Brian Eno, "How Many Worlds"

Thinking of a world and the light of the sun

And all the many lives that were ever begun,

Ever begun.

Our little world turning in the blue

As each day goes there's another one new,

Another one new.

How many people will we feed today,

How many lips will we kiss today,

If we wake up?

How many worlds will we ever see,

And how many people can we ever be,

If we wake up?

Thinking of a world in the light of the sun

And all the many lives that were ever begun,

Ever begun.

PricewaterhouseCoopers' economic crime report on Russia

PricewaterhouseCoopers published its report (entitled Economic crime in a downturn: The 5th Global economic crime survey: Russia) that is worth to be mentioned, given the fact that I spend a lot of time analyzing Russian mentality in this blog. Unsurprisingly, according to the report Russia ranks first among 55 surveyed countries in terms of economic crimes related to business (the major problem is stealing).

The survey of more than 3,000 respondents in 54 countries, including 86 respondents from Russia, is the most comprehensive study of its kind, and was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in conjunction with the INSEAD business school.

The survey found that 71% of Russian respondents had experienced some form of economic crime during the last 12 months. This is a 12 percentage point increase compared to our last Economic Crime Survey in 2007 (59%). 43% of those said that the cost of fraud had increased since this time last year.

The current economic climate has affected individuals’ view on fraud risks, with 51% of respondents reporting that they believe their organisation currently faces a greater risk of economic crime. 86% cited heightened incentive or pressure to commit fraud. (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2009)

Bribery and stealing have been the biggest pathologies of Russia for centuries. The reasons for this are numerous, and it takes nothing less than a comprehensive multidimensional inquiry in order to start at least appreciating the overall complexities of the sociocultural problems exhibited in this country.

Some notes on importance of experiential pluralism for democratic societies

One of the most important features of a contemporary democratic society is its allowance of pluralism of perspectives. The term perspectives designates various viewpoints through which we are looking and co-constructing the world. The great postmodern revolution of the recent times includes dramatic deepening in our understanding of how pluralistic systems of society actually are beneficial for its growth and development towards greater goodness.

Human rights movement of 1960's liberated human consciousness for more encompassing modes of interrelations among people of different sociocultural, psychological, and biological backgrounds, with an emphasis being made on equality among people no matter what their social status, race, creed, etc. are. Recent trends in social sciences, hopefully, point towards emergence of even more sophisticated forms of liberation that emphasize equally both individual differences and commonalities in coherent fields of global unitas multiplex. These newly emerging systems of perspectives allow complexities to appear in people's judgments regarding relative depth and value of various occasions. They increasingly take into account developmental data that points to the fact that human beings and, hence, societies are not simply heterarchically-organized entities (where everyone is absolutely equal in all aspects to everyone else); humanity also develops hierarchically, with each new level in its evolution becoming an even more liberated opening towards both autonomous freedom and active social inclusion simultaneously.

This hierarchical nature of evolution, which dialectically brings new freedoms and challenges, can be illustrated by the very history of the humankind. For instance, slavery blossomed in the premodern epoch as a necessary evolutionary adaptation for various human societies to survive in the times when there was main emphasis on agricultural modes of production and the societies themselves had not developed complex sociocultural structures to support individual freedoms yet. Later on, when modernity was brought forth by the Age of Enlightenment, the development of machinery allowed more evolved industrial modes of production to undo the adaptive necessity of slavery, which freed space for new insights into the nature of individual freedoms (hence the famous "all men are created equal"). With the information revolution of the postmodern turn, humanity's capacity to linguistic self-reflection once again was deepened; and the basic notions of what being human actually means underwent the process of major re-visioning, resulting in conscious expansion of freedoms toward groups that previously were minorities and whose interests did not count at all in the eyes of the dominating sociocultural structures. "All men are created equal" now is interpreted not as "all white men of European descent are created equal" but as "all men and women, regardless of race, creed, color, nationality, political standings or personal background, are created equal."

