimists. after the holocaust, hiroshima and vietnam it seemed that the glimpse of the inevitable peril finally entered even the thickest skulls. it seemed that the idealists worked harder on their idealism, the humanists enforced their humanism, the hippies made more love and less war. writers wrote. directors directed. poets spat out verses and singers sang. war was condemned, liberty celebrated. and yet look where we are now. you probably think i will righteously point at overpopulation, wars, global warming, ecological crisis, brainwashing, religious radicalism, autocracies and oppression? nope. these are but symptoms, these are not the decease. at this point i am very tempted to jump on the subject of the global idiocy and call that the root of all evil. and in fact i’ll linger here for a moment, but first let me clear it out: idiocy is a symptom too, albeit a very strong and incurable at that. “but what’s up with the idiocy?” some cheerful optimist might ask: “aren’t we living in the age of the highest technological advancement we’ve seen so far? that for sure couldn’t have been created by idiots?”. you got me there, mister cheerful optimist, but don’t get too cheerful too soon. this is what human evolution is: we create solutions for problems that need no solutions and then we use those solutions to create more problems. and somewhere along the way we lose yet another ability. plenty has been said about it and plenty more is to come, yet some people still seem to believe the pink fluffy lie that we are smarter than all the previous generations. arrogance is a very comfortable cloak, what can i say. but let’s be honest. we invented radio, telephone and television to connect us, to make the greatness of the human thought spread faster and farther. instead we lost our ability to write and analyze and got brainwashing, propaganda and informational junk food. we invented the internet to give us freedom. instead we got addiction, informational pollution and more brainwashing and propaganda. we invented the smartphone (here we come) to extend our abilities to connect with each other and process the large information streams. instead we turned into a herd of blithering idiots, as disconnected as ever, incapable of any critical thinking, lost the last shred of logic, happily jumped into the abyss of the worst type of informational trash the moon has seen yet, got ourselves addicted to unstoppable uninterrupted consumption of content of such quality that just 30 years ago would be considered unhealthy even to be created by the patients of the mental asylum, and completely drowned ourselves in the ocean of misery, jealousy, manipulation and intellectual decay. so much for progress, huh. and this is where i am inclined to be radical in my proclamations: the smartphone is worse than the holocaust. why? because hitler and his gang only managed to poison some brains. there was a resistance. the holocaust wasn’t universally accepted. it was conquered and condemned. it was made an example of. and there seemed to be a silver lining after all. the smartphone apocalypse is cheerfully accepted by pretty much every one. i don’t think i’d be far off if i said that 99% of the human race willingly glue their faces to the screens, or at least wish to. yes, and the poor people who today have not enough money for bread, would gladly join the smombie army should they have a chance.

i already hear the cheerful optimist protesting that there is nothing wrong with wanting a little entertainment in one’s life and that there is a lot of good intention even behind the most atrociously moronic smartphone app and it all comes down to how one uses it. sure sure, mister optimist. i don’t even want to argue with you. what does it matter if in the end we have a crowd of addicted junkies who can’t take their eyes off of the screen, who can’t make a decision without the help of an algorithmic companion, who can’t communicate to each other in real life, who have no time at all, whatsoever, for reading or even thinking, because every single moment of their life must be devoted to scrolling social media news feeds, filled to the brim with advertisements and the lowest of the “viral content”, or counting likes and “engagements” on their own pathetic attempts to create the “viral content”. no sire, this is the end. this is the end, because there is no end to it. we’ve gone too far. will we give it up? for what? even if the king of the world is elected tomorrow and by his royal decree the internet will be shut down, the new internet will spring out the next morning offering even more to the brain damage service than the current one does (yes, it is unimaginable that there can be more, but humanity never ceases to impress). this is it my friends, we have arrived at the destination, it looks ugly but the train doesn’t go back.

okay, okay, it is unfair to blame it all on the smartphone. but i did say that i see it as a symptom, although a particularly unpleasant one. but if that is a symptom, than what is the decease?

never fear, i have an answer to this. we are the decease.

