True Sadness

And the broken process of mutual trust makes her think about her companion’s greed, and him, starting to feel light detachment, think about insufficient effort that he makes. He begins to show what best he considers in himself – kindness, and on the peak of mutual misunderstanding, she declares him cheap, and he – because of the eternal man’s weakness in front of a woman – starts to justify himself not understanding what the reason of this deduction is, implanting the opinion that he is cheap into himself, and that kindness is the reason of his meanness, and he himself is the meanness in its genuine sense, as if descended from Giotto’s frescos, and, to cut this image out of his heart, our hero turns to the divine power of god Susanoo’s legendary blade, but in fact he cuts the way back to himself and begins to live in an illusory world of a “social human”, where the abyss between opinions of different people is smaller than the abyss between a thought and one person’s thought of a thought. In this world of Giotto’s images, we rather tend to believe the others than ourselves, and so people’s exterior attitude to us is so contagious: someone’s distorted fantasy or their genius is closer to us than comprehension of our shortages or our genius. And, as Little Prince, we are thrown to the different planets of human vices – that is how the symbolics of a social human works.

But if we want to return to our inner empire, we will need Ursula’s power, who had a natural talent not to notice this strange symbolics, and so had to find her principles and create her notions. To tell Ursula about his idea, Alan called me on the pretext of going to the cinema together. After the film (I can’t remember which one), he shared his idea.

– You are an absolute fool! – she replied to his offer.

– I will take you.

– Thank you, you are quite thoughtful. Might we have a baby and take him with us? Or better, I will become pregnant and give birth right there – he will be the first child born abroad. I like your aspirations not to become a bore but don’t be an idiot – at least you need a decent plan.

– We’ll do it. See, it is our possibility to wade to the unknown. People have strived for that in all times. Right now in front of us is a phenomenon which has already changed lives of all people, and if we don’t learn to be friends with it, to understand it, we will all soon die of boredom. We will build an ideal society of idiots. How can one think of an ideal society when we are on verge of a super-breakthrough? Especially when the government gives money to anybody who wants to go there.

After the film we were sitting in a small café. Observing Alan, when he was presenting Ursula his points, I felt uneasy of my presence next to their electric looks. And I thought that the birth of “divine” and “cosmic” in a man’s mind has the same way as giving a woman her mental shape. In a man’s mind, a woman is always in the process of evolution and objectification – in the process very similar to art, so a man, to a greater degree, creates but not perceives a woman. At first, he senses only a light spirit of dissimilarity between these angels and his own vicious entity, which, contrary to fallacy, is shown since infancy. A woman’s spirit has no body, or rather, a woman’s body shell is only its temporary shelter as well as her clothes, environment in which she lives, and so, a man gives the same sensual look to many women, seeing nothing reprehensible in it and being afraid to enter the area of any of them, not to induce his own vice in his own fantasies. Studying his fixations, a man loses his will, so what we call “vice” starts to live its own life, assembling a wonder-woman as a Florentine mosaic – from different parts of woman’s ontology. But gradually, a particular woman begins to form its own material planet in a man’s mind, which leads to a light gradient between the perceptions of different women, starting to manifest its difference between various soul angels. And here emerge nagging disadvantages, which deprive particular women of their female spirit, and they immediately fall into the world where our material vice lives, so the objectification of female passes through the research of the women who a man doesn’t like – a man protects his angel’s image for a long time from these whores of the material world, that’s why he wastes his quite real time on unworthy women (with his actions or thoughts), but finds this image only in details unable to assemble the wholesome fantasy. Gradually, a man ceases to have energy for the continuous and creative task, which paves the way for the dependence on particular relics, who jealously protect a female spirit in the very woman’s body and behaviour – these relics exist due to the difference from a man’s anthropology, so, a man has literally “kind” feelings to the tags of femininity, but eventually, every woman is objectified because of the presence of the human in her – simple wishes, jealousy and other vicious thoughts, as our human is initially connected not to high ideals but to vices, so any human community unites on the basis of common vices but not aims. This process of objectification happens continuously and with each perceived woman, so “an angel” stops being an aim and becomes a method of a woman’s perception – a benchmark for those women whom he likes, and gradually such criteria as “she was charming” step to the background if they don’t satisfy a man’s fetish, because a vice is a vessel for fantasy, which ceases immediately as soon as a man starts to perceive a woman-person (a woman’s main enemy to a man’s mind). A man can quite satisfy himself with such a woman but only temporarily – as well as with flashes of comprehension, which give us motivation to change only for a short period. Desire is not an aim but a milestone that triggers our thoughts and they, languishing in our mind, invent complicated ways to satisfaction, and when we try to reject our vicious desires, we actually return to our initial desire, which demands not satisfaction but maintenance. Isn’t it the same with divine?

