Category: reflections

Shostakovich’s 11th

It was definitely not the first time I heard Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony, but I guess it has been a while. Or it’s just how it feels these days. Usually, I leave the CSO uplifted, with the general feeling that “life is not so bad,” but the 11th Symphony left me feeling hopeless, especially the finale. Too many cultural references, plus too many parallels with today’s situations (more than one). After the last accord, when the audience exploded with applause, I felt almost insulted by this sound: how could anybody applause after hearing that?!

There was one interesting episode at DevOps Day. I met one person at the beginning of the day (he was a partner of one of the speakers). He approached me later in the day, asking my opinion about some abstract situation (and he told me that he was constructing this situation based on the previous responder’s feedback). After several clarifying questions, I finally realized which moral dilemma he was trying to solve. I told him: you do not need to ask me about the hypothetical situation; I have been in a similar situation for the past three years. And I hate myself for not doing enough years before. I hate myself for not doing enough now, for having my spoon being too small to scoop the water out before the people drown. And I feel guilty for “living a life” and worrying about a million non-critical things while some seriously evil things are happening all over the world…

At the end of our conversation, that person thanked me for sharing my opinion and said that he was sure I would have something to say. I asked him why he was so sure, and he said that he listened to my talk and knew I had opinions.

I don’t know why I feel this conversation is related to Shostakovich’s 11th, but somehow, in my mind, it is!

Busyness

I didn’t comment on one of my recent listens: Oliver Burkeman’s “Epidemics of Modern Life”

I listened to this radio collection, but he has separate books about at least two of the epidemic: Business and Angryness. The radio collection consists of four parts: Addicted to Busy, The Power of Negative Thinking, Why Are We So Angry? and The Death of Nuance. All of them touch on important topics, but I was especially interested in the first part. According to sociologists, it’s not like we are busier these days than in the past, but society’s expectations and standards have changed. For example, it’s a well-known fact that despite many devices that make cleaning the house and other household chores easier, people don’t spend less time on house cleaning than previously. And there is an explanation for that: the standards of cleanliness have changed. As Burkeman states, “Now the floor shouldn’t be just clean, but clean enough to perform an open-heart surgery on it.”

Another interesting observation is that people started viewing things that they do for themselves (like attending a meditation session) as “projects,” which also increases business.

As a side topic, there was an interesting discussion about “paid” and “unpaid” work. I never thought about it the way Burkeman approaches it, but it does make sense: if you can pay somebody to do this, and you will still get the same result, it’s work, paid or unpaid; otherwise, it’s not. For example, you can pay somebody to bake a cake for you, and you will still get a cake without baking it, so baking a cake is work. On the other hand, you can’t pay somebody to go to the theater to see the play instead of you, it will defeat the whole purpose of going to the theater. Incidentally, that perfectly illustrates what I always say about my baking: I love the process. I am fine eating out and I am glad that they feed us at work, but I will never delegate my baking to somebody (yes, I love Vanille desserts, but I am not trying to reproduce them!).

And at the end of this episode, Burkeman talks about the necessity of idleness. That is something many researchers are talking about: to innovate, our brain needs some idleness (I always generate great ideas when I am on vacation!) It is also related to the state, which I am trying to achieve with not much luck – not to have a super-packed schedule with no wiggling room. With all seriousness, I know it’s not good, and I know that there is a physical limit to what I can do. My only success in this area is that I learned not to be upset when my plans collapse.

I guess these are very appropriate thoughts on a day when Boris’ flight was delayed for 24 hours. To be precise, there was an emergency landing because they could not start a backup generator and had to wait for repair. So much for trying to have a day off together!

Books

Hardly Ever Otherwise – the second book by Maria Mateos I read, and I liked it even more than Sweet Daruisha, which I read earlier. It is exceptionally well written, and I couldn’t put the book aside until I was done (to be fair, I put it aside right after I started for a while because I had something due back to the library, the book club reading, etc., but then I picked it up again and read non-stop). It’s not an easy reading, but nevertheless.

Small Great Things. The Goodreads reviews are mixed, from one to five stars. I gave it four and read several reviews, and I understand why the opinion differs drastically. There is one review that a reader rewrote several times, giving it five stars first and then gradually changing it to two. I think it’s very much worth reading, especially these days, to remind us about the dark sides of human nature, which are unleashed (again( by the current Administration’s actions).

The Trail of Mrs. Rhinelander. Not from the first page, but I got hooked pretty soon into reading this book and couldn’t put it down. Once again, I understand the mixed reviews, but I liked it. One of these stories in which you learn a lot of unexpected things about the very recent past and what were social norms in a very recent past (barely a hundred years ago).

2020: One City, Seven People. The stories of seven new-yorkers during the pandemic and after. OK, but judging by the book description, I expected more.

The Black Utopians – same as the previous book, I expected much more for the description. I wish the book would be better structured, more organized, and more engaging.

One More Elpha Post

Since I almost lost one of my Elpha posts, I want to make sure another one is also stored permanently. Actually, I might have published it already, but just in case!