here i would like to make a little detour. what always intrigued me about viruses is that viruses aren’t lifeforms. not organisms of any sort. they are near-lifeforms that behave like lifeforms in many ways, and yet they don’t. essentially a virus is a coincidental arrangement of chemical elements that is programmed to replicate itself. take some scary virus as an example: it is but an algorithm that acts as programmed and kills the host that it actually needs to survive. oh wait, not “survive”, since it is not a lifeform. and to think about it, it doesn’t “need” anything, since it’s not really alive. it just innocently runs the program. and when i think about the human race and look upon our so called evolution, i can not shake off a feeling of the strong resemblance to a virus. look, we are not equipped to live on this planet, neither physically nor mentally and everything we do either damages the planet that we live on (the host, as we, viruses, call it in our viral circles) or creates more problems for us. it is an endless perpetual viscous cycle: we solve another problem that hinders our life in some way, while solving it we sacrifice something and when solved we discover new problems that need harsher and more extreme solutions. one might also call it a vindictive pattern. we revenge to our mother nature for having created us so limp, weak and unfit. you haven’t given us fur and thick skin to protect ourselves from cold, you heartless bitch? then we’ll burn your forests and suck out oil from under your skin! you chose not to arm us with fangs and claws, you bastard? we’ll invent guns, bombs and flamethrowers and let you have it! but come on, that would be too poetic to assume that we actually understand what we are doing. no, my theory is that we are nothing but a virus. a coincidental arrangement of elements that replicates itself thoughtlessly and destroys everything on its way. why else should it be that we are the only lifeform on the planet that is completely unfit to live in harmony with it? why all our smart solutions through the thousands of years of history only make our life more and more miserable and complicated? why, with all our wisdom and intelligence we still can’t figure out how to make us comfortable enough so we could live in harmony at least among each other, let alone the nature? why? because we were never meant to live in harmony. leave harmony for the birds, snakes and butterflies. our lot is misery, suffering, existential dread, loneliness, isolation, hatred, jealousy, war, oppression, pain, peril and inevitable extinction. yes, and with that our will to live makes us more and more inventive, trying to solve more and more non-existent problems, while in fact creating more layers of suffering and digging itself deeper and deeper in its own grave. so much for the self-preservation instinct. evolution? i doubt it.

anyway, where am i going with it? nowhere, like all of us. what went wrong with us? everything and nothing. apparently we are just executing our algorithm and will keep executing it until its full completion and then we’ll be no more. that’s our purpose and we can’t change it. it occurs to me that the only problem with us is that unlike other fellow viruses we are unlucky enough to be aware of it.

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lost in the fathomless ocean of darkness, a child who was searching for a bit of happiness and a speck of sense in the people around her and inside herself. she saw beauty in the rusty remains and decomposing ruins. red flames of the corroded metal and crumbling stone inspired her vision and she could see a deem promise of the golden tomorrow.

she went away. it was so quiet. did she choose it or it chose her? the nightmare of life consumed her in a confused deadly spasm. ten days of intensive meditation seemed to have broken her completely instead of helping her. how could it be? a vulnerable unprotected soul wasn't ready to go so deep inside herself and be left alone with horrors of imagination. the hallucinations that came after brought only fear and helplessness. an introverted torment of her dreams and an anguish of real people's injustices.

half of the year has passed by without any notice of it. in an anxious blaze of searching for the new apartment i stumbled across a local website where cases of bad behavior of landlords were described. and there, first on the list, was a bleak story of a suicide case of a girl and the unimaginable mistreatment her landlord honored her with. at first i thought the name seemed familiar, then the name of her friend rang the bell, more and more coincidences and finally the address and two cats she owned. so unnoticeable a death can be. she gave up on life looking in the face of endless darkness. was she right in her choice? it's not important now. she has gone forever dissolving into nothingness. i was there for her and wasn't at the same time. i remember the last time i saw her, i was in one of those moods where nothing made any sense to me, i was angry with myself and the swamp of the place that was dragging me down, destroying every beautiful impulse and dream. i couldn't face her or anyone at all, i turned away preferring to stew in my despair and not willing to show my weakness. she swam through and was swallowed by the darkness. two days later she was gone, turning herself into a senseless soulless object. destroyed herself for ever. later i found her cry for help on some meaningless internet forum. she was telling strangers about her hallucinations and the darkness. the abyss she was falling into. no one came, no one helped. this crazy world where no one trusts anyone, where one prefers facelessness of the internet conversations hoping for true help. ignoring real people around you just because it seems a bit easier to share your pain with total strangers. how wrong, how foolish, and how pointless now.

i repeat her name to myself at night. katya, katya, how could you do it? and i was there and wasn't at the same time, seeing and not seeing her desperate loneliness and deserted isolation. and why could i see it? because it was a reflection of my own soul. and why was i running away from this? because i thought that we would drag each other down and wouldn't be able to resist the brutality of real life at all. i can see now that i was wrong. i have lost a link to a beautiful soul, we all have. maybe i was hammering nails of indifference into her last breath. maybe not. even if we spoke that day would it change anything? it all matters nothing now. now there is only a fragile memory of a talented girl who was fond of animals and wild forests and the rusty decay which she transformed into art. and it all doesn’t help me to move or overcome my difficulties. i'm falling apart, i can't breathe, it's all tearing me apart. even without an overhanging guilt i impose on myself, this loss is irreversible. this loss is final, unalterable and it only adds more shades of black to my life. tomorrow i will be gone and this too will have no meaning to anyone. and apparently this is the way it should be. nothingness. the black void of time and space where we all are hanging and disappearing perpetually. rest in peace dear girl, i hope your adventure goes on in the lands where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