Afraid to lose the draft of thought and deciding to interrupt their argument a little, I asked for paper and a pen, and Ursula gave me her sketchbook which Alan had presented to her trying to make her show her creative spirit, and unexpectedly for me, Alan snatched it from her hands – I had never noticed such sharp movements in him, but I definitely understood that it was the time for me to leave. Only a few days later I learned from Alan that the beginning of this project became the end of their relationship but it didn’t influence his wild intention.

After what happened to Alan, Ursula told me for the first time that he had been beating her, and once again I became assured that violence is not flapping arms. To me, thoughts about mind and violence always went side by side, and I think that the thoughts of violence have more metaphysical nature than people tend to think. These ponderings were caused by my observations that fighting people in a bar do not spread so much violence as a person who quietly weaves inner jealousy towards everybody but shows nothing with the actions. On the contrary, such a person is often courteous as was Alan.

– I think violence can never be justified. Never – even protecting close people. If you want to protect them, you should run away from any signs of violence but not to show protection when you are cornered… You know, he sometimes beat me.

– Why haven’t you ever told me about it?

– Because he was a good man. One day we were in a restaurant and he told me: “If I ever cheat on you, she wouldn’t be this kind of a chick. Nothing can be more stupid than a farm chick. I’d better sleep with a Boucheme’s bust, it seems to have more life”. He meant the students celebrating their graduation and behaving provocatively.

Ursula was crying while she was speaking, and I thought how women’s tears are different from men’s – a woman always cries about an unrealized reality and a man cries about a shattered dream. Walking along the street with her, I looked at the habitual environment, but Ursula’s tears coloured my soul even more than the rain. But no matter how habitual the word “soul” is, which we use in totally different contexts, we are quite far from understanding some rich vastness of our own depths, having a mixed nature of two substances: cosmic and our own – this mixture hints at the content of our thoughts, aspirations, feelings, which, on the one hand, are ultimately close to us, on the other hand, do not belong to us at all. And probably this formula is the best definition of ourselves with our intrinsic content, which bears the spirit of the wholesome space but not its dissolving parts, to which we got used to due to our imperfection – and for a fleeting moment it became clear to me that all the living was born beyond the space and then was mixed and put here. Some short time later, this moment of comprehension left only a dry formula: “was born beyond the space…” – generally meaningless because I can peer into this combination of words infinitely but cannot develop that short moment of comprehension – it should be looked for again.

A much more fertile effect was made by the flash of comprehension as it lit my thoughts about violence – this sweet phenomenon, which saturates thoughts and dissolves the pillars of our morality with its juice of madness. We become confused in our reasoning but it is pleasant to think about violence on a person who angers and irritates our outlook, trickling on the sides of the mind. A real danger makes you defend, search for ultimate ways to safety not allowing to invent violence but a light air of cruelty appears only in calm and unagitated thoughts which got used to loneliness – ripening of these violence sprouts is only possible on the ground of calm dissolution when they become the only joy of the soul and the coziness of detachment from the outer world intrinsic to violence, but a light dissonance with this world can make violence break away. It is worth thinking what is this musical instrument whose play attracts Muramasa’s demonic blade, famous for the fact that if it is not used to kill all the living, it will kill the owner of the blade – this is the choice of any mature knight of violence: either to destroy all the world or to destroy oneself, so the extremes of a soul are the main source of mind for such a knight, but this sword is not attracted by fierce sounds of real force, as violence is not possible against force – not in this world. No, only weak groans of a victim attract knights of violence, and as soon as, by the will of fate, he sees a weak point in the defense of a living being, he attacks instantly: as soon as he sees a weak point in a soul, he will see a victim in a victim.

All these thoughts combined not because of my topical attraction to violence, but of true sadness, which I felt in Ursula’s soul. Suddenly, she remembered her childhood:

– I remember my dad being drunk – sad spectacle. He was a weak man like maybe any alcoholic. You know, I think women don’t understand women just like men don’t understand them. I don’t understand how my mother could love him for so many years. He beat her – not much – but I thought I would never get in such a situation. But Alan wasn’t an alcoholic. By the way, father called me when he learned about this story. First time in eight years. I was so reluctant to talk to him that said that I forgive him for everything. In my childhood I also thought a lot about the border. And I promise – one day I will get beyond it. Although I refused…

