It was not without reason that this wild question worried the famous literary character, and with him a fair part of the intelligent public at the end of the vigorous, rational and self-confident nineteenth century. After all, stupid, boring rationalism, coupled with impenetrable self-confidence, as psychiatrists are well aware, is a sure sign of mental illness. And vice versa, a reasonable person, today, as in the distant past, is characterized by a skeptical attitude towards his abilities. "I only know that I know nothing," says Socrates, and St. John of the Ladder recommends "laughing at your own wisdom."
Today, almost a century and a half later, Raskolnikov’s reasoning really sounds one hundred percent nonsense: “I simply hinted that an “extraordinary” person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ... through other obstacles. It is obvious, however, that his contemporaries perceived him differently: otherwise the author of Crime and Punishment would not have deserved his fame. And the dispute between Porfiry Petrovich and Raskolnikov in the context of the novel looks more like a conversation between a healthy person and an insane one, but like a dispute on an equal footing. Dostoevsky is even forced to return to this dispute and involve other participants in it, other artistic means: “I had to find out then, and quickly find out, whether I am a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not be able to! and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right ... "To kill? Do you have the right to kill?" Sonya threw up her hands.
It is not surprising that Raskolnikov has nothing to answer her. The madness of the nineteenth century, as if in a textbook case history, developed from symptom to symptom with everyone's benevolent connivance, until it resulted in a furious explosion in the twentieth. And only today, somewhat resigned from the blood shed in the search and assertion of "human rights", people gradually began to come to their senses, to understand the legacy that the "progressives", "liberals" and "enlighteners" left them.
By "human rights" is meant at least two different strands of ethical, legal and political thought. The first direction formulates mainly negative theses: freedom from coercion or persecution of one kind or another, non-interference of the state in certain spheres of human life. The second puts forward positive demands, such as the right to work, social security, education, medical care, etc., declaring, on the contrary, active state participation in people's daily lives. They are sometimes referred to as the first and second generation of human rights. The first, correspondingly earlier, is based on the political philosophy of individualism of the 17th-18th centuries; the second - on later socialist theories.
At first glance, human rights in this formulation, whether of the first or second generation, look quite reasonable and attractive: they seem to have absolutely nothing in common with the bloody fantasies of the schismatics. But this is only at first glance. Even the American Declaration of Independence was based on a position, to put it mildly, very doubtful from the point of view of common sense and the Christian worldview: "We consider it self-evident that all people are created equal and equally endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights." Doesn't a person take on too much by declaring the Creator as his counterparty in a legal procedure? And if such a thing would happen, then for what reason the Creator, who endowed his creation with certain rights, cannot take them away with the same ease?...
However, the founders of the American Republic, for all our critical attitude towards them, cannot be accused of idiocy. They proceeded from the once popular concept of the so-called "natural law", which spread in the West along with medieval scholasticism and was subsequently discredited, both in practical life and in theory. It was not for nothing that the condition of equality of people formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence, and a few years later, along with quite specific freedom and quite fantastic fraternity, it turned out to be among the basic principles of the French Revolution. However, tell me, have you often seen, in addition to identical twins, two equal people?
Of course, they will hasten to convince you that we are talking only about the equality of people before the law, as opposed to, they say, the old feudal order, when so much for the same violation from an aristocrat, and so much from a commoner. But do not rush to succumb to beliefs. Better pay attention to the obvious vicious circle: "human rights" are formulated on the basis of the very equality of people, which is then derived from them as a legal norm!
One way or another, by the time of Raskolnikov, human rights attracted steady interest, and their attractiveness, of course, was in inverse proportion to attainability. This is especially true for second generation rights. And since the equality of people - factual, not legal - has long turned out to be self-evident nonsense, the idea of differentiation naturally arises: different people, so to speak, have different rights.