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i don't have any strength but there's no other choice for me. i must leave. outside is quite cool after another scorchingly hot day. i can breathe and i can walk as fast as possible. do i want to run away from myself, from all the burdens and troubles i can't solve? my speeding steps are uncomfortable for the local people. i can see them cringe away from this rapidness. but i can't help it. i enjoy my high-speed movement. i feel how the body relaxes into this motion with the light wind in my hair and a touch of twilight on my skin. it's a long path and all i can do is go faster and faster and faster. as if i am an airplane on the runway, ready to take off towards the stars and endless skies, where i can be free and all doors will be open. no, even better, no doors, no borders, no limits, only unending rounds of blue and dark colors and me feeling unceasing joy. oh that ecstasy, that thrill, i don't want it to end. but i am back here on the ground surrounded by the dusty clouds of white fluff that makes me sneeze and all roads lead nowhere. and no one cares. every day begins with this understanding. it's a raw pain that nobody needs but it's always here anyway. i descend. not only by this long road but also inward. and i find there not euphoria but rather numbness. senseless darkness that leaves the chill traces down my neck. i can't look back, there's too much cruel pain and i can't look forward too, there's too much hectic anxiety. i have only this tiny moment on this planet. i am a mysterious moment myself. good or bad, it's not important for the universe. the universe is unsympathetically cold, brutal in so many ways. and while it leaves you constantly bruised i still prefer to choose virtue. even though i am wrapped in the tight hands of unconcerned darkness. it doesn't change anything. people around won't behave more decently. they still have an abundance of poison on their hands that they throw openly right in my face with no regrets, not a slightest doubt, not a vaguest mark left on their conscience. nothing will become easier. but it's the last infinitesimal link that i have with the world. love and my own belief. in pure art and higher morality.

the artificial lake plays joyfully with reflections. it's sunday evening and many people are enjoying the last minutes of freedom and peaceful forgetfulness. i drink water, everything feels idealistic somehow. the river behind my back produces the monotonous rumble that tickles my senses. i love it. this short fleeting instant without any particular meaning. the deep perception of something that i can undoubtedly call happiness.

one hour down the road and one hour up the road. i feel refreshed, at the end of the walk my breathing becomes even. my head isn't that clouded anymore. everything starts making sense again. i open the door and there's a cold supper waiting for me. it's cold because i want it to be cold, not because i have no strength to make it warm. i enjoy the chill refreshing taste of vegetables and fresh bread. it gets cozy and in a way fulfilling. i look at you and you too look as serene and untroubled as if today wasn’t one of those turbulent beastly days.

"in a silence violated only by the silky sounds of the sky, the night lay like milk upon the world." albert camus

i look out the window, the night is here, no doubt, and it again and again promises me something. i'm not quite sure what it is but it's a pleasant sensation. it gives me some sort of assurance and i take it in my both hands and depart into the new day.

the new day starts with albert camus's "a happy death". it grips me tight. i don't put it away until i'm done. a piece of somebody's mind so close, so visible, so sensual.

i am shaken. the disappearing moment is so acute. the intuitive flow of life. this circulation pours out of every corner of existence. i wish i could grasp its significance just like the man in the book. i want everything to be understandable, simple enough. but i have only chaos. a disarray of days where nothing makes any sense or provides any explanation. a beautiful frenzy that i call my life.

