Denis Nushtaev - True Sadness

It was midday when this patient died.

To distract myself I accepted Alan’s earlier invitation to visit a famous venue orotundly called “Port Charlotte”, that offered the best smoking narcotic mixes, which disgusted me. Because of his eccentricity, Alan visited this place quite often. He always persuaded me that this experience is a wonderful method of work with one’s mentality. Without excessive attraction, these mixes could open new ways for contemplation, Alan said to me, and that day I yielded to his suasions but because of the horrific fear of this harmless action I decided to note down all my experiences in order to gain myself back deciphering the notes if something goes wrong. This experience was overshadowed by the necessity to communicate with Alan’s friends, whom I had never liked, but I needed to distract. Being in the basement of an old residential house on Owen Street, which crept out like a dead man’s bony arm from a grave in this quickly developing district of our island, I was irritated by each perceived object – this building of architecture, forever painted pink, made an impression of a dummy which is tried to be presented as a museum exhibit; this Alan’s drug habit made me despise all of him, as it subdued all his enriched impulses of self-realization with a vulgar attempt to leave for the lair of his fantasies, but on that day even more irritation was caused by the street name with the surname meaningless to me, so I submerged into this patch of the conceptual approach to life comprehension with a squeamish feeling towards myself.

On this joyless and boring patch, in addition to my nasty disposition, Alan introduced me to a so-called disciple of art, whom he admired, however, this young man completed my picture of loneliness because he seemed a really “vulgar larva of society” (using Mr. Huxley’s expression). But it was him who made me look at Alan in a different way – as if by accident, providence put these two people together to make their faults intensify each other. Staying in the presence of this man I realized why I had always considered Alan “weaselly” – I even felt “weaselly” myself. The worst was the fact that a mediocrity considered himself something unique and stood in front of his art not giving it its own word. This genius was beaming with “simplicity of truth” in this dark room of the painted building, but in a complex refraction we see a more colourless yet more clear image than looking at a direct source of light: mediocrity always strives to shine filling the space of impression with dancing shadows – this is why we cannot descry what a person or their art really are.

And I think he understands how much I despise him and so he closes even more in his shell because the opinion similar to mine is encountered not for the first time, and it serves just as a confirmation of poor judgement of the “collective consciousness”, although, observing it from my position, I can see the manifestation of this phenomenon towards him too. Genuine people of art, whom I love, unlike Mr. X, didn’t suffer from “conceptualism” though their approach was not understood by many – I’d better say, it was understood by all but it took time to perceive it, it required concentration and presence of some kind of ambition. They didn’t shine with meaninglessness but tried to find its reflection in their own lives, so their art didn’t lose gravity – it could be imperfect, undeveloped or unfinished, but it had spirit while Mr. X paraded his impotence of creative outlook, showing hard work and achieving “high quality” in unworthy things, which made a spectator feel own pretension. Does a spectator have to feel their presence in a work of art at all, does he have to feel that he is addressed? I don’t think so – the difference between people is so tiny that we can raise our creative outlook to Olympus, that will be inaccessible to the others, that is why I see the right way in creating a single outlook with a spectator not in achieving infinite levels of abstraction, which lose their content more each time an author (similar to Mr. X) tries to input more meaning in them. In the limitless vastness of my ego, I can imagine that my text will be read by people of next generations, it is possible that our island will disappear and the Earth will be united again, and my text will present only historic value, but all of this is a farfetched position – eternity and supertemporal actuality manifests itself with a maximal closeness to the mysticism of an author’s current moment. While I am on the island, no matter how familiar and banal it is for me, no matter how much I want to go beyond – I will be writing about the island, not inventing something extra, and also about the project of going abroad, which Alan produced.

In the heat of such passion, because of influence of the irritating environment and even more irritating Mr. X, I was finally allowed to fulfil my experience when some of Alan’s friends had already passed substantive way in this direction. At some moment they reminded me of a pack of headless space chickens, but their condition helped me to relax and not to feel embarrassed by my notebook, in which I recorded my experience on a low and hardly noticeable table, falling deeper and deeper into the atmosphere of a smoke-filled room and dark green walls with velvety surface of floral patterns.

“First, it’s frightening, then you get used to it. I’m unreasonably fun. As if I’m in a dream. I’m afraid it will affect my cognitive abilities (fear of castration). There’s no time, I’m moving in time and space (!). I have no responsibility (!). I’m interested to learn. I don’t perceive all the reality. I have a feeling that I will forget it all like a dream. They say, the events will stay in my memory. We’ll see. I live with feelings. You must just think of a feeling and you start fulfilling it. I’m moved by something inner. It might be instincts, it might be a part of my thoughts that rule me. It’s not repressed, I don’t feel fear. I might not understand that I am alive. I don’t believe I can manage it to the table. I can’t think concretely (!) and invent. I can count, I’m totally rational, do what my brain orders, but with all it – it’s not ME. I am different. Level of banality decreased. I answer rationally but not the way I would answer. I am not ashamed. Although some repressed traits of character reappear. I start to obey the flock, looking for a leader. I’m eccentric, but I understand this is not real ME and so, I’m not afraid to behave this way. I am sometimes afraid to stay like this forever. I can’t articulate words well. The more I’m surprised with this difficulty, the bigger it becomes. It’s funny. I speak slowly. At first, I thought that my heart stopped but then I felt it was beating too slowly. It might not be true! I’m beyond the time. At some moment everything started to whirl but not for long. I perceive people as mine among those who have also taken it, others are not from our narrow world. There are only them and matter. At some moment voices started to be heard as prophetic, especially at the beginning. I think that nobody hears me. I suddenly thought that I am somewhere far away (!), something is happening to me, I’m in a dream”.

I am ashamed to admit that during this experience I almost started to love the people around me, including Mr. X, however, as I had expected, this experience later evoked negative reactions in me as I had always been dedicated to the love phenomenon of my soul to waste it on despised people. In addition, being charged with own impressions doesn’t give the output to new spheres, where the doubt in your own sensations must always serve as a defense from the monsters of your unrestrained fantasy, and where the question “Is our whole life a dream?” nourishes every receptor of our life with pleasant sensations of spiritual independence. Here I recall again the story of poor Hoici: once he dreamed that he was an owl whiter than a snowy desert, and the sensation of being this creature appealed to him so much that he covered unthinkable distances in his dream and closer to his wake he saw the eyes of a lonely wanderer who engulfed him with his sad blue look, and to the question: “Why are you so sad?” the wanderer answered: “I have been listening to this forest spirits’ tales for too long on condition that I will never tell them to people, but I told them to my beloved and they took away my ears. Waking up, Hoici couldn’t decide who he is: an owl, an earless wanderer or Hoici, and are those owls what they seem, and are people what they think of themselves?