So it should not be surprising that the long saga of human rights today, in the 21st century, has led us along a dialectical curve to the third generation of these same rights - to the "group rights" of all kinds of minorities, national, sexual and others. In the USSR during the stagnation, restrictions and preferences were practiced for certain nations in hiring, in universities, etc., and everyone gnashed their teeth about such injustice, looking longingly and hopefully towards the progressive West. But in the progressive West, especially in the American cradle of democracy, the same (and much worse) restrictions and preferences have long since evoked almost no emotion. I remember that in 1985, when everything was new to me in the USA, I began to listen to Bruce Williams' radio program - open-air consultations on labor and commercial matters - and a certain unlucky businessman of Anglo-Saxon origin called the studio with a complaint about the city government, where he never got a contract. The businessman asked if he should change his last name to Gonzalez or Suarez in this regard? Truly, jokes know no bounds.
So what are human rights? How do children say: are they "good" or "bad"? Do they lead to prosperity and justice, or to abuse, to the ax and dynamite? For an answer, you can turn to another Russian author, whose hero participated in a discussion about "respect for the peasant":
There is a man and a man
If he does not drink away the harvest,
I then respect the man!
We should answer exactly the same way: there are rights and rights. If they act as a working tool of social and economic relations, if - as Margaret Thatcher notes in her new book - one does not try to develop them in a vacuum, in isolation from the living tradition of a given society, and thereby undermine the national interests and sovereignty of the country, then we respect these rights, protect and care for them.
But our "human rights activists" do not need such rights. It is appropriate to liken them to a bearded man with a machine gun who came out of the forest to meet a frightened old woman:
Grandma, where are the Germans?
- Germans?? The Germans, killer whale, have been chased away for twenty years.
- Yah? And I derail all trains ...
The bearded man, at least, managed to rethink his mission. Where are the "human rights activists"! At the same time, despite all their madness, they quite reasonably conduct their struggle on the internal front: "a person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ..." In other words, among the schismatics of the past and the present law works as an inhibitor of conscience. Or maybe as a killer.
If "human rights" become a supranational force, a kind of idol or demiurge that challenges the Creator and replaces a sober Christian view of man and society, then forgive me, we have no place for such rights. And it won't.
I killed myself, not the old woman...
F. M. Dostoevsky
F. M. Dostoevsky is the greatest Russian writer, an unsurpassed realist artist, an anatomist of the human soul, a passionate champion of the ideas of humanism and justice. His novels are distinguished by their close interest in the intellectual life of the characters, the disclosure of the complex and contradictory consciousness of man.
The main works of Dostoevsky appeared in print in the last third of the 19th century, when the crisis of the old moral and ethical principles became apparent, when the gap between the rapidly changing life and the traditional norms of life became obvious. It was in the last third of the 19th century that people began to talk about the "reassessment of all values", about changing the norms of traditional Christian morality and morality. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, this became practically the main issue among the creative intelligentsia. Dostoevsky was one of the first to see the danger of the coming reassessment and the accompanying "dehumanization of man." He was the first to show the "devilry" that was originally hidden in such attempts. All his main works and, of course, one of the central novels - "Crime and Punishment" are devoted to this.
Raskolnikov is the spiritual and compositional center of the novel. External action only reveals his internal struggle. He must go through a more painful split in order to understand himself and the moral law, which is inextricably linked with human essence. The hero solves the riddle of his own personality and at the same time the riddle of human nature.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov - the protagonist of the novel - in the recent past, a student who left the university for ideological reasons. Despite his attractive appearance, "he was so poorly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day." Raskolnikov lives in extreme poverty, renting a closet that looks like a coffin in one of the St. Petersburg houses. However, he pays little attention to the circumstances of life, as he is fascinated by his own theory and the search for evidence of its validity.
Disappointed in the social ways of changing the surrounding life, he decides that the impact on life is possible with the help of violence, and for this a person who intends to do something for the common good should not be bound by any norms and prohibitions. Trying to help the disadvantaged, Rodion comes to the realization of his own powerlessness in the face of world evil. In desperation, he decides to "break" the moral law - to kill out of love for humanity, to commit evil for the sake of good.