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oh, piss off, stop playing a victim. didn't you wear the shiny arms of nihilism just a day ago? haven't you arrogantly spit out those pretentious slices of cheap wisdom? do i need to remind you? “nobody cares”, the universal indifference – sounds familiar? so, what? how come, you, the self-proclaimed dark night of existential disregard, how come you are falling to pieces, ready to sink in your own tears? you want to scream? scream then. but are you ready to hear nothing in response, not even an echo? are you ready to face the void, to stare into it? to step into it willingly and waste yourself away? how comforting it would be to see yourself as a martyr, as a sacrifice, to see some meaning in your suffering. how painful it is, to open your eyes and realize that there is as much meaning in your pain as in the death of an ant under the wheel of the truck on a god-forsaken country road. “wake up!”, you want to scream. are you ready to wake up yourself? are you ready to face life? facing life may be scarier than facing death, you know. suddenly you look at the deluded blissful fools that surround you, see how they run with their pathetic little problems, their ridiculous playful struggles, and you feel pangs of envy. alas, ignorance is bliss, and you long for those days when the future looked like a dreamy translucent mirage to you, a desert dweller. it was so fragile, yet it was so desirable. you were reaching to it with your arms and your mind, dreaming about it, hoping for it. you occupied yourself with things that seem so silly now, yet you lived, you actually lived. and what is the future now? a precipice that inevitably gets closer and closer. you try to avert your eyes, but where would you look instead? looking around you, you see only madness, misery, insanity and misunderstanding. talk? no one will hear! scream? no one will listen! plead? no one cares! look behind? turn yourself to the past and be swallowed by nostalgia? this doesn't appeal at all. but how can you look ahead, if all you can see is inevitable perils, pain and void, always void, coming, grabbing, taking and consuming everything on its way? but then what's left? should you just close your eyes once and for all and to hell with all? to hell with those stone-cold faces, to hell with the void ahead and the swamp behind? close your eyes and drift away into the lands of dreams, where purity exists, where it is not corrupted. where your mind won't restlessly work out all the possible exits, because there would be no need to exit. where your soul will find peace and your heart will find beauty and your body will find rest. and your words will be heard. and their meaning will be understood. and your pleas will be answered. and your craving will be satisfied. and there will be no need to ever open your eyes again.

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the view was magnificent: an endless zigzag in the clouds and dark green foliage that felt so uncontrollable and wild. and we were in the midst of all this white vapor and green ferociousness, flying towards possible excitement. i welcomed change into my life. no matter how painful the first urge is. but this pain isn't a scary one, i have a need for it. a powerful impulse that keeps nudging, over and over again, constantly disturbing our seeming peace... the driver was so serious the whole time that it took me by surprise to see his wide agreeable smile in the final moments of our parting.

the arrival. the little drizzle over our heads. i look at our bags and think: "my, my..."

we enter the wine room and it's awfully warm, and it's a nice change. some welcome words are ringing in the air, shy smiles, tourists drinking wine in the corner. i bet they will disappear in a moment. and they do as if they weren't even there.

packing and unpacking, loading and unloading. we test the sound, it's quiet, i want more power. in the end it gets better. maybe not the most satisfying but we can settle with it for now. we'll crank it up a notch later anyway. there are still three hours to go before the show begins. i drink water, it's a nice room temperature, it fills me with freshness and some vague promise of a good time. we go outside for a while to find some food. we've found a place but the food isn't good and it's so strange because the smile of the boy at the counter is so wide. as wide as the ocean with no end or visible edges. i wonder if he ever tried the stuff that he sells? if he did it's pitiful, if he didn't i guess that would explain it. the disappearing tourist won't complain and it all doesn't matter, because he won't be coming back tomorrow anyway. fast food attitude. disposable lifestyle. it's preposterous, but we've eaten it already and we are not coming back tomorrow or any other day. a disappointing meal bothers me a little, it stands out so prominent against this beautiful day. i do love these marvelous fogs though. they make me dream so intensely.

we return to the wine room and sink to the comfy chairs. i can see a house close by, it's a house of an artistic family. it is actually written on one of the walls - an artist's home. the windows are dimly lit. i can see parts of canvases illuminated just a little and it creates such a mystery. i want to know what is there on these canvases. if it's good or if i wouldn't find it fitting my nature. the porch of the house looks straight at us. a t-shirt hangs there right in the middle, it hangs in the open space in the rain and i don't think it will ever get dry. maybe someday in a month or two when the rainy season is over. an interesting jar on a shelf attracts my attention. it's full of seashells. it looks so good and it reminds me of the big water that i miss so much in this land of rocks and serpentine roads. the time flies fast while we listen to the vulgar jokes of the common proletarian,whose voice is booming with self-assured joy. it's not that bad but there's no refinement. i guess it's just real life. oh, this craving for fineness, i wonder where it comes from. and look, isn't this lonely middle aged lady also trying to find beauty on her own. she orders a bottle of white wine and baked brie to accompany it. she has a nice face and you can feel her urgent desire to communicate, but also loneliness, quiet and soft like her big green eyes. some girl with an absent look, probably a loyal customer, but you hardly ever notice her without a phone. maybe life that surrounds her is too boring for her, maybe she deems dreamless and worthless anything outside the matrix. it's not a pleasure to witness. no, it's not like she has to put on a nice face and entertain us, it is her life after all. it's just her life looks like a waste.

