Alexander Zinoviev
ZINOVYOGA
As regards the (external) behavioural aspect, I constructed for myself a system of rules of behaviour (rules for life). Students of my system jokingly referred to it as “zinovyoga”.
I created “zinovyoga” for my own personal use. But sometimes I would jokingly recount aspects of it to my acquaintances. Usually they laughed at it. A few of my listeners however took it seriously and even practised it. Some of the elements are set out in my books On the Threshold of Paradise, A Gospel for Ivan, Live! and Go to Golgotha. In the latter book I called it “Laptism” or “Ivanism” after its hero Ivan Laptev. Of course, there it is set out in literary form and includes many additions which do not form part of my personal “zinovyoga”.
My “zinovyoga” is similar to well-known forms of religion, particularly Christianity and Buddhism. But unlike them, it is was designed by me for a person living in the second half of the 20th century who grew up in an atheist society and who is familiar with the greatest achievements of culture. Moreover, it was designed not for someone who retired into himself, who thought only of himself, who avoided normal communal life, but for someone who lived a normal life in soviet society, who was required to work and eager to work, to live in a collective and observe its rules, to carry out professional and social duties, come into contact with the powers that be, use transport, stand in queues, sit in meetings, approve the decisions of the authorities, participate in campaigns and initiatives, acquire a family and friends, in short – to be immersed in the turmoil and quagmire of daily life.
My literary hero Ivan Laptev defined this particularity of “zinovyoga” (“Laptism” in his terminology) as follows: how to be saintly while still continuing to indulge in sinful behaviour, how to live in the quagmire of our society in such a way that it recedes into the background of our consciousness and activities, leaving the foreground to be occupied by something else, namely our own particular inner world with its own criteria, which inform our judgments and values and which are manifest in our behaviour.
I offer by way of example some of the principles of “Laptism” which were also to be found in my own “zinovyoga”.
* * *
I reject the goal of material wellbeing for myself, but I do not insist that this should be the case for everyone. Today’s society offers a wealth of temptation. But at the same time it allows one to make do with very little. It makes it possible to have everything without having anything. It is better not to have something than to lose it. One should construct ones life in such a way that one can have, without having. This means that one has to establish what one can have without actually having it. One has to establish where one can reduce ones requirements to a minimum and where one should develop them to their maximum. Moreover, with minimal effort and maximal success. Learn to lose. Learn to rationalise your loss and compensate for it. Don’t acquire anything you can do without.
A characteristic sickness of our times is the quest for pleasure (for enjoyment). Learn to resist this epidemic and you will understand what makes life truly enjoyable – the fact of life itself. What are required are the qualities of simplicity, clarity, moderation, spiritual wellbeing, in short the simplest, but in today’s world the hardest to acquire. For the overwhelming majority of our population, a miserable existence and the lack of everything pleasurable is t be their lot for the next few hundred years. We have to think how to adapt to this situation, how to compensate for it. The only available solution, if we exclude as the main purpose of life fighting for its material blessings, is to develop a spiritual existence, a culture of spiritual interaction.
It is true that mankind seeks happiness. However happiness is not possible without self-restraint and self-control. Happiness is the reward for self-restraint; it is the result of self-control. Restricting and confining yourself to the normal humdrum parameter of existence, you transpose your “ego” to the only other parameter where you may experience happiness. Otherwise only a short, fleeting illusion of happiness is possible. Satisfaction is the result of victory over circumstances. Happiness is the result of victory over yourself.
I regard every human being as having the status I attribute to myself, that of a sovereign state, irrespective of his or her social position, age, gender or education. I relate to people not in terms of their rank, wealth, fame, or usefulness to myself but in terms of how and to what extent their sense of self, their soul, has matured, how they behave in society.
In this respect I am guided by the following principles.
Maintain your self-respect. Hold others at a distance. Preserve the ability to behave independently. Treat other people with respect. Be tolerant of other people’s opinions and weaknesses. On no account debase yourself, be anyone’s lackey or toady. Do not look down on anyone, even if that person is insignificant or contemptible.