Raskolnikov seeks power not out of vanity, but to help people who are dying in poverty and lack of rights. However, next to this idea there is another - "Napoleonic", which gradually comes to the fore, pushing the first one. Raskolnikov divides humanity into "...two categories: into the lowest (ordinary), that is, so to speak, into the material that serves only for the birth of their own kind, and actually into people, that is, those who have the gift or talent to say a new word in their midst ". The second category, the minority, was born to dominate and command, the first - "to live in obedience and be obedient."
The main thing for him is freedom and power, which he can use as he pleases - for good or for evil. He confesses to Sonya that he killed because he wanted to know: "Do I have the right to have power?" He wants to understand: "Am I a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not? Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?" This is a self-test of a strong personality, trying his strength. Both ideas own the soul of the hero, reveal his consciousness.
Separated from everyone and shutting himself in his corner, Raskolnikov hatches the thought of murder. The surrounding world and people cease to be a true reality for him. However, the "ugly dream" he's been cherishing for a month disgusts him. Raskolnikov does not believe that he can commit murder, and despises himself for being abstract and incapable of practical action. He goes to the old pawnbroker for a test - a place to inspect and try on. He thinks about violence, and his soul writhes under the burden of world suffering, protesting against cruelty.
The inconsistency of Raskolnikov's theory begins to be revealed already at the time of the commission of the crime. Life cannot fit into a logical scheme, and Raskolnikov's well-calculated scenario is violated: at the most inopportune moment, Lizaveta appears, and he has to kill her (and, probably, her unborn child).
After the murder of the old woman and her sister Lizaveta, Raskolnikov experiences a deep emotional shock. The crime puts him "beyond good and evil", separates him from humanity, surrounds him with an icy desert. A gloomy "sense of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously affected his soul." Raskolnikov has a fever, he is close to insanity and even wants to commit suicide. Rodion tries to pray, and laughs at himself. Laughter turns to desperation. Dostoevsky emphasizes the motive of the hero's alienation from people: they seem to him disgusting and cause "... an endless, almost physical disgust." Even with the closest he cannot speak, feeling an insurmountable boundary "lying" between them.
The path of crime for Raskolnikov (and, according to Dostoevsky, for none of the people) is unacceptable (it is not for nothing that Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov's crime with death, and his further resurrection takes place in the name of Christ). The human thing that was in Raskolnikov (he supported a sick fellow student for almost a year at his own expense, saved two children from the fire, helped, giving the last money for the funeral, Marmeladov's widow), contributes to the speedy resurrection of the hero (Porfiry Petrovich's words that Raskolnikov "didn't fool himself for long"). Rodion is resurrected to a new life by Sonya Marmeladova. Raskolnikov's theory is opposed by the Christian idea of atonement for one's own and others' sins by suffering (images of Sonya, Dunya, Mikolka). It is when the world of Christian spiritual values opens up for Raskolnikov (through love for Sonya) that he finally rises to life.
Tired of "theory" and "dialectics", Raskolnikov begins to realize the value of ordinary life: "No matter how you live, just live! What a truth! Lord, what a truth! A scoundrel is a man! And a scoundrel is the one who calls him a scoundrel for this." He, who wanted to live as an "extraordinary person" worthy of a real life, is ready to put up with a simple and primitive existence. His pride is crushed: no, he is not Napoleon, with whom he constantly relates himself, he is just an "aesthetic louse". Instead of Toulon and Egypt, he has a "skinny ugly registrar", but even that is enough for him to fall into despair. Raskolnikov laments that he should have known in advance about himself, about his weakness, before going to "bleed". He is unable to bear the burden of the crime and confesses it to Sonechka. Then he goes to the station and confesses.