it begins. there are no curtains to unveil us. we are in the middle of the room. everyone is so close to us, it's hard to focus. the feelings escape me. i'm trying so hard to keep them close to the surface but they elude me. at some point i also want to escape the room but of course i'll stay till the end. i look at the piano keys. the soft touch of his big hands. he has a reassuring half smile. it tells me i'm not alone in this cruel crazy spotlight that we love so much. the energy was discharged, thrown out, and now i'm empty. i am glad and sad at the same time that it's over. i can see emotions on the faces of people, i can feel that today wasn't in vane. today i don't need to feel the worthless futility of my existence. i let go of everything that bothered me recently - those two brutishly looking people - a man and a woman with hoarse voices- that left the room in the middle of our performance with a loud laughter. they left us in peace. and we no longer need to bother ourselves with the meaning of their tattoos and their crude features. the misplaced indecency vanished out of the room the moment they left it. i cheer - thank you good people for good riddance. i also forget all those who didn't come. why did i even think of them? i forget those people with their faces deep in their phones who belittle everything and everyone, our performance, our art, our efforts, our being. it's all just chaos, an uncontrollable disorder of life. take it or leave it. i embrace this evening's energy, everything subsides. the last drops of wine are trickling down the guest's throats and the first drops touch our lips. a girl with pink hair tells us all about her life. it looks like a wild ride in an attempt to find happiness and peace and it cost her plenty, evident from her face, which is living by its own accord. it's twitching and moving while she's trying to steady her legs that are dancing from excessively consumed wine this evening. i would love to tell her that everything is going to be fine. but i can't lie today.

the sensuality of our emotions... they are fading into nothingness. they will linger a little bit in the memories of these strangers. not like something ours, but rather of their own now. smudged conversations will dissolve into a wine-flavored elusive haze. it's some sort of happiness that will soon be forgotten leaving just a disappearing aftertaste. we're departing into the night. and we're leaving the place not empty handed. we are hugging a bottle of excellent wine we were presented with. oh, my sweet dreams you are coming into my life at last.

the new driver has a prominent nose and a surprisingly good energy. his work is so hard and there's no end to it but he smiles and finds something good to tell us, strangers from a foreign land. he speaks about stray dogs, that they became wilder recently and that they even assaulted people. i can't imagine these innocent creatures being violent, they all look so kind to me. maybe if you run in fear and throw stones at them...

i can't recognize the road. it's like a snake in the dark bushes. it wildly curls and slithers and we have no idea where we will arrive in the end. we are cutting through the darkness, the thick opaque fog, the heavy drops or flakes of something between water and slit with nothing but a black emptiness around us and tiny blurb of smeared light in front of us. we are not going home. we are going into the unknown.

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the time runs fast and it feels sometimes that i want to run even faster. nowhere in particular. just to forget myself for a moment. bringing no blame on myself for not being in a different and better place, for not feeling brave enough day after day, not controlling my nerves and breathing evenly. run, run, little girl, as if you can stumble upon happiness all of a sudden. it's impossible. but maybe it's not that important. i close my eyes and listen to the children's voices. they bring a good feeling, a feeling that something is right. that they enjoy playing ball instead of staring at a cellphone screen. that it's real and full of life. a couple hours later the noise will be gone for the night. there won't be shouting and bumping and even the cars will sound softer and milder. i will look at the skyline, it's going to be all new colors today. the panoramic view will offer everything, the whole nine yards. the birds are spreading their feathers and wings and sorrowfully soar over the mountains. they are so free. as free as we will never be. the transparent line of smoke from the barbecue place below will rise slowly up. i like to watch its slow lazy movement and inhale its intoxicating smell. the men from the car repair service across the street will be closing up, washing the coffee pots and putting away the grill, chairs and other utensils, which they were using so thoroughly and earnestly to make their day pleasurable and not get overworked. the little mechanic man will be shutting the door of his tiny booth, while still speaking excitedly, with the last taxi drivers about something apparently very important, obvious from his wild gesticulations and sudden pitch bends of his hoarse voice. women from the factory will stream up and down the street like the wild surf of the sea. they will disappear rather fast, some jumping in the company vans, some getting a taxi or being picked up by a family member, others will soon vanish in the quiet yards of their homes. they walk slowly and steadily with unstoppable conversations. and then, at last, the shy moon will appear and wink at us as if promising something. i think we won't believe it. but still will marvel over it nevertheless.

i spread my hands over the bed and try to reflect back on the early hours of the day. it feels like total disorder. i met people, we were all smiling and at the same time we had an ocean between us. a vast and endless ocean. there are only glimpses of understanding that illuminate the good intentions but it doesn't go anywhere and no one even needs it to go anywhere. i feel melancholic about it. i don't even know why. it feels like something is missing in the equation and that everything could be better or somehow more interesting and important. but it is all a mirage that fell over my head and mixed all thoughts and desires into one grandiose confusion. my head is heavy and i want to have a glass of wine. i want to soften this acute feeling of anxiety. i want to feel at least for an instant that everything is right and that everything is fine. i know that it isn't. and i know that it will change nothing. and that tomorrow will come and i will still be grasping the air that keeps refusing to come in my restless mind and calm it down. yet, there is a beautiful life, it's breathing into my soul and it whispers in my ear that it's worth getting up from the bed and seeing the new day.