Give everyone their due. Call a genius a genius. Call a hero a hero. Do not extol a nonentity. Keep clear of careerists, schemers, informers, slanderers, cowards and other bad people.
Argue, but do not quarrel. Converse but do not expatiate. Explicate but do not agitate. If you are not asked, do not answer. Do not answer more than you are asked. Do not attract attention. If you can do without someone else’s help, then do so. Do not thrust your help on others. Do not become too intimate with others. Do not seek to invade the privacy of others. Let nobody invade yours.
Make a promise only if you are sure that you will keep it. Having made a promise, keep it whatever it takes.
Do not deceive. Do not dissemble. Do not engage in intrigue. Do not pontificate. Do not gloat over the misfortune of others. In a fight, offer your opponent every advantage. Do not stand in the way of others. Do not bother anyone. Do not seek to outstrip anyone. Do not compete with anyone.
Choose a path which is free, or which other people are not following. Go as far along your chosen path as it is possible to go. If many people have trodden this path, change it – it is not the true path for you. Only a few individuals speak the truth. If many people share your convictions, it means that these convictions contain some ideological falsehood which is of use to them. If you are faced with the choice “to act” or “act as if”, choose the former. Resist the pull of fame and glory. It is better to be undervalued than overvalued. Remember who the judges and appraisers are. Better there be one true and adequate judge than a thousand inadequate ones.
Do not coerce anyone. Coercion of others does not denote will. Only coercion of oneself denotes that. But do not allow others to coerce you. Resist superior force by any available means.
Blame yourself for everything. If you have hard-hearted children, you brought them up to be so. If a friend has betrayed you, you are to blame for having trusted him. If your wife has been unfaithful, you are to blame for having given her the opportunity. If the authorities are oppressing you, you are to blame for having contributed to their power.
Do not act on behalf of, or in the name of others. Think of the consequences of your actions for other people – you are responsible for them (these actions). Good intentions do not excuse the bad consequences of your actions; good results do not justify evil intentions.
Invisible bacteria feed on the body. Petty upsets and worries feed on the soul. Do not permit life’s trivialities to take possession of your soul.
Never rely on people judging your behaviour objectively – no such “objective” judgment exists. What we regard as an objective judgment is how we ourselves would like people to assess our behaviour. Your motives for your actions do not coincide with the motives that others ascribe to them. Your motives change with time and are often variable and contradictory. You yourself involuntarily seek suitable grounds for your actions and even a justification for them. People regard your behaviour from the viewpoint of their own interests and understanding of how the world works. People vary. The same piece of behaviour can be adjudged as bad by some people and as good by others. Moreover, when assessing people’s behaviour, assessing the truth of the facts is only sometimes possible, and even then only partially.
You live without being understood by others and you will die without being understood. This is a general law. Only someone who does not expect others to be able to have an objective understanding of his behaviour lives a life worthy of a human being. In this respect death and oblivion correct all “injustices”. Add to everything else the deliberate lies and slander, as well as people’s desire to idealise selected individuals.
Such is the human being that, without any internal or external monitoring of his behaviour, he is capable of any dirty trick with regard to his fellows. It is only other people that restrain him. Using their collective forces, people invent a system of constraints on the behaviour of the individual and consolidate it in the form of rituals, the law, religion, morality. But these constraints are not all-powerful, nor are they absolute. Even the best of people conceal within themselves a scoundrel who can come to the fore in the event of a weakening or absence of control, the absence of an external or internal judge of their behaviour. One should not therefore trust people absolutely. One always has to bear in mind that they might let you down, deceive you, play some dirty trick on you. This particularly applies to people who are close to you. They can cause you the most pain because you least expect it from them, and they, knowing you and counting on their close relationship, are less afraid of having to pay for their misdeeds. As Christ reminds us, a man’s enemies are those close to him.
You should not simply put your trust in people. You must place them in a situation where they will do what you want, not for your sake, but for theirs. Avoid situations where you might be deceived. Be moderate in your attachment to people so that if you lose them, the losses are less than catastrophic.