With his crime, Raskolnikov crossed himself out of the category of people, became an outcast, an outcast. "I didn't kill the old woman, I killed myself," he admits to Sonya Marmeladova. This isolation from people prevents Raskolnikov from living.
The hero's idea of the right of the strong to commit crime turned out to be absurd. Life has defeated theory. No wonder Goethe said in Faust: "Theory, my friend, is sulfur. But the tree of life is eternally green."
According to Dostoevsky, no lofty goal can justify the useless means leading to its achievement. The individualistic rebellion against the order of the surrounding life is doomed to defeat. Only compassion, Christian empathy and unity with other people can make life better and happier.
- ... Be quiet, Sonya, I'm not laughing at all, I myself know that the devil was dragging me. Shut up, Sonya, shut up! he repeated grimly and insistently. - I know everything. All this I had already changed my mind and whispered to myself when I lay then in the darkness... I argued all this with myself, to the last, smallest line, and I know everything, everything! And I was so tired, so tired of all this chatter then! I wanted to forget everything and start again, Sonya, and stop talking! And do you really think that I, like a fool, went headlong? I went like a wise guy, and that's what ruined me! And do you really think that I didn’t know, for example, that if I had already begun to question and interrogate myself: do I have the right to have power? - then, therefore, I have no right to have power. Or what if I ask the question: is a person a louse? - then, therefore, a person is no longer a louse for me, but a louse for someone who does not even enter his head and who goes straight without questions ... If I have been tormented for so many days: would Napoleon have gone or not? - so I clearly felt that I was not Napoleon ... I endured all, all the torment of all this chatter, Sonya, and wished to shake it all off my shoulders: I wanted, Sonya, to kill without casuistry, to kill for myself, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it, even to myself! Not in order to help my mother, I killed - nonsense! I did not kill in order to, having received funds and power, become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I just killed; I killed for myself, for myself alone: and there, if I became someone's benefactor, or all my life, like a spider, I would catch everyone in a web and suck the living juices out of everyone, I, at that moment, should have been all the same! And not money, the main thing, I needed, Sonya, when I killed; money was needed not so much as something else... I know all this now... Understand me: maybe, following the same path, I would never repeat the murders again. I had to find out something else, something else pushed me under the arms: I had to find out then, and find out as soon as possible, whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not! Do I dare to bend down and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right ...
- Kill? Do you have the right to kill? Sonya threw up her hands.
- Hey, Sonya! he exclaimed irritably, he was about to retort something to her, but he fell silent contemptuously. Don't interrupt me Sonya! I wanted to prove only one thing to you: that the devil dragged me then, and only after that he explained to me that I had no right to go there, because I’m just the same louse as everyone else! He laughed at me, so I've come to you now! Have a guest! If I were not a louse, would I come to you? Listen: when I went to the old woman then, I only went to try ... Know that!
- And killed! Killed!
- But how did he kill him? Is that how they kill? Is it the way they go to kill, as I was going then! Someday I'll tell you how I walked ... Did I kill the old woman? I killed myself, not the old woman! Here, all at once, I slapped myself, forever! .. And the devil killed that old woman, and not I ... Enough, enough, Sonya, enough! Leave me,” he suddenly cried out in convulsive anguish, “leave me!”
It was not without reason that this wild question worried the famous literary character, and with him a fair part of the intelligent public at the end of the vigorous, rational and self-confident nineteenth century. After all, stupid, boring rationalism, coupled with impenetrable self-confidence, as psychiatrists are well aware, is a sure sign of mental illness. And vice versa, a reasonable person, today, as in the distant past, is characterized by a skeptical attitude towards his abilities. " I only know that I know nothing", - says Socrates, and St. John of the Ladder recommends " laugh at your own wisdom».