Continue reading “One More Elpha Post” →

Overheard On The CTA Bus On January 16

— My son told me yesterday: I want to study Islam. I said: You want to study something six thousand years old? Do you know what day it is today? Go and find out what happened in 1968 and figure out who you are!

From a man carrying all his possessions in a rolling cart talking to another passenger.

Russian Lies #2

The second documentary of the ‘Russian Lies” series, this one is focused on Russian Literature. And once again, I can repeat word for word the same things I said in the comments on the first documentary: none of this was ever hidden or not accessible. Ever.

We all studied Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky at school. We all read (or at least were supposed to) the books in which the never-ending war on Caucuses was a centerpiece. And brave Russian officers fighting with violent Chechens were the heroes. And we never ever questioned that assumption. Pushin’s private letters were always available in the “Complete Works.” It fact, many of them were frequently cited during the Russian Literature lessons. There was no secret of how he felt about the expansion of Russian territories from Peter the Great onward.

We knew that Russian literature didn’t exist until the 18th century. The was a Tale of Igor’s Campaign at the end of the 12th century, and then pretty much nothing (with few exceptions) until the beginning of the 18th century. But as I already mentioned, the language of the “Tale” is not Russian; it’s an old Slavic language that later evolved into three separate East Slavic languages. The language of Shakespeare is archaic English, but nevertheless, it’s English, while the language of the Tale is not Russian.

A side note. It’s a stunningly beautiful piece of literature. I was so taken away by it when I first read it (I was not older than ten) that I started to learn it by heart. I read all the scientific comments and learned what each word meant (not what it sounded like). As a result, I hated all “officially recognized” poetic translations because I could spot inaccuracies immediately. I still can recite big chunks of it.

Back to the main topic. We didn’t study any literature except for Russian. The exception was my English school; if I remained there until graduation, I would have two semesters of English literature and two of American literature. However, I moved to a specialized mathematical school. I know that regular schools had a “foreign literature” semester in the 9th or 10th grade, so the students there had at least limited exposure. As for us, we were unlucky to have a very good literature teacher. It’s not a typo; she knew Russian literature very well, and we worshiped her. On Saturday afternoons after school, she read forbidden literature to us (not completely forbidden, but let’s say, not approved, such as Bulgakov, Leonid Andreev, or Akhmatova). We believed every word she said, and she was saying that Russian literature is the greatest (she had never read any foreign literature in its original language) and that there was not enough time in the curriculum for us to learn what she wanted us to learn, so to hell with any foreign literature.

This baggage was very difficult to get rid of; somehow, the modern “progressive” writers didn’t charm me that much; somehow, I was able to detect the imperial mindset more or less right away, but many of my friends didn’t.

OK, enough commenting – please watch the documentary.

What Makes One’s Life A Happy One?

I wrote this post three months ago, and meant to write a follow-up since then. I am not dismissing the importance of “magical moments” in our lives; they are important for happiness. And I agree that they can be very “uneventful.” For example, one of my most treasured memories is a moment when Boris was waiting for me outside the Orchestra Hall in Saint Petersburg, and when he saw me (it was still time when his vision was good enough to recognize me from a distance), his facial expression and body language were such that an older lady standing by him waiting for her party smiled. Or the one when we walked down the street in Moscow, and a man walking in the opposite direction said loudly: Look how much she loves you! I also understand that anybody would be happy with a surprise gift or a lovely message but I do not understand why these things might be more important than everything else, and I understand even less why the absence of something might be “magical.”

I think that the best thing that happened in my life was that for the past thirty-six years, I was with one person, and we shared all aspects of our lives and no matter how many differences we had and still have, we are there for each other.

Boris says there must be some cultural and historical context for my mom’s beliefs, and I tend to agree with him. I remember that as a teen and young adult, I loved the concept of a “have to be a strong woman.” One of the “bard” songs that I loved ended with the following verse:

You paint the sky blue, and you paint the rocks grey,

and then you paint men always strong, and women for sure weak.

But the sky is blue only sometimes, and those that are gey are not rocks,

so you have to be strong while you long to be weak.

I mentioned in this blog multiple times that it was commonplace for a man to exhibit some grand gestures to win a woman’s heart, and it’s not cool to accept somebody’s courting until such grand gestures are made. “A woman should be treated with respect” included opening and holding the door, helping with getting in and out of the outdoor coat, pulling the chair, carrying anything heavier than a purse, and all other things that meant a woman was “treated like a princess.” At the same time, within the same mind frame, it was assumed that when you are married, you have to take care of all your husband’s needs; you cook and clean, wash and iron the clothes, and do most of the shopping. I want to reiterate that men didn’t refuse: we just never thought about asking for help, at least my married friends and I.

Possibly, it was something like, “You will never be treated like royalty after you are married, so make sure you are treated like this once in your life.” Or, it was a weird mixture of the pre-revolutionary upper-class and lower-class household patterns.
I am left with the question, why did we believe we were “treated with respect.” We were not; presuming you are weak and must be assisted is not a sign of respect. Why did we rush to get married? Why did we rush to divorce? Why was a display of something more important than having actual feelings or help

It took me years to understand how wrong I was and even more years to internalize these ideas. And now, I need to come to terms with the fact that my mom is forever frozen in that historical mindset and not try to change it. Honestly, it might be OK with my mom, but when I hear the same nonsense from people my age or younger, I don’t know how to comment!