(While Ursula was speaking, I became distracted again – my attention was drawn to a ray of the Sun, which thrusted through a sakura branch and cast an impressive shadow on Ursula’s face, lightening her smooth temple, where a little blood vessel appeared, sanctifying her image in a new way. Now she seemed a real warrior similar to those who built our island brick by brick— I think they were real heroes. This little bump on her temple became the personification of this heroism. I imagined her in a thick tropical forest – I read about such places in a Dezder’s book. Around her were the plants of all kinds, flowers of attractive forms and huge insects. I didn’t think long about her condition because she basically didn’t like to think for a long time. Her look fell on a vaguely-noticeable path, on which she rushed gradually understanding that she was wearing a fighting costume similar to a spacesuit – just less voluminous and more functional. She had a sword on her waist, and she saw a convocation of huge eagles shadowing all the blue space with a minimum of thirty seven luminaries similar to the Sun. But she didn’t have time to think about it – unknown energy within pushed her forward, and every move brought her incredible pleasure and her look constantly met fascinating images around. Suddenly, there was a ravine in front of her but with her inner energy she felt that she could fly to the other side, and with all her fury she jumped over this gorge. Landing on the other side she found herself in a bamboo grove and continued her run towards the waterfall noise, slashing green shafts on her way with a blade. Running out of the grove, she was in front of the rock with a cave in it, and she forwarded through the rocky gaps, and the waterfall noise deafened her more and more – minutes later she saw the ferocious streams of water, crashing ahead, and the gush of wind pushed her through the dense wall of water, and with her blade she flew to the turquoise sea with a fleet of ships made of stone – or, what looked like stone. Falling close to the sandy shore, Ursula soon saw an unequal battle of a small squad. A group of people in the same costumes and with the same swords as Ursula’s were fighting against a constantly growing wave of lizard-like three-eyes dogs. Each had a red mark on a forehead – some symbol. Ursula immediately joined the battle revealing yet new opportunities for her sword.)

– Sorry, I was thinking about your words on violence. Can you repeat?

– I said I would definitely go abroad. What were you thinking about?

– If you went abroad, you would definitely meet three-eyed dogs and you would be dressed as an amazon-warrior but in a spacesuit.

– Oh no. By the way, my father liked such fantasies. As did Alan.

After Alan’s act, I fell in love with Ursula: as if the yet unknown locks opened for me. Later, analyzing my first infatuation, I understood that it was this dialogue which made me fall in love with her. So much warmth cannot fit into a complex fetish or bright vanity. Warmth likes simplicity, ignorance and innocence. Warmth doesn’t like impressions, and light wind of love, making you worship human, is felt at the moment when you want to change yourself and reality around least of all – at the moments of acceptance. Or love pierces through your skin and makes you accept, or acceptance lets love enter – in any case, this light feeling of infatuation is present constantly and is reflected in the surrounding objects not with bright impressions but with the meaning of these very things. Such a dialogue can transfer you into your childhood room, where for the first time in your life you could not fall asleep because you became obsessed with a thought of a difference between a woman’s body and your own and of an existence of a large number of various types of women, which hide a desire unknown to you. And to perceive this unknown phenomenon, you, surprisingly, don’t start to study it but begin to think about the diversity of the Universe and think how you can become a whole world and to discover its mysteries. And our desires don’t grow older with us but always stay in their mysterious indefinity, and so, following her thought I understood that the area of human communication is a much darker place than a night forest, and to orientate there we are helped only by our experience of staying in this place, which has no gravity, and the space there is constantly being distorted, confusing a habitual perception of an already studied area of a stranger’s soul, and in search of stable landmarks we ourselves become more stable and empathic, noticing a live meaning in other people’s questions and judgements. Tears on Ursula’s face have already dried out and it now had an excited impression. Later I thought about my fantasy of Ursula. If I slice and dice everything, it will become obvious that a fantasy of Ursula The Amazon is maximally further from Ursula The Real but it describes her much better. As if in this fantasy one can recognize the very Ursula, her personality type. And vice versa, let’s try this:

“Ursula – female. Height – 1 m 70 cm. Likes tangerines. This woman has a balanced character. Quite educated, successfully graduated from the University”.

I have always thought that I knew Ursula well but now I definitely recollected a new person and understood that all this time I had known Ursula-Alan, and she, following her female nature, did not overshadow his originality where he was Alan The Rock for everybody. This is the element that Ursula The Real consists of for me, but Ursula The Amazon has a totally different content – exactly the one that belongs to Ursula The Real, who I can see now with a temple full of life and ambition. My fantasy of Ursula might be only my fantasy, but what is so important in her that helps me to acquire in my perception a more material Ursula and to reveal for myself her worldview?

I can only say that this fantasy made me fall in love with Ursula. I confessed in my feeling some months after what had happened, when we were sitting on the main keeper of Hoici’s history – the old and now totally tattered red couch on the roof of my house in the twilight, which in the childhood allowed creatures from another reality into my soul and took my sleep away, in return enriching my imagination with novel sensations, which, together with my confession, are now starting to burst into from the depth of my childhood yearnings towards the new shining of my dream. It is good that this couch was becoming more tattered, otherwise I would become scared that nothing is changing in this world and there is no use for me to count on new success – it might overlive me but it will definitely die one day, having told its story of “true sadness”. I fell in love long before this event but this feeling was hidden from my own mind with the layers unknown to me.