Today, almost a century and a half later, Raskolnikov’s reasoning really sounds like absolute nonsense: “I simply hinted that an “extraordinary” person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ... through other obstacles ... ”It is obvious, however, that contemporaries perceived him differently: otherwise the author of Crime and Punishment would not have deserved his fame. And the dispute between Porfiry Petrovich and Raskolnikov in the context of the novel looks more like a conversation between a healthy person and an insane one, but like a dispute on an equal footing. Dostoevsky is even forced to return to this dispute and involve other participants in it, other artistic means: “I should have found out then, and quickly found out, am I a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not! Do I dare to bend down and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right ... - Kill? Do you have the right to kill? Sonya threw up her hands.
It is not surprising that Raskolnikov has nothing to answer her. The madness of the nineteenth century, as if in a textbook case history, developed from symptom to symptom with everyone's benevolent connivance, until it resulted in a furious explosion in the twentieth. And only today, having somewhat reconciled from the blood shed in the search for and assertion of "human rights", people gradually began to come to their senses, to understand the legacy left to them by the "progressives", "liberals" and "enlighteners" ...
By "human rights" is understood at least two different strands of ethical, legal and political thought. The first direction formulates mainly negative theses: freedom from coercion or persecution of one kind or another, non-interference of the state in certain spheres of human life. The second puts forward positive demands, such as the right to work, social security, education, medical care, etc., declaring, on the contrary, active state participation in people's daily lives. They are sometimes referred to as the first and second generation of human rights. The first, respectively earlier, is based on the political philosophy of individualism of the 17th-18th centuries; the second - on later socialist theories.
At first glance, human rights in this formulation, whether of the first or second generation, look quite reasonable and attractive: they seem to have absolutely nothing in common with the bloody fantasies of the schismatics. But this is only at first glance. Even the American Declaration of Independence was based on a position, to put it mildly, very doubtful from the point of view of common sense and the Christian worldview: “ We take it for granted that all men are created equal and equally endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights...» Isn't a person taking on too much by declaring the Creator as his counterparty in a legal procedure? And if such a thing would happen, then for what reason the Creator, who endowed his creation with certain rights, cannot take them away with the same ease?...
However, the founders of the American Republic, for all our critical attitude towards them, still cannot be accused of idiocy. They proceeded from the once popular concept of the so-called “natural law”, which spread in the West along with medieval scholasticism and was subsequently discredited, both in practical life and in theory. It was not for nothing that the condition of equality of people formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence, and a few years later, along with quite specific freedom and quite fantastic fraternity, it turned out to be among the basic principles of the French Revolution. However, tell me, have you often seen, in addition to identical twins, two equal people?
Of course, they will hasten to convince you that we are talking only about the equality of people before the law, in contrast, they say, to the old feudal orders, when for the same violation from an aristocrat it was so much, and so much from a commoner. But do not rush to succumb to beliefs. Better pay attention to the obvious vicious circle: "human rights" are formulated on the basis of the very equality of people, which is then derived from them as a legal norm ...
One way or another, by the time of Raskolnikov, human rights attracted steady interest, and their attractiveness, of course, was in inverse proportion to attainability. This is especially true for second generation rights. And since the equality of people - factual, not legal - has long turned out to be self-evident nonsense, the idea of differentiation naturally arises: different people, so to speak, have different rights.
So it should not be surprising that the long saga of human rights today, in the 21st century, has led us along a dialectical curve to the third generation of these same rights - to the "group rights" of all kinds of minorities, national, sexual and others. In the USSR during the stagnation, restrictions and preferences were practiced for certain nations in hiring, in universities, etc., and everyone gnashed their teeth about such injustice, looking longingly and hopefully towards the progressive West. But in the progressive West, especially in the American cradle of democracy, the same (and much worse) restrictions and preferences have long since evoked almost no emotion. I remember that in 1985, when everything was new to me in the USA, I began to listen to Bruce Williams' radio program - open-air consultations on labor and commercial matters - and a certain unlucky businessman of Anglo-Saxon origin called the studio with a complaint about the city government, where he never got a contract. The businessman asked if he should change his last name to Gonzalez or Suarez in this regard ... Truly, jokes know no bounds.