The next step in the liberation movement is going to be the emergence of capacity to make complex moral judgments so as to preserve and encourage these newly developed freedoms. That is, on the absolute scale all men and women and phenomena are equal, but on the relative scale in order to preserve these newly achieved freedoms we, the people, have to coordinate and manage historically more ancient worldviews, which according to developmental science are still present throughout the world and in your very own development (every person in his or her development has to go through narcissistic clan-mentality stage first, then through mythic-sociocentric slavery stage, then through rationalistic stage, then through pluralistic stage, and so on), from unrestricted self-expression because it would limit others and eventually undo the hard-won freedoms of increasingly pluralistic society, which by definition allows these various worldviews and worldspaces to exist without oppressive discrimination. Therefore, everyday we have to make quite sophisticated moral judgments and apply complex forms of non-oppressive discriminating wisdom so as to support healthy equilibration of the entire (hieroheterarchical) evolutionary spiral. (For further information see, for example, works of J. Habermas and K. Wilber.)

Sociocultural liberation that includes increasing openness to pluralism brings forth multitudes of lifestyles and worldspaces, with each of them being a domain of relatively unique experience shared in the consciousness of those who co-enact this particular worldspace. Emergence of pluralism of perspectives means inclusion of pluralism of experiences into the system of experiential phenomena that are allowed to be experienced by today's human beings. In contemporary forms of democracy I am no longer obligated to exercise and publicly worship a single system of beliefs and dogmas, and I am given the right to publicly defend my perspectives in the face of my community (even though, developmentally, some of my higher intentions can be interpreted as lower ones). Had it not been the case, it would have been a characteristic of a totalitarian society. Any worldview that I exercise includes certain attitudes and perspectives molded by the meshwork of intentional, biographical, biological, social, and cultural influences. These perspectives shape my consciousness; and the more open the system of my beliefs is, the more open I am to different phenomena in consciousness, and the more abundant my being-in-the-world becomes.

Just as certain political or philosophical attitudes and perspectives can be favored (encouraged) or prohibited (discouraged) in a certain society, any other experiential phenomena whatsoever can suffer the same fate. Some of them are quite obvious. E.g. various criticisms successfully showed that the worldview of extreme scientific materialism, that is scientism, that is physicalism, is a system that favors solely extroverted formal-operational cognition and the myth of the given in its modern form (the latter means ignorance of the tetra-constructed nature of reality and lack of linguistic self-reflection and self-criticism about one's own foundational scientistic beliefs). Scientism can be characterized by rigidity, sometimes pathological, in the way how a person perceives the self and the world while being unconscious about his or her exclusive attachment to that particular worldview. Usually, such an individual does whatever he or she can so as to stay agnostic (i.e. unknowing) about one's own limitations, fixating at the rational structure of consciousness and doing the best at attaching to it. That person harshly attacks and ridicules anybody else who doesn't exhibit the same beliefs he or she identified with. Such kind of people tend to form their own societies and social groups and strive for obtaining dominance in the sociocultural sphere. 

When they actually start dominating, as it happened with psychology during its unfortunate regression into naive behaviorism and reductionism in the 20th century, this may result in a dramatic narrowing of consciousness towards its most materialistic and gross appearances. Anything resembling psyche, soul, and even consciousness fearfully disappears from the discourse; and the system of scientistic totalitarianism starts to prevail. Charles T. Tart in his recent book The End of Materialism explores this kind of worldview which he calls the Western Creed, for it is a type of worldview that is largely practiced in the today's society. He even provides a very simple exercise that brings more awareness to essential aspects of this point of view (it can be accessed online). This simple exercise experientially demonstrates that attitudes and perspectives we entertain directly influence the state of consciousness we are in. And here we probably come to the main reason why I started writing this post.

A truly democratic society allows multiplicity and pluralism of perspectives to be exercised. Perspectives include not only ideas and political gestures but also states (and structures) of consciousness. The more a given society is tolerable to varieties of expressions of consciousness, the more it is democratic in the best sense of this word. On the other hand, if a particular society chooses to cultivate a limited and outdated perspective on allowed states of consciousness, this may limit a lot of its creative potential and negatively affect its overall health. Historically, experiencing altered states of consciousness has been a crucial component of human life and growth; furthermore, it is dynamic variability of states of consciousness that significantly facilitates the process of dis-identification from earlier stages of development, thus allowing new, more evolved perspectives to emerge (e.g. see a useful article on the higher stages of human development: Hartman & Zimberoff, 2008).

