TECH *
Сколько сказано о свободе воли! А разве воля и не есть свобода? 2004: web-plans
To My Children
"Последняя воля" -- прямой перевод с английского: завещание. Воля после смерти, за пределами жизни...
Title А почему не последнее желание?
I give up. I go back. To the world of wonders. The kingdom of childhood. I was right then, when I thought that the light is a miracle. Yes, electric light too. I want to stay amazed by the TV and radio. I give up my illusion of being in control.

What do I understand? Who told me that I understood it? No, no, I am tired of being a man....

Very old text; I redistribute the events of my life to many books....

Also, there is PS page in directory!

Updated -- 2003... 2006. 2008!

Summary

Федоров - суровый и непримиримый враг женолюбия. Сыны блудные покинули отцов и прилепились к женам, для жен творят культуру. Вся культура капиталистического общества основана на женолюбии и отрицает отцелюбие. Вся современная культура создана в угоду женщине; она имеет половой источник. Культ женщины вызвал развитие промышленности. Есть глубина в этой идее Федорова о связи промышленности с женолюбием и женопоклонством.

Questions

Notes

Даже представить себе не могу, как это, сесть и написать завещание?

Что-то в этом детское.

Что?

...


Last Will

Завещание. До сих пор не написано. Что мне завещать? (Запись, сделанная несколько лет назад):
Since Grammatik keeps telling me that my texts are suitable for six-to-eight graders, I decided not be insulted anymore by the fact, but accept it. I have a couple years before my daughter will be in eighth, and my son in sixth grade....

I want to be forgotten. No grave stone, grave or even funeral. The unknown, non-identified body for city workers to deal with. (I missed the Stalin's times when one could have a privilege of being an enemy of the people and every memory of the lucky one being alive or lived could be completely erased). I won't be able to collect my writings, photos and video tapes; I only hope that time would take care of erasing memory of me lived. I know that would inflict pain on you who loved me, but I want you to know me for what I am -- the enemy of all people.

Nothing changed since I was born. Both times. Forty seven years ago (physically), and thirty (spiritually). I didn't like life. I tried hard to fall in love with life, to connect myself, because I had nothing else but life. I had no choice. Brought to life without asking am I granted with a "free will"? (And is it "free" will? Is any will "free" by definition? Or we are not so sure about it?)
From the start I had no chance. My presence and existence wasn't my (first) choice). The rest was to follow. Parents, country, culture, history, "their" past -- everything was given (imposed on) to me as "mine." Before I knew how I was (or want to be) I was formed (marxism) according to what I should be. I wasn't free even to reject "their" choice (in turn, their choices weren't really theirs). It was "kingdom of necessity."
I fought my way to (social) freedom -- my right to choice. And how! (I questioned and I still do the meaning of "love" which conflicts with notion of freedom). I didn't want to give up because I believed (I want to believe) that one day I would be free to do what I want to do. To work. (What is that?)
Oh, I never liked myself. It comes "with the territory" -- how could I reject life without refusing to accept myself. I didn't like my looks (when I grew up enough to notice it). Now I understand why I constantly have to check my reflections in mirrors. Now I know why I have to find "my face" (the one I could, compromising, to select as the "best" out worse the rest, did I have a choice?). In subway windows it was most obvious that I'm facing a stranger. I knew it was me. But every time I saw myself it was a shock. I had to force myself to accept it. Later it got better, for a short while during my twenties suddenly people began to like me (and I liked them, I was in love with life; that's how I began to write). Whatever I wrote, said, did -- they noticed me, and I lived off their interest. It looked as if I was about to get free. I guess, I was lucky, my illusion lasted almost a decade. No matter how low would I fall, there was tomorrow. All what I had to do was to get there, one more step, another push...
They say "to love and to loved" is a pleasant feeling. What about desperation, pain, sorrow?

It takes many years to realize that you are dead. You can't believe that it happened. How could it be? But you know that there is "before" and "after." It doesn't go away. The fact. The transition from the childhood is gradual and the death of a child replaced by an adult doesn't seam tragic -- growing up. But how you forget him, you remember. The accident is more merciful.

I always thought about suicide. Maybe even when I was a child.

REFUGEE. A chapter (or permanent state, according to theory of pomo nomads) in my life.