So what are human rights? How do children say: are they “good” or “bad”? Do they lead to prosperity and justice, or to abuse, to the ax and dynamite? For an answer, you can turn to another Russian author, whose hero participated in the discussion about "respect for the peasant":
... There is a man and a man -
If he does not drink away the harvest,
I then respect the man!
We should answer exactly the same way: there are rights and rights. If they act as a working tool of social and economic relations, if - as Margaret Thatcher notes in her new book - one does not try to develop them in a vacuum, in isolation from the living tradition of a given society, and thereby undermine the national interests and sovereignty of the country, then we respect these rights, protect and care for them.
But our “human rights activists” do not need such rights. It is appropriate to liken them to a bearded man with a machine gun who came out of the forest to meet a frightened old woman:
- Grandma, where are the Germans?
- Germans?? The Germans, killer whale, have been chased away for twenty years.
- Yah? And I derail all the trains ...
The bearded man, at least, managed to rethink his mission. Where are the "human rights activists"! At the same time, despite all their madness, they quite reasonably conduct their struggle on the domestic front: “ a person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ...» In other words, for the schismatics of the past and present, the right works as an inhibitor of conscience. Or maybe as a killer.
If “human rights” become a supranational force, a kind of idol or demiurge that challenges the Creator and replaces a sober Christian view of man and society, then forgive me, we have no place for such rights. And it won't.
Well, dreamers and creators? Do you have times when you create something and then you suffer: “Will someone like it? Will someone "pay" for my creation? If yes, then this post from the book "100 Ways to Change Your Life" is definitely for you! After it, your wings will grow and you will definitely understand: “I have the right!”.
Let's remember what Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" looks like. the picture is also magnificent in that it is absolutely not necessary to insert it as an illustration in a book: it is very easy to imagine. This. Just. Black. square.
Let me remind you that Black Square is a picturesque manifesto of Suprematism and a painting that is valued at $20 million. I also want to remind you of a couple of facts. Malevich himself in his "Autobiography" called 1898 "the beginning of public exhibitions." And he wrote the "square" in 1915. That is, for 17 years he had the idea of a square, until he was finally born. For seventeen years he thought about the square and finally revealed it to the world.
I know little about art and therefore have no right to evaluate it. But I have common sense, and it conflicts with Malevich's internal logic.
If he came to me and asked me what I think about the "square", I would say: "Uh-uh ... Kozya, I think you overheated." Luckily, he didn't come to me and ask my opinion. If you are as far from art as I am, ask yourself: “Why is a regular black square valued at $20 million?”
Think. There is an official version of why the "square" has become one of the symbols of the art of the XXI century. It sounds like this: “Because Malevich was the first to come up with the idea that an ordinary square can be a manifesto of something very monumental and become a classic work of art.”
And it is unlikely that Malevich then thought: “It's just a square. Well, isn't it stupid? What would Leonardo da Vinci say? What about my friends? Won't they think I'm crazy?
If you work on something for many years, with all the passion, putting your soul into it, then it cannot be stupid. The main thing is that you yourself see the meaning in this. And then others will see it too.
By the way, if you think that there are no such precedents in contemporary art, then there are many. One of my favorite paintings is The Green Blob by Ellsworth Kelly. the picture is also easy to describe in words. This is a green blot. I love contemporary art.
Nice, isn't it? “Not a square, of course, but there is something in it,” - this is probably what the person who bought the “blot” for $ 1.6 million thought.
And another easy way to make sure that you need to do what kindles the fire in you, and everything else will follow, is to visit some exhibition of modern art in London. One such exhibition recently featured furniture made from human hair and a dandelion chandelier. Everything has been sold. Very expensive.