It is interesting that just as we can speak of an individual psychograph, we can probably draw a psychographic portrait of a culture in terms of average states distribution. In Russia, for instance, there are very few socially legitimate sources of altered states of consciousness induction. The only consciously encouraged states of consciousness are the state of gross wakefulness (which has very limited creative potential) and the state of alcohol intoxication (which is the only allowed widespread mind-altering drug). In terms of illegal drugs, there is a catastrophic epidemic of heroin consumption (there is a lot of corruption in police related to illicit distribution of opiates, which is a huge illegal market). Even though opiates are as illegal as other psychoactive substances in Russia, it is unfortunately the most common drug. 

Basically, what we have in Russia is the lack of culture of altering one's own consciousness by safe means. The only two accessible and widely used psychoactive substances are alcohol (legal) and heroin (illegal). (Of course, poor-quality illegal hashish is also widespread.) According to some estimates, these are in the top 5 most dangerous and harmful drugs to consume (along with cocaine and some other substances) (Science and Technology Committe, 2006; see also the 31 July 2006 BBC article). So if we are to draw the cartography of drug-induced altered states of consciousness that are allowed in the Russian culture, we can actually deduce some of essential features of the average Russian consciousness out of our knowledge of these substances' psychopharmacology. Let's look at a very useful diagram (© David McCandless, informationisbeautiful.net):

Alcohol is considered a sedative hypnotic; heroin belongs to the category of narcotic analgesics. Both substances are depressants (the yellow circle) and that means that they diminish certain aspects of mental and physical functioning. Alcohol intoxication is considered a socially accepted norm in Russia (cf. information on long-term effects of alcohol, especially on the nervous system); heroin intoxication is more in shadow but nevertheless pretty common, too (the statistics is devastating [cf. Rigbey 2009; Illicit Drug Trends in the Russian Federation (UN Report) 2008]). Therefore, as we can see, the band of accessible drug-induced states of consciousness is very narrow. This is very sad because Russia actually has a good tradition of altered states and psychedelic research (Spivak 1991), the knowledge of which could be put into good use (while the current social politics concerning drugs is too simplistic, unprofessional, ignorance-based, and indiscriminate).

Now, doesn't it make you wonder how this rigidity in terms of accessible altered states shapes  consciousness of a common Russian and contributes to the sociocultural catastrophe in that culture?

Neruda's mysticism

The perception of the world as a mystery is that which some poets intuit and cultivate in their writing. I stumbled upon a very beautiful poem by Pablo Neruda yesterday.

Poetry

And it was at that age... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.

On December 13, 1971, Pablo Neruda gave the Noble lecture. In it there are these especially remarkable lines:

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song—but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.

Such is Neruda's gentle mysticism.

Dialectics of sawubona

In the previous blog I occasionally mentioned a reference to the word sawubona and its meaning. Here is the video I linked to.

Sawubona, a Zulu greeting that means "we see you," is the essence of mutual resonance in the intersubjective domain of being-in-the-world. And while Orland Bishop in this video (somewhat romantically) explains sawubona as something that we had lost at some point in the history, I believe the imagination and visionary capacities he describes are potentials of our future unfolding which are yet to be established.  Established through a collectively interlocked network of individual practices.

The nature of mutual seeing and recognizing each other in the gesture of sawubona is dialectical. I recognize you as the embodied, impersonated, incarnated soulful Spirit manifested in this very occasion of the recognition, with all its multiple dimensions of intersubjective communion, which brings my own self into resonating with yours… and into the glory shared.

We grok each other in a multilevel occasion, and for this grokking to happen in a complete way (according to tomorrow's standards) my self and your self have to be transcendental; they really ought to unfold dialectical reason—and then further modes of consciousness—with a mature ego being a catalyzing structure for the union of mutuality.

