Written on March 22, 2022. Before Bucha and Kramatorsk.
It’s absolutely impossible to understand, to digest, that your country has brought this into the world, and to figure out how to live your life now. And then comes muteness and, at the same time, a million questions that tear you up inside, that you want to talk through. Because nothing in your current experience can be placed next to people who are being bombed, or who ran away from bombs, and we forbid ourselves to talk about private matters with anyone but ourselves.
Because with new laws that were enacted with Guinness World Records’ speed, we were prohibited to speak about what’s happening. And because we don’t understand anymore with whom and about what one can talk, even in the kitchen or in a private conversation. Recently, I received a letter from an acquaintance who takes the opposite view of the situation. It ended like this (not a direct quote, but close): I promise not to report you to the authorities, I just want to understand your position better. One wants to believe that it was just an unfortunate joke.
Still, the questions inside would not go away. It’s not just “How has it come to this?”, which provides a comforting anesthesia of rationalization. “What do I do now, when my professional life is over?”, which sounds so blasphemous, still doesn’t leave me alone. It’s impossible to talk about while there are shellings and bombs. And yet it’s impossible not to think about. Personal life projects give many of us what others can get from religion (although they can co-exist quite well), or ideology. The meaning of life, and in many cases, the coordinate system by which a person lives, the algorithms he follows. Being part of something larger, and a promise that your existence has or one day will have a meaning.
It’s as important to people as food and sleep. And suddenly it’s gone.
March 22, 2022 Translated by Katia Szarek