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life is bigger, it is beyond me, you and them, it is in the magic of the purple sky, in the gurgle of the brook, it is the chirping of birds, so what? the sun that rose today, will set and then rise again tomorrow, just as a thousand years from now, so what? i can see it, i feel it, so what? i am still the same spec of dust on the endless mirror of time, i am still the same tiny insect, a microscopic tick squirming in the microscopic fibers of a dirty carpet of insignificant meaningless life, unnoticeable and unworthy of notice in the vastness of time. so what? i can see it. and yet, it is my squirming and these are my dusty carpet fibers, and they are the universe, the seas, the forests and valleys and deserts for me. and in between these dusty fibers i see the other ticks and maggots, i see their endless squirming and no matter how hard i try, no matter how many brilliant escape plans i can plot in my mind, no matter how far i detach myself from this swarming mass of shallow, stupid, small, ridiculous wrong ideas, this is still my life and this is the cold revelation i can't shake off. and yet, the blood still spills and it begets hatred, more and more of it. and people, whom i thought i knew, laugh insensitively at it or pretend that it doesn't exist, with nothing but a sheepish smile. they vigorously or silently approve of the enormous amount of pain and grief brought to them and to others by their "good government". it's all madness, inexplicable horrible madness, yet it goes on, it doesn't stop. cheer away, why don't you. i can hear jolly notes in your voice.

i feel a chill down my nape. i feel trembling skin. underneath my eyelids i feel swelling salty olives of tears ripening under this indifferent purple sky. are the times killing me? or the insensitive people who are so greedy for blood and hatred? are they even real, those bloodthirsty slogans, those callous accusations, those heartless laughs? i don't know. i don't have even a tiny explanation for these horrible things that keep happening. and if we are not responsible for it, then who is? are these the doings of the collective ant-like mind, the flow of the mindless crowd, the chatter of the parakeets, or the choice that each individual ant, parakeet or other being makes for their own good selves. who to blame for the innocent blood that spills and spills? who is to blame for the caged and broken lives? who? is it one name? how many hands are involved in the corruption of morality? how many faces close their eyes to the atrocities and the horror? why can't ticks and maggots see beyond that square millimeter of the dusty carpet that they call their life? why can't we see beyond? why are we blind to the space and void that surrounds us? why can't we just wake up for a moment and see that what's going on around us is disgusting, nauseating, and above all, completely meaningless torturing of our own souls? why can't we say no, deny to be tortured? why can't we reject to participate in torture? why can't we be content with just being, just seeing the beauty of this purple sky? why can't we accept our insignificance? why can't we see that nothing makes any sense, that all this pain, death and mass-delusion is empty? why can't we admit, at least for a moment, that the sky is magically beautiful and that there is nothing more important in this moment than this simple truth? the sky is there for everyone. the sky has no borders. the sky doesn't care for views, convictions, confessions, traditions and reforms. the sky is here to stay. we are not. why can't we see it? what is wrong with us, that we can so completely preoccupy our miserable brains with things that won't last even for a decade and yet go on ignoring the sky that will outlive us for eons. even if we come up with enough reasons to exterminate our kind entirely, the purple beauty of the sky will still be. for none and nothing. because, unlike hatred, beauty needs no reason, it simply is. and we are blind to it... maybe there's no way out already. maybe we are so deeply entangled in this web of shallow lies, insipid intrigues and tiresome casual cruelty, that anything beyond that is completely lost on us. i don't know. maybe we should just step aside and die. clear the ground for something better, kinder, wiser and more evolved. or maybe we should not give up yet. i don't know. all i can do is decide for myself, start a new day and do the right thing. will it bring me to the end or to the beginning? this remains to be seen.

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i believe that what we are witnessing now is the reincarnation of the terrible doctor moreau, the new insane vivisectionist, whose grandiose and horrifying ambition is to, by means of inhumane sacrifice, prove that he, and he alone, can remove the heart from a human body without killing the host. like all deranged believers in the greater cause, this merciless surgeon doesn't concern himself with the dead bodies and maimed lives, the trace of which dogs his experimental path with a nauseating stench of decay and despair. no, in his pristine clean laboratory he sees nothing but inevitable success, inevitably accompanied by inevitable collateral damage and equally inevitable by-products that can and shall be disregarded for the sake of the greater cause. and what are his successes so far? has his schizophrenic ambition accomplished anything yet? for sure we can only say that in his attempts to extract the heart he, like his fictitious predecessor, who, in his defense, at least contented himself with mutilating animals on a god-forsaken island in the open sea, so far achieved nothing but a standing proof that a human being can not operate without a heart. if we observe the active phase of his “special operation” that lasts for the past two years, we can see that instead of an army of heartless warriors, whom he so desperately attempts to create, he has achieved naught but a frightening pile of dead bodies and no less frightening number of broken lives. and as of his semi-successful experiments, like in the case of doctor moreau, we can see only bleeding and bleating ape-men, rat-men and parrot-men, who mindlessly jabber the big thinks, while presenting to the third-party observer a perverse caricature of human life. let's recall what the fictitious half-humans were repeating every day, while steadily returning to their animalistic natures:

not to go on all-fours; that is the law. are we not men?

not to suck up drink; that is the law. are we not men?

not to eat fish or flesh; that is the law. are we not men?

not to claw the bark of trees; that is the law. are we not men?

not to chase other men; that is the law. are we not men?

while this might sound comical to a reader of a science-fiction novel, the chattering of the victims of our modern vivisection enthusiast, do not sound less absurd. and given the fact that today we are talking of a real life experiment, performed on hundreds of thousands of real people, their absurd chattering will undoubtedly petrify any sane observer with horror.

but what history teaches us is that there is always a silver lining after any terrible storm and that everything inevitably comes to an end. and doctor moreau too had to face his fate, for his damaged victims paid him their merciless tribute in the end. and even pendrick, though for the time being hopelessly trapped on this accursed island, still managed to escape and save his life. and, though his life was too damaged beyond repair, for he saw beyond what any mere mortal should see in this life, he carried this knowledge with him and didn't turn away from the truth. for truth will out.

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“i've read your posts on the internet... why are you doing this, why are you so depressive, who is it going to help?” that is something i've been asked by a person who i've known for all of my life (i just started to wonder if this “knowing” wasn't in fact bidirectional). and it occurred to me: with all the make-believe freedom that we are having a privilege to, supposedly, enjoy in our modern high-tech independent lives (yes, sarcasm), we are not really allowed much. what we are allowed is simply to be helpers. nay, tools. listen, aren't we always expecting some kind of help to be offered by total strangers on the web? oh yes we do. and we are so used to taking it for granted, that we never as much as stop and think for a second, what hell it must be to be another person. we sure know what hell it is to be our good selves, no questions here. but as for other people, especially people that we connect to on the internet... let's be honest for a second: we don't give a damn. we simply demand, take and walk away. maybe it is fair, maybe it is supposed to be so, and maybe i would buy this pile of steaming manure if we were expecting to be treated back in the same manner. but that would be just too good to be true. we all need and demand respect, while barely ever showing any. that's ok, that's just us, human beings, you know, the vermin that crawls the earth, turning everything on their way into waste and dust, and keeps demanding for better conditions. that's no news. but hey, everyone wants to have their shiny moment, everyone wants to be a star of the show once in a while. and how would you get your dose of respect from a crowd of self-obsessed egotistical infantile narcissists? i think we can find the answer in a simple metaphor. how would you make a toddler like you? give the little leech a candy, of course! and the bigger and sweeter the candy the deeper the gratitude. and what if everyone around you is basically a toddler? look at them, these grown-ups, staring at their phones day and night, what are they doing there, writing a doctorate or calculating the orbit for a new spacecraft? or watching tiktoks and reels with morons farting on camera? what's your bet? i have a feeling that if you managed to read this text up to this moment, your bet is as gloomy as mine. and how do you please this crowd? what kind of candy must you give them for them to be grateful? how much candy will you have to supply? and how long will their gratitude last?

above all: do you really need their gratitude?

it is with a heavy heart and weeping eye i confirm that the majority of artists whose art i loved, cherished and respected have fallen victim to the happy world. and it makes me utterly sad. why? because art doesn't owe anything to anyone. art is only possible when it's created without a direct cause. art is the expression of the soul, the subconscious, the guts and the blood. when art is created on demand, when art is created for the sake of pleasing someone, it is no longer art. “music for working out”, “beats to study to”, “books to help you quit smoking” and all that excrement that fills the music and literary platforms – this is not art. spotify, meta and the rest of those corporate giants – these are not patrons of art, these are services, they serve. and when the artist tries to please the platform (or worse – the platform's algorithm) that makes the artist a servant of these services. a servant's servant. oh, i have a shorter and better word for it: slavery. so, my dear artists, if by any unbelievable ridiculous chance you are reading this, make a mental note to yourself: next time when you think that you should release 12 singles with 8 collaborations across the next 12 month in hopes to please the spotify algorithm, don't forget to remind yourself that you are doing it for your master. do you hear the whip swooshing? next time when you think that you desperately need to write a christmas song, because your distributor is nagging you, so you won't miss the annual trend, i want you to say aloud: “yes, master”. next time, when after writing a depressive song you feel an urgent need to make a motivational post where you explain your reasons for writing said depressive song and provide substantial evidence that said song not only helped you to conquer your depression, but above all was written with a clear intention to help your followers and subscribers to fight with their depression (of course one mustn't forget to add a link to some foundation to make one's claim to be a selfless helper more believable), i want you to end it with a sing-along with a choir of your peers “i owe my soul to the company store”. that will do it.