In order for this mutuality to emerge we indeed have got to ask ourselves the question: "How do I have to be, as a human being, for you to be free?" If I attempt to restrict you, in this restriction I am limiting my own self because I focus my intentionality and will at narrowing the opening of the miracle called We—the opening that is inherent to our being and to emergence and deepening of our self-awareness.

And now, when I ask myself this question, I ought to find out what your structure of consciousness is like. You are a sentient being who inherited free will; you can be free, however, only within the limits of your mind. When you are not free, when I breach the boundaries which are not yet to be breached, it is simply not fun anymore. Now, of course, it goes both ways. Think about me being a partner in dialogue, too: what do my wave-like patterns of consciousness behave like? And what are some of the corpuscular freeze frames of my mind? How can you help me help you help us?

Interiors of consciousness are engaging exteriors

Even though this blog is presumably devoted to explorations of interiors of consciousness, at some point the so-called "interiors" start to include pretty much everything, for the phenomena in the exterior world start to touch something deep inside you. It happens when your self-identity transcends an exclusionary identification with a more limited perspective on yourself and the world and goes beyond into the worldcentric and even Kosmocentric kingdom of perspectives.

You spontaneously begin to discover universals that are shared among all human beings of any race, ethnicity, creed, sex, faith, and so on. You begin to realize that all sentient beings share the same basic taste of duḥkha—or uneasiness, disquietness, anxiety, soreness—which is the Buddhist term for the basic sliding condition of one's unknowingness about one's own exclusive preconscious attachments to certain subjects-and-objects interrelations in the overall stream of phenomena that flows through all domains of the experiential matrix. All experiences and all perspectives are impermanent in that they actually seem to be vibrating and dynamically changing currents of dialoging aspects of the Kosmos. And even the most stable ones, such as certain physical laws of the universe, are considered by such brilliant folks as Charles Peirce to be more or less stabilized habits evolved through aeons of cosmic evolution:

For Peirce, the entire universe and everything in it is an evolutionary product. Indeed, he conceived that even the most firmly entrenched of nature's habits (for example, even those habits typically called “natural laws”) have themselves evolved, and accordingly can and should be subjects of philosophical an scientific inquiry. One can sensibly seek, in Peirce's view, evolutionary explanations of the existence of particular natural laws. For Peirce, then, the entire phaneron (the world of appearances), as well as all the ongoing processes of its interpretation through mental significations, has evolved and is evolving. ("Charles Sanders Pierce" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

If you are unaware of the sliding nature of the phaneron (as we naturally are more or less most of the time), then you tend to attach yourself to this or that experiential leaf that is being carried by the seemingly chaotic current in the ever-pervading ocean of global awareness. You are preconsciously attaching yourself to the plenitude of your adaptive personae, to your constructions about your own identity, to your intuitions about what it is like to be your own self, to your current state (or dynamic systems of states) of embeddedness with this or that whirlpool in the great matrix (mātṝkās); and when this or that aspect, or perspective, on reality transmutates, with you being unable to consciously follow its transformation by transforming yourself, you experience dying and suffering and soreness and pain and grievance—and you might even become attached to this newly-formed state of condition once again, indefinitely.

But when you become increasingly aware of the sliding nature of the world of appearances, you cannot help but start experiencing profound compassion and care for each and every aspect of it, for each one of them is so aesthetically perfect, so ethically tender (cf. the meaning of sawubona), so structurally unstable that even a slightest glance at a phenomenon makes it move beyond itself into the next stage of transformation. Compassion is the foundational artistic tool with which the superconscious artist constantly paints new panoramic snapshots of being. It helps to preserve, to cherish, to nourish, and to prepare for further stages of transformation.

That's the thoughts that emerged during my acquaintance with the recent story of Aleksey Dymovskiy, a detective officer of Russian militia, who has single-handedly attempted to voice (to cry out loud, actually) his concern regarding corruption and catastrophic condition in one of the local law enforcement units of the Department of Internal Affairs by courageously posting two videos on YouTube in which he stated that he just "had enough" of local corruption, fabricated cases, and working in an extremely stressful environment without holidays, without being paid, and without any health care. (See also a Times Online article.)

