Sunday notes
Today is the 3rd of April, 2022. Sadness, helplessness, disillusion, and yesterday’s visuals.
Early in the morning I thought I wanted to write and share the TV-shows I can recommend because people asked not just about books but also about films and series suggestions. So I thought about something positive, energetic or nice, promising. But I can’t deliver that now.
I’ve read and seen the news, the photographs, and I have no idea where the truth is. How such awful things could happen now, in 2022, out of nowhere. Because before March no one could imagine anything like that in the middle of Europe between two really close nations, so close that we are talking about actual families separated. Even the origin of the names for those countries are coming from one place. And now such a level of hate and moral degradation!
When I write “out nowhere” it’s obviously not true - somewhere that existed, that was born at some place, that sort of evil was raised, was educated, had mothers, fathers, families, having families right now, someone loves those, accept them, welcome and even celebrate. I don’t know how those can live. How their parents or relatives can. What sort of truth they tell themselves. What is the explanation for their existence? I don’t understand how they can live, because I can’t - after scrolling the picture they left after themselves I want to blow my head off. I haven’t actually heard, smelled, seen, touched…
The “special operation” in Ukraine and everything around it including the propaganda machines on all the sides - there are more than two sides - all that complex of emotional manipulations mixed with awful facts, the reactions those provoke in people, the activation of the worst thoughts, characters, intentions - that’s such a disgrace for humanity. Even if that will be the only and the shortest war of the century in Europe, that's an unforgivable setback for civilization.
I don’t want to discuss my feelings about my nation and my country. The definition of patriotism is so different for each of us these days. What you can say, where, what for, what you want to happen, when you say things, what you should do, and should you do at all or should you trust that someone else will do it for you - if only there were instructions, the code, we agreed on. But there’s nothing. We answer to ourselves, to our children…
To our children? So many things are in motion right now that I can’t understand how those could be made by politicians, by officers, by people in power, by all sorts of opinion leaders, business men and women in the name of their children. What sort of future is that? What will be the future of the super rich and super powerful if they live in a luxurious but Ghetto, isolated from the world - a place that will shrink in size.
Even now the world minus Russia - minus the most part of the continent with the beautiful nature, lands, resources, and cultural diversity - you can’t compare with any other country in the world simply because there's less nationalities and less square metres of all sorts of climate zones that carry different natural and historical backgrounds. More than 190 nationalities, including ethnic minorities that could be called tribes in the beginning of 20th century. Most of them are native. And for the world those are Russians. The world doesn’t see the shades. Well, 40 years ago the world couldn't see the difference between Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Moldovian or whoever came from the former USSR. All Soviets were Russian.
Imagine that after a few decades of globalisation, when we could be everywhere in a few hours, and virtually - in seconds, suddenly the huge areas are getting closed one after another. Like during lockdowns but completely - light off, the curtain is down. We still can touch each other stretching digital hands through continents and oceans despite time, denying space. But even now some of us - in China, in Russia, in Ukraine, in many other countries - can’t do it as easily as others. Because we need to pass the firewalls. We need to use VPN, lie to the digital services about our geography or citizenship or both. Already. Today. Don’t think that tomorrow will be “better”. It will be worse.
Don’t think that it’s just about Russia. Or China. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Venezuela, Mexico, or the bunch of lost on the map poor countries. It’s in Europe, it’s in the Saved by God America. You just need to look closer for the signs.
There’s a huge reaction to the latest global changes. There are people who don’t want to be part of the bigger world - the world without borders and limits. They see it as chaos. They want Brexit, they need Trump, nationalists in power, traditional morals, women at the kitchen, state control over all open sources, open systems where the public has freedom to self regulate the space and resources.
They want to use its advantages but as consumers, as colonists exploiting the new lands. But now they are vulgar and uneducated ones, who are too old and too fixed on the past to see the actual potential of contemporary society. They want to rule their tiny spaces. They want to feel strong and be meaningful, even when they can’t produce any meaning. People that can’t create sense. They are afraid to be in the world of changing realities, where skin colour isn’t important, as well as sexual orientation, social stereotypes, physical appearance, language, citizenship, gender, age, social status is flexible. Where the whole system of thinking is addressed to the new tolerant mentality.
Even reaction to the historical injustice became institutionalised: instead of actual lessons we stated the new old concepts of truth, rewritten historical programmes. We removed the monuments, renamed the streets, and changed museum expositions. We rechecked and cancelled legendary artists based on their private behaviour, beliefs. And what is the result?
Ok, names will be forgotten, the real sense of the historical truth as well. If we cancel one person that was celebrated by others, we just deny the whole system of virtues and beliefs that made those heroes happen. But those were our ancestors. They defined their time, our morality, our fight. They defined our grandparents' future as now we define our grandchildren’s. Without acceptance of the past no better future can be born. We continue making the same mistakes again and again.
We behave ourselves like barbarians, destroying the achievements of previous generations on occupied lands, because we think that we are an evolved version of humanity. We are more “civilised”. Why do we think so? On what ground?
As time shows, we are not. The technological or scientific Renaissance doesn’t mean a humanitarian one. The country with the fastest and the most available Internet isn’t the most democratic, with the social system that is fair for every citizen of it and that can be an example for other nations.
In this war, for example, every side is shouting about the emergency of peace. Everything is about peace: weapons, sanctions, propaganda, discussions. Murders. Everyone wants peace. Where is it then? To declare the need and to use war as a path to peace means the only possible end - the death. There’s no winner. Even those who think they will win from the war, won’t win in the longer perspective. In the global culture and economy there’s no “them” and “us”, there’s only “us” or “none”. As soon as we finally realise it, the better. Because meanwhile we fight for ideas, people die, nature degrades and climate changes.
Honestly, now thinking about the possible dangers for the humanity rebelling AI I see as a positive scenario. At least something that will have a sign of our civilization, that will carry our intellectual DNA to the future. But the most possible is the most boring and disappointing result of our time - a nuclear war. No one will carry our stories. There’ll be no one who could learn from it or treasure the memory. No one will care who started first, who was the right one. There’ll be silence. And finally, a peace.
A digest from my Instagram for April 2nd, 2022
7.00 am. zakharova_kaetano Good morning 🌞 How are you today? #haveagoodday I’ve found this post on my feed when I was researching the most liked and saved by you. Feel like it right now. #digitalpainting by #JingyuShen #contemporaryart#beautyofwoman #womanportrait #goodmorningpost#morningmood #morninginspiration #goodmorningart
3.00 pm zakharova_kaetano #finding Which one 1,2 or 3 jewelry? Egypt inspiration in @elena_okutova_jewellery. Soon at @gemgeneve. #artofjewellery #beautyofjewellery #contemporaryjewellery#jewelleryasinspiration
11.00pm zakharova_kaetano #nightmood #fashioneditorial#fashionportrait #fashionstory Wild Instinct Photography & Style: Surachai Saengsuwan @sousla_pluie Model: Oorsoola Korczak @oorsoolakorczak
Jewelry: G |Grand Hyatt Erawan|
Designers: Pornthep Kheankhantha & Wannakorn Oonwised |FASH by SWU|
#artoffashion #fashionasinspiration #beautyoffashion#artofphotography
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