Those who do something always have a lot of doubts and self-reflection. Will people like it? Isn't it too strange / banal / incomprehensible what I created? Well, the classic question: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?”
We also often come up with “squares”, “green blots” - ideas that seem too simple, or stupid, or unworthy to us - and we become afraid that no one needs it or no one will appreciate it.
This is a mistake that can deprive us of the happiness of self-realization. Of course, a person comes up with a bunch of absurd things (“a square”, by the way, does not apply to them) that one wants to “unsee”. And my call is not to create strange things, ideas and works of art, but not to be afraid to release them into the world if you truly believe in them.
When I worked in a Moscow newspaper and wrote news about the stars every day (“Lady Gaga came to the ceremony in a meat suit”, “Paris Hilton came up with a name for a new dog” and other dregs), I was constantly tormented by a sense of the meaninglessness of what was happening. I didn't understand why I was doing this. I didn't develop. It was not "creation": we simply translated news from foreign sites, and did not write our own. And it seemed to me that it was completely useless for the world.
Of course, it was a sad time in my life. Internal resistance to what I was doing led to constant illness and problems. I felt like a person who goes down the subway at rush hour and goes towards the crowd: it constantly demolishes, everyone pushes, it is not clear why I went down into this damn subway at rush hour.
Disgusting. Every day, sitting in this newsroom, I felt my real life pass me by. There's no point.
I have many acquaintances who feel the same senselessness when sitting in their office chairs. One of my friends works in a large agro-industrial company: let's say, she keeps discipline. “If a person arrives at work five minutes late, I ask them to write an explanatory note. And if a person is late at work for an hour, we, of course, do not ask him to write why it happened,” she says. When I heard the word "explanatory", I almost fell off my chair. Explanatory in the XXI century? Seriously? Honestly, it smacks of slavery and the Stone Age.
And I see how meaningless this work is for her. She sucks all the juices, but a friend does not leave, because there "they pay well." Why do we call people who have sex for money prostitutes, but for people who “sleep” with their work only because of money, we didn’t come up with anything? Probably because then "prostitutes" could be called half the world.
Think: does your work have a deep meaning for you? I am sure that only meaningful work can bring pleasure (the idea for the exercise below is borrowed from Barbara Sher's book "Dreaming is Good").
Write on a piece of paper the names of people or professions that you think make sense. Do not look back at what is considered worthy in society, or what they tried to impose on you as a child.
You must find your personal meaning. Personal source of inner clarity. Write down everything that comes to mind.
For example, at one of my master classes there was a girl who worked as a dentist, but at the same time she saw the greatest meaning in the work of ... tattooists. And I became one of them! Here is what she said:
The first time I was in a tattoo parlor, my knees were shaking. I felt how exactly here people get rid of the stereotypes of society and realize themselves in drawings on the body. For me, the philosophy of a tattoo is that it is a mark that a person makes for life. And this is an expression of his personality. He can fill himself with a lifelong motto that will support him in any situation.
With such a mood, she began to work as a tattoo artist and very quickly succeeded. And all because it was something sacred, higher for her.
I would be a lousy tattoo artist. I have great respect for everyone who is related to this industry, but I don’t see the point in putting drawings on my body. However, this is my personal choice. And if my children ever tell me (after coming of age, of course) that they want to get tattoos because it means something to them, please.
I see a deep meaning in the transfer of knowledge, my feelings from the world in words. And one of my relatives, a fireman, jokingly says to me when we meet: “Laura, are you scribbling something on your computer again?” It makes no sense to him what I'm doing. He thinks I'm just writing some words. But they make a lot of sense to me.
The world is perfectly arranged: you can choose any work with meaning for yourself, become a Master, and there will definitely be a crowd of fans and people who will be ready to buy your Mastery. Even if you make hair furniture or draw a "Green Blot".
Only those who follow their inner voice truly succeed. Only what is filled with meaning for you personally will fill the void in your heart.
#100 ways to change your life