[IMAGE] Latina, Italy, Summer 1980. (Defector)

"Bless the one who hadn't live in interesting times" (Who else but Chinese). For outsiders, even for a friend, even for, children, it was a travel, time of changes and exitment. I'm glad that I too believed in it, never thinking about our moves from place to place as an escape but a journey. Ulysses wasn't a refugee in search for his new home, he tried to find his way back home. Was I running away from "home" or never had one? From the outside my life could look like an interesting adventure, and I was an outsider to myself. I denied that I'm a refugee. I always preferred to call myself a defector, the one who initiates the escape. I like to have a choice/will. Met in NY by the International Rescue Committee, I smirked at them; they were to be rescue from the communism and stupidity and I was the one to do it. I wanted to have my last word -- I choose to leave the Soviet Union, it was my decision! (I knew it wasn't much of the choice). In Italy (in a refugee [!] camp) I saw others who run for their lives but I was different! How different was my story from the boat people's fate?
I was with them at the end no matter how much I tried to convince myself of my different, high motivations. They have their stories no less exotic and tragic to tell. Most of them spoke Russian (they ran from the same), and I worked in the office for little money translating and filing their first western papers. Once again, I, a Russian, was in a power position, as if they were back to their recent past they tried to escape. We all were in aftershock state of mind, numbed, we all were alive and the danger was behind. You have to relive the fact of survival, the realization that the choice was make, that you changed your life forever. The Vietnamese boy, fast in English, the only one out of the whole big family, who survived at the open sea, Rumanian mother and her daughter, who swam across Danube, the younger daughter had drawn -- they never talk about the past. The future was unknown and therefore more threatening.
Why did I think that I was different?
I was a writer, or I was a part of the Soviet establishment, I was a true traitor... But my life was behind, and here in Latina (where are my dairies of that time, letters, notes?) we were the same. We all lost our "home," we were "stateless." "I never had home!" I would say to myself. Neither they, I add now. I feel that my act was important, it was a statement, and I wanted it to be my statement...
As far as our personal existence were concerned, we were equal; we were lost. Western mind would never understand the drama of leaving the old world. Europeans did it many centuries ago. For the East European soul leaving your country is a catastrophe, an non-acceptable event. It's not leaving your world but leaving life, the only world you knew. We all knew that we are traitors and we were agree that we betrayed our gods. After all we left not the totalitarian regime or authoritarian government, we left us behind. We were guilty.
We ran.
"Political," "economical" refugees? Legal, illegal immigrants? We are always illegal, we are criminals.

THE WALL and THE DOOR

[IMAGE] Berlin, 1976.

America: country of immigrants? Not for long. Twenty years ago the US government fought for dissidents who wanted to leave the USSR. Now any and every US consular division fights to keep them from coming to USA. I don't close the door behind me, I was lucky to enter before it was closed. I don't say that the door has to be closed (do I?), it will be shot. There will be borders around America, and the wall. The Chinese Wall was build to keep enemies out, the Berlin Wall -- to keep the citizens in. They do look differently. Walls of Jerusalem, or Kremlin walls.

[IMAGE]

Roads in America. Not to seperate but to connect?
And this is the world of "private" property?

What would happen when America closes its borders? American iron curtain? What a nonsense!
The Invisible Walls. Glass walls. I missed windows in New York.
Even more striking -- glass doors!
Don't be fooled -- the wall is stile there. It's an illusion of unstructured space, pretended absolute freedom. Optical illusion, for looking only, not for being in actual space. No wonder the next to appear was the TV screen -- the most secure of all walls. The replacement of reality. Guess what? Virtual reality is the next. Live it! Enjoy! As long as you motionless.

"NEW AMERICAN"

[IMAGE] New York, Jersey City, mid eighties.
"The New American" was the name of the Russian language weekly in NYC.

I thought that I'm a better American than Americans.
What "new Americans" bring in? "Old Americans" or "Native Americans," the majority.

FAMILY ALBUM

Connections between big history and my family story: news. Afghanistan, Carter's stand on human rights, revolution in Ethiopia, Reagan's crack on "evil empire."
200 years of American constitution, my lecturing in VA. My citizenship story.
What I did to America: nine people, including myself.
I look back at those years when it took place and I try to understand. I leave aside (or try to do it) my personal relations; they ("we"?) are here. Even Esther; I made her American.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:

STRUCTURE: topical, chronological. News, notes, documents, letters, dairies. It's the style: testimonies, chronicles, pictures (images). Children book, comics. Would my kids understand it? Children who are not adults yet, the teens. The book isn't about Russia, Ethiopia, or me; its' about America. Critical? Analysis asks for a critical look, or a new, fresh view. What I don't understand about America? Trying to know, to learn. What I don't accept.
American history, past, recent and not so recent -- it's my life now. The thought which crosses my mind so often after our return from Africa.
What Americans do not know about America, Americans, world?
Russian feelings, Ethiopian, American emotions. Like a taste -- that's a true nationality.

AMERICAN PASSPORT

[IMAGE] Russia, Africa, the customs.

What do I want my children to know and to remember?
They are not only born in America, they are Americans. What kind? America is changing faster than any other country today or in history. America is the changes.
"I'm a quoter American, quoter Russian, quoter of Ethiopian and quoter of English."
"English? Why English?"
"Because I speak English."

My daughter was four or five. She didn't want to be black. She liked to think of herself as white. Identity is a step to meet yourself.

NOTES

I am dead but anything I wrote and haven't is copyrighted and the money belong to the children.

...
Next: Russian Dreams
@2000-2004 *