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.