Even though Dymovskiy spoke about the state of art in the local unit, it is no secret to anyone who lives in Russia that precisely the same points apply to virtually all the departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and militia (militsiya) in general. In St. Petersburg alone there has recently been numerous cases when militsiya members (of very high ranks) were caught at doing serious crimes (involved robbery and serial murders, not to mention the common practice of bribery that is widespread everywhere and became a cultural norm long ago). For instance, last year there was the notorious case of "black realtors" when some high-rank members of local militsiya were involved in murdering dozens of lonely people so as to sell their apartments (real estate prices in the major Russian cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow are extremely high—dozens and in many cases even hundreds times higher than the average income of an average Russian). In another case a criminal investigation department was found guilty of creating a widespread system of drug trafficking and distribution (which seems to be a common practice in Russia; the pandemic is systemic). Their name is Legion, for they are many.

Sadly enough, long time ago law enforcement system became the most feared seat of uncontrolled criminal pathology in the post-Soviet societies. Every day thousands of people all over Russia get abused, beaten, and killed in the streets by local patrolling militsiya whose vertical center of gravity seems to generally revolve around the opportunistic stage in ego development theory; red (power-driven) stage in Spiral Dynamics/Clare Graves's theory of values development; and preconventional stage of Kohlberg's moral development. In the psyche of a common Russian, any communication with militsiya is fulfilled with the fear for potential massive abuse. And all of it is just one, if all-pervasive, aspect of the ongoing sociocultural catastrophe in the Russian Federation and some other post-Soviet states.

Life is pretty in Russia

Arguably, the most widespread mistake of a foreigner coming to Russia is thinking that the culture of this country (and the other post-Soviet states, such as Ukraine or Georgia) has a lot in common with that of the West. Such an attitude is an example of cultural insensitivity and inability to recognize that, despite the fact that on the outside Russians look like Europeans, deeper inside they undergo the process of growth and maturation in a completely different sociocultural environment. Russia is neither Europe, nor Asia (neither it is a healthy synthesis of both in an entity called "Eurasia"), it is historically a totally self-contained space-time continuum with fewer ties with the West than one may think. In fact, it seems that of all the places in the world a country that (socioeconomically) has the most similar characteristics to those of Russia is… Nigeria.

A year ago the Russian edition of the Esquire magazine offered a comparative analysis of Russia and Nigeria. That article demonstrated the sad truth that (no offense to Nigeria) both countries are amongst the worst environments to inhabit in terms of life comfort, ecology, corruption, average income, safety, mortality rates, employment, and other indices. The following table (taken from the aforementioned article) vividly illustrates what, I believe, can be called a sociocultural catastrophe that is going to affect not just people in one country, but the entire planetary system (the idea that Russian problems are not just Russian problems will become self-evident to any citizen of the world, if he or she recognizes the fact that the most striking difference between Russia and Nigeria is that the former has a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the humongous quantities of indestructible and irrecyclable weapon-grade plutonium, vast amounts of which are lying around relatively unprotected and tiny amounts of which, if accidentally released into the atmosphere, are enough to destroy all complex life on the planet Earth).

A brief comparative table

RUSSIA		NIGERIA
Population
142 021 thousands		140 003 thousands
The Gini coefficient* (according to CIA)
40.5		43.7
The degree of corruption (according to Transparency International, 2007)
143rd rank in the world		147th rank in the world
Environmental pollution as a result of gas flaring (according to the World Bank, 2007)
1st rank in the world		2nd rank in the world
Leading suppliers of liquefied natural gas by 2030 (according to Gazprom)
1st rank in the world		2nd rank in the world
Rate of increase of gold reserves (according to Bloomberg, 2006)
73,5% (1st rank in the world)		73,4% (2nd rank in the world)
Average life expectancy for men
58 years		52 years
The number of citizens confident in the superiority of democracy (according to World Values Survey, 2006)
47,8%		44,2%
The level of protection of property rights (according to Property Rights Alliance, 2007)
63rd out of 70		64th out of 70
Rating of the most dangerous places for recreation (according to Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007)
4th out 10		5th out of 10
Number of people who are sure that stability is more important than freedom of speech (according to GlobeScan Incorporated, 2007)
47%		43%
Place in the ranking of media freedom (according to Reporters without Borders, 2007)
144th out of 169		131th out of 169
Mortality (according to CIA, 2007)
16,04 per 1000		16,68 per 1000
Migration rates (according to CIA, 2007)
0,28 per 1000		0,26 per 1000
Unemployment (according to CIA, 2007)
6,6% [10,2% in 2009, according to International Labour Organization]		5,8%
Place in a rating of "Ease of Doing Business" (according to World Bank estimate for 2008)
106th out of 178		108th out of 178
The level of economic freedom (according to The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, 2007)
120th out of 161		131st out of 161
Place in the Global Peace Index (according to Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007)
118th out of 121		117th out of 121