so what about us? are we here to motivate someone for something? are we here to provide advice? hell no. why are we doing it? because we can.

with all my heart i couldn't care less what anyone expects of me. i am an artist. i do what i do. if i feel so much pain that it spills out – i spill it out. if i can't contain my despair, why should i? why put lipstick on a pig? life is pain. the world is ugly. existence is meaningless. we are all here to suffer, die and be decomposed and forgotten. oh you don't like it? i'm sure there are going to be legions of cheerful spiritual people on the internet who would be more than happy to sell you the shiny wrapping of the happy world. i ain't one of those. i don't care. i've heard something about the #metoo movement. i'm starting my own movement. i'll call it the #countmeout movement. i refuse to trade honest art for motivational content. truth is scary. truth is ugly. we all suffer, why can't we just admit it? happiness is fleeting. “hope is the thing with feathers”, emily dickinson wrote. well, hopelessness is the beast with fangs. and despair is made of brick and mortar and it is here to stay. truth is made of pain and despair. happiness is fleeting, it passes in a heartbeat. pain lasts. and i salute those who refuse to hypocritically avert their faces, those who refuse to pretend, those who refuse to sell pink lies serving the corporate machine. and to the rest i say: fuck you, happy world!

i don't know if anyone reads these texts, and if anyone who read the first lines managed to keep up to this moment, but if you are still here, i want to say thank you. thank you for not demanding. thank you for letting me be myself.

my favorite artists, writers that shaped and keep shaping me, musicians whose music directed and influenced me are brutally honest. if there is anything i can vouch for, it is that i can smell dishonesty in art. and those most brutally honest, from schopenhauer to hesse, from remarque to vonnegut, from fitzgerald to orwell, those whose words still ring in my ears and make shivers run down my spine, they didn't try to please me, they didn't smooth out the rough edges, they didn't conceal their pain, their disappointment, their despair, and neither should i. in the name of all the great art that this ugly, unfair and unbearable world provided me with, i will keep spilling my pain out on paper and howl in anguish. and i have only one thing to ask of you, whoever you are: don't avert your eyes, don't look away, for this is all that we have, and the moment we stop paying attention to pain – that will be the end.

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not in this grandiose way anyway. and it's fine, because if we did i don't think that humanity would last in this tempo for too long. granted, some people get themselves in a circle of festivities that never ends, but somehow it's rarely an admirable example.

yet, celebrating each day in a peaceful but still meaningful way could actually be a sound idea. breathe in the new day – say to it – hello, congratulations to me. we've made it to the new day, new sun, new everything. if only i could fixate this positive idea in my mind and really enjoy every moment. how wonderful it would be.

instead in the back of my head there's not only a headache but also this rotten hopeless voice that tells me that there's no hope, each day is no better, nothing changes in a good way and so on, and so forth. it repeats and repeats these pathetic slogans into my inner ear and i'm listening to it day after day. and i start believing it and then the worst part comes – giving up. and i go nuts for a moment, i give up and it astonishes me. and right away after this horrible realization i want to rebel. and i run forward, moving fast, trying to prove to everyone and myself that i am alive.

i go, force myself into uncomfortable situations that don't fit me aesthetically and spiritually. but i do it nevertheless, thinking that it will heal me somehow, but why, why should it? and in the end, to nobody's surprise, it doesn't. i come home even more tired and confused than before. i regret each and every second of this crazy journey. the next day feels hellish for me. but i can't go back, can't change anything. i collect my memories but they are not precious. they are brutal and ugly and the reality of them makes me feel so small and worthless, that i don't even know how to go on. i can only hope to let this miserable day pass and hope that tomorrow everything will look distant and vague. but i know that the worst parts of it will come back every now and then and tear me apart. and i still will see some of those miserable faces that i met, faces that sank even lower emotionally than me, they would come, look at me with their desperation and misery in their eyes and i will hope with all the power that i can gather in my pounding heart that i will not become one of them and sink with them in ugly harmony and revolting synchronicity to the bottom of this life where no light can be found and no hope is left, and no number of new days and new years will ever change anything because nothing at all will be left inside of me worth saving.

happy new year, right?

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