Now everyone asks the same Russian question every day: what to do? How can we live in this reality? It is such an ordinary place, it has become a routine that it is a question that is constantly spinning in my mind, in millions of minds. And this situation has a daily, human dimension as well as a political and ideological component. This, of course, is the plane of relations.
We are losing people. Yes, it goes without saying that we lost them literally, physically. But we lose them in the sense of breaking ties. Ordinary friendly, relative, human in general. It didn’t start yesterday, or even a month ago. We saw this most in 2014. Some rushed to get dollars for 120 rubles, while others carried plasma TVs from the shops bought with funeral money, and fights broke out every day at a family banquet. In front of this table with salads in crystal vases, there was a line separating people. Some watched television, some read opposition sites on the Internet, and it was not possible to bring these people to mutual understanding. Father and grandfather became strangers. Not to mention that adult children view their elders as fossils. Kids need smoothies and trendy clothes, video games and popular artists, weekends in Lisbon and coffee gardens. What else geopolitics? What counter-sanctions?
Five years passed, and its influence gradually waned. Everything turned out – as it seemed – not so terrible, not fatal, not irrevocably.
But suddenly a terrible Chinese virus appeared, which at first they did not believe, and even intelligent people write that it does not affect anyone but the Chinese. Then something completely incomprehensible, but as it seems now, it became quite natural – people settled in the house. Do you remember those weeks of April 2020 when public transport was not working, there was no one on the streets, there were no cars on the roads? Now, in its ominous silence, it seems like something sweet, enchanting.
What did he give? Of course, we can talk about thousands of lives saved, helping the health system, reshaping business processes. But what does it give us people? We lost people. We stopped seeing our colleagues every day, which at first seemed like a good thing. But gradually it led to a break in communication chains. Since today you do not need to talk to anyone, then you do not need to wear pants. And this is a very dangerous moment – a person ceases to perceive himself as someone who appears before other people. He loses his sense of external evaluation. After all, he talks less to people. A developed speech is little that separates a human from an animal.
Yes, it turns out that 80% of all face-to-face meetings can be replaced by emails, and most emails can be replaced by messages from instant messengers. Did it make us happier?
Planes settled on Earth, people began to travel less, stopped expanding their visual and everyday experiences, stopped meeting new acquaintances, lost the opportunity to fly to distant relatives and friends who moved to another country many years ago.
And everything seems to be the same as before: the shops are full of people, even the subway that everyone takes as before, and housemates meet just as often. But this is what lays the foundation for a kind of existential loneliness of man. After all, one cannot be alone away from people, one can only be alone among them.
And here’s another hit. It’s a kind of exponential complexity of the world situation in general – but what’s there, distortion. Now those who can maintain relationships after 2014 are already damning. And in connection with the general decrease in the circle of communication, all emotions are focused on a narrow group of people. For those closest. One is watching TV again, the other is reading telegram channels. And they can’t agree on what’s going on. And then there is blasphemy and no mention of any feast.
How to be? Presumably, painless contact points should be sought to talk about what will be accepted by everyone and unconditionally.
For example, I have yet to meet a Russian, a person of Russian culture who does not accept that Anton Chekhov’s stories can be read at any age and in any number. There are disagreements about the games, but they will be disagreements of a different – quite peaceful – order. Try reading “Uncle Vanya” and then watch Andrei Konchalovsky’s movie based on this play with your loved ones. Oh, you’ll have something to discuss! Argue passionately and even emotionally, but argue peacefully, not aggressively, but harmlessly. I think the most controversial Dr. It will be about Sergei Bondarchuk as Astrov.
It is clear that re-reading “War and Peace” – especially collectively – is exhausting. But watch the movie saga of the same Bondarchuk followed by the BBC series. You’d be surprised how much the text has in common with the breadth of all its interpretations.
Now is a difficult time. And there’s no guarantee that it will get any easier anytime soon. And one person just needs another, everything will somehow follow. And what can bind these people together is something that cannot separate them. Culture. A culture in which all conflict is implicit but necessary. In other words, there is no external external evil in culture. And this is already a great help to anyone who is divided today and is one step away from it.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Source: Gazeta