* The statistical measure of the degree of social stratification in terms of annual income.

Here is just one episode (of many) that may illustrate how aggressive the social environment in Russia is. A few weeks ago when I was returning home from a gym, I had an encounter with a Dagestanian right in the downtown of St. Petersburg, on a corner next to the main street (it was around 8 pm, which is early evening in Russia). He was giving brochures that advertised an illegal prostitution service to people who were passing by. After I refused to take a card with a prostitute's phone number, he pulled out a gun, jumped to me, and pointed the gun at my head. I felt metal touching my right temple. In order to prevent any further foolish moves from that man, I quickly took the card he held in the other hand and continued to walk as if nothing happened, at the same time reaching for my cell phone (I was going to call up my friend and tell him about what just had happened). A minute later the same Dagestanian ran to me probably because he thought I was going to call police or bratva (an organized crime group of some sort) to "take care" of him and offered apologies, saying that he was new to the city, he just came here from Dagestan, and he shouldn't have acted like this. I put my arms on his shoulders, looked into his eyes, and told him that in the future he should avoid behaving like this in the downtown. Although I talked calmly, at that point I was so angry that I had to force myself not to punch the guy in the nose. Had I impulsively punched a potentially gun-armed man, this could have led to some unpredictable consequences. I haven't seen that person ever since—and I don't mind it.

Academic relief

Sweet. It seems my endless quest for a field in academia to fit myself into finally brings forth results. Today, I had a meeting with my professor; and we almost spontaneously (well, it takes long practice to be spontaneous) came up with a topic for my graduation work in clinical psychology. Ironically, the topic ended up being the one I have pursued for all the time: altered states of consciousness (ASC)—and, therefore, basically everything related to dynamic patterns of consciousness; psychology, neuropsychology, neurophysiology, and sociology of whatever it is that is included into the domain of the consciousness studies. The difference was that this time the professor really got inspired, and the ASC theme emerged dialogically (instead of my trying to covertly sneak this or that topic of interest into my study). I had been worrying about my graduation work for a long time, because I spent a lot of time waiting for any insight to emerge about what could possibly be done for my final research. I've looked for something meaningful and resonating with my strive for complexities; and what can be more complex and immediate than consciousness?

Now, when this area of life is clear and I hopefully know what to do, the next important challenge is about inviting more financial abundance and sustainability into my life. Apparently, research will take most of my time this year, but I still ought to occasionally eat something, drink something, even go out for a date once in a while, and of course I like to travel a lot and attend various seminars, not to mention buying expensive books. Guess what, it might come as a shock to you, but it really takes money to live. There are a few projects going on, some minor results, but still much work to do in this area.

Incidentally, it looks like in this country good money comes primarily to psychopaths and sociopaths of various sort, to those who are able to survive in an extremely hostile (psychologically and even physically) business environment, constant governmental and administrative pressure, needs for extensive bribing, lie, manipulation, and so on. I already had quite a broad experience of tasting the psychology of Russian business from the inside and looking closer at some of the exemplars of it… and, oh boy, it is so scary—even when you speak of an enterprise that seems innocent (and even "spiritual" or "selfless") to an outsider. No business, if it is successful, is "innocent" in Russia; and it is hard to meet a businessperson who wouldn't present some considerable pathological condition (exceptions, as it seems, are extremely rare). The disturbing list of clinical psychology of Russian business includes serious cases of dissociative identity, narcissistic personality, psychological abuse, borderline states, and existential emptiness (not to mention common neuroses). Psychology of Russia is destined to become one of the recurrent themes in this blog, so you'd better buckle up for this refreshing crosscultural perspective.