Hope Instead Of Cynicism

I really love this Time Magazine Essay: If Optimism Feels Ridiculous Now, Try Hope.

I love that it highlights the danger of cynicism, which I pointed out so many times recently, and I love that it explains the power of hope.

Although you can read the full text of the article below, as usual, I also wanted to highlight a very important paragraph:

Research clearly demonstrates that more than 80% of Americans—including Democrats and Republicans voters—would prefer greater peace between political parties; most respect democratic rule. Across surveys, a supermajority of the country support policies to protect poor people and the climate. But almost no one knows that.

Both Democrats and Republicans vastly overestimate how extreme, hateful, anti-democratic, and violent their opponents are. Media companies thrive on outrage, inundating us with extreme and inflammatory portrayals of the “other side.” When we uncritically consume these messages, we miss out on vast swaths of common ground that most Americans share.

That’s, by the way, what surveys were showing even before the elections, and that’s what votes were saying going to the polls. I am glad that I see more and more in-depth analysis of why Americans voted the way they voted. There is no time to cry. It’s time to get things done.

Continue reading “Hope Instead Of Cynicism” →

What Are Children For? A Book Review

I finished this book a while ago and didn’t give it any rating. I finally gave it three stars, but it’s not like “the book was worse than I anticipated.” I learned about this book from the Point Magazine newsletter – they ran several articles on that topic before the book was out, and it sounded interesting enough for me to invest in reading rather than listening :). As I said, I finished it a while ago, and still can’t formulate my opinion about it.

Maybe it would be better just to summarize my view on the subject: I do not understand what it is there to argue about. Some people want children (I was thinking about having children as the best thing that will eventually happen in my life since I was fifteen). Some people do not want children. Some people change their minds as life goes on. Some people want to have just one child, some want to have many and enjoy having many. Never in my life could I understand what’s the argument. As long as I can remember, I have always believed that all children should be wanted and that a woman should have as many or as few children as she is willing to have, including zero. End of story. End of argument. No judgment.

***

The authors, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, performed extensive research on the history of the subject, and I learned many new facts about how the choice of not having children was viewed throughout human history. In addition, they reviewed multiple literary works on that topic. Although I really appreciate them being so thorough, it felt almost “too much” with lots of repetitions. A disturbing part was the one where they cited responses to their survey. Some of the survey participants said that they would have children only if they were able to provide them with the same opportunities as they had as children, “including private tennis lessons.” (yes, that was one of the responses; I am not making it up!)

Again and again, I do not get why there should be any “whys” at all. Do some people want to make a good impression on others, or are they trying to fool themselves? I don’t know. There is a whole chapter about people who “do not want to bring children into this world when we have a global climate crisis.” It sounds so strange to me and so illogical.

In addition, again and again, I hear all the arguments about “you can’t have it all.” And when I read through some of the detailed explanations, I can see what these working mothers mean. One says: “Either I am making a Halloween costume for my child, or I am attending a meeting; I can’t do both simultaneously.” That makes me wonder, since when you are a bad mother if you do not hand-make a Halloween costume for your child? For several years, we had an agreement that I would hand-make a costume for only one of my three children, and the other two would have to either store-bought costumes or we would use some props we found at home. And if I ever emotionally scarred my children, it was for reasons other than not making Halloween costumes. (It’s also worth mentioning that I love making costumes, and it won’t be the case I won’t be making any! I think that too many working mothers impose unrealistic expectations on themselves regarding what is required from the perfect parent. And by the way, if you can’t be a mother for one kid and work, does it mean that you can’t be a good mother for two kids because each of them will only have half of you. And what if you have five?! It does not make sense :). Time is not additive 🙂

… I asked Anna whether she indeed thinks that motherhood affects women’s careers. She said: Oh, a hundred percent! I asked her: do you really think you would be making more money if you wouldn’t have kids? And she said: no, I would make less! Which is how I feel 🙂

Alternative opinions are welcome!

War Thoughts

We can survive pretty much anything Tram would try to do with our country. I am pretty sure about that, partially because of the usual percentage of pre-election promises being and not being realized and partially because I remember what Anna taught me about how the Congress works (and why it works that way).

There is only one thing that might be irreversible, and I am afraid of it – the betrayal of Ukraine. I believe that it may happen because I know that the business wants to end the war. Nobody from the business side of things wants the war, and the business does not care about what the end of the war will entail. No matter how much analysis is done, they still do not care about what will happen in two weeks, yet along, in several months.

I know that the call is to end the war, and if Trump would end the war the way he wants, it will mean that Ukraine as a state will cease to exist. I imagine that there are a lot of people who don’t care, but even if they don’t care about Ukraine they should understand that the next war will be inevitable. I probably shouldn’t mention that Biden’s decision regading the missiles usage is too late, and as much as I hope for the best, I don’t believe that any major wins are possible.

Everything else will be fine.