Inland Empire

David Lynch is my favorite movie director; and INLAND EMPIRE is the only movie I've watched for a good dozen of times, always finding something that my consciousness had previously missed, always constructing new meanings, always challenging my own mind to attend to perfection of this and every moment.

This is the rare masterpiece that engages you as a spectator in the process of intersubjective co-creation of meaning and meaningfullness with a Rorschach blot test of seemingly chaotic kaleidoscope of primordial consciousness in background. It is an art of finding the ever-present Witness in the labyrinths of the individual soul, a kind of dialectical art that is worth silencing your ego for three hours. This movie dialogues with you; and you had better be its equal in the dialogue.

If you consider yourself aesthetically gifted, use this movie as a test; and the result of it will tell what's the actual worth of your aesthetics. Out of the dozen times of watching INLAND EMPIRE, I have watched it in a cinema for 4 times. Every time a half of the audience left the cinema after the first hour; and the other half stayed till the end, enthralled by irrational visions and joyfully crying because of the genuine hope and liberation the story unfolds.

I dare you to watch INLAND EMPIRE. If you're among those who prefer to keep boundaries between your ego and the art you observe, you will probably not make it to the end of the movie. You won't have an intimate encounter with the beauty, and you will miss one of the profoundest experiences you can ever enjoy in life. It is not a simple walk, it is a challenge (just as life is not all joy and pleasure), but successfully confronting this challenge bears fruits of self-liberation.

Chrysta Bell – Polish Poem

from the INLAND EMPIRE Original Soundtrack

I sing this poem to you...

On the other side, I see…

Shall you wait, glowing?

It’s far away, far away from me,

I can see that —

I can see that —

the wind blows outside and I have no breath,

I breathe again and know I’ll have to live

To forget my world is ending.

I have to live…

I hear my heart beat,

Fluttering in pain, saying something,

Tears are coming to my eyes —

I cry… I cry…

I cannot feel the warmth of the sun

I cannot hear the laughter

Choking with every thought,

I see the faces,

My hands are tied as I wish —

But no one comes,

No one comes,

Where are you?

Where are you?

What will make me want to live?

What will make me want to love?

Tell me… tell me…

I sing this poem to you… to you…

Is this mystery unfolding

As a wind floating?

Something is coming true —

The dream of an innocent child…

Something is happening —

Something is happening…

The wind is blowing

When I look at you, multiple perspectives converge in the same moment. All these perspectives point to different planes of being; and the same action is reflected in all the dimensions simultaneously.

On the level of the bodily self, when I look at you, I feel my heart is pumping; and—say, you're a beautiful girl—I feel warmth all over my body and an unbearable attraction towards yours, the unmistakable desire to touch your skin and smell your hair and give you a hug and cuddle with you right now. On the level of the emotional self, I'm overwhelmed with experiences of joys and sorrows and fears and amusements and (dis)satisfactions and pleasures; and if you reciprocally express some emotions to me, I feel emotionally connected to you: I smile. On the mental level, I want to communicate and compare my concepts and networks of ideas about the world against yours, so that the opposites meet and syntheses emerge; I want to verbalize my worldview, resonate with yours, dive into your conceptual systems and understand them both from within and without; and on that level there's nothing sexier than if you do the same for me. On the level of the soul, it's the light that I feel inside myself and yourself; it's the ever-changing dance we are both enjoying in the reflection of each other... and yet at the same time it is the ultimate supraprofessional poker tournament, when we sit at the poker table in front of each other, looking eternally after each other, smoking cigars and impartially bluffing while playing our card and staking multiple universes of experience and individual lives against each other. And when you playfully bluff, I look into your eyes, and the keyless gate opens, letting in the space that flows through me as I disappear into the spectrum of infinite humming Light pulsating in the void of cessation. The ever-present Silence knocks me out. And then, during the infinity of non-being, I playfully re-emerge as the eternal recurrence into multitudes of selves here and there. And still there's no wind, there's only the blowing.