Be restrained with women. If you can avoid a liaison, avoid it. Do not indulge in general sexual dissoluteness. Preserve in yourself a pure romantic relationship to love, even if in reality you see dirt and have plunged into it. Avoid scabrous language, unworthy behaviour, cynicism, swearing.
Spiritual purity and chastity offer a human being immeasurably more enjoyment than the dirt and vice of the everyday world.
Despise your enemies. Pretend that for you they do not exist. Ignore them – they are not worth fighting. On no account love them – they are especially not worthy of it. Avoid being the victim of your enemies and do not let them become yours. Do not personify your enemies. Do you consider the mosquitoes and flies that bite you to be your enemies?! And what about festering bacteria and worms?… And yet they will destroy you! Treat your enemies like the mosquitoes and flies, like the putrid bacteria and the worms in your grave.
Be a conscientious worker. Be professional in everything. Be fully immersed in the culture of your time. This offers a certain defence and an inner sense of rightness. As for other organisations and collective activities, avoid them. Don’t join any parties, sects or unions. Do not take part in any collective actions. If participation is unavoidable, participate as an autonomous entity, do not succumb to the moods and ideologies of the mob, act in the light of your own convictions. Do this as a personal matter, not that of others.
Be a good member of the collective but do not let yourself be subsumed by it. Do not participate in the intimate life of the collective. Do not participate in intrigues, in spreading rumours or scandal. Do not make the life of the collective your own. Try to occupy an independent position within it, but do not go against your principles. Avoid indulging in careerism.
If this happens against your will, stop it, for otherwise it will destroy your soul.
In creative work the most important thing is not success but the result. Judge yourself from the point of view of what you have brought to the sphere of your creative work that is new. If you feel that you are incapable of offering anything new or significant in this sphere, leave it and
find another, no matter what you might lose as a result. Do not succumb to mass opinion, mass pastimes, tastes or fashions. Work out your own taste, your own opinion, your own path.
Do not act illegally. Do not participate in the exercise of power. Do not participate in the theatricalities of power. Ignore everything that is official. Do not seek to confront power on your own initiative, but do not yield to it. On no account deify power. Power does not deserve to be trusted, even when the powers that be seek to speak the truth and to do good. It is in their social nature to lie and do harm. Ignore the official ideology. Any attention paid to it reinforces it.
Do not be ill. Cure yourself. Avoid doctors and medicine. Engage regularly in physical exercise. But do not overdo it. Too much is harmful, as is too little. It is best to work out a system of exercises that you can carry out anytime and in any circumstances. Do them every day no matter what happens. If you want to keep your body youthful, care about fostering a youthful spirit. Eternal youth is primarily a state of mind. Physical old age can be postponed until the last few years of life, perhaps even the last few months. A youthful spirit can be preserved up until the very last second. A life can be organised in such a way that the ageing process will come as something entirely natural, without the fear of old age or death. There exists a technical training system for this. But what is most important is systematically following the entire “zinovyoga” system. As regards the lifespan, it is not the number of years lived that counts, but the sense of the duration of existence. A long biological life can seem to pass by in an instant, a short one can seem to last an eternity.
Only a rich inner life can give the sensation of the duration of the external life.
Man is alone. Your life’s journey will fly by in such a way that you only outwardly and randomly come into contact with other people, moreover without any mutual spiritual or soulful understanding. This is man’s most agonising condition. Any suffering can be borne except loneliness. There is no medical cure or exercise regime that will overcome it. There are two forms of loneliness – the external and the internal. The former is conditioned by circumstances. It can vanish if the circumstances vanish.
The other form of loneliness is much more serious. This is a condition where the individual is surrounded by other people, not isolated, where he is free to choose his acquaintances, yet has no one who is close to him. This is the loneliness of the individual in any collective, in the midst of other people. This kind of loneliness is dreadful. You are constantly living with a feeling of being doomed, that the end is nigh. There is no hope, no ray of light. My system teaches you how you can avoid this type of loneliness. It is a prophylaxis against loneliness, a preparation for loneliness as an inescapable consequence of life. It teaches how to engage with loneliness fully armed, how to regard it as the norm, as something inevitable, as a condition which has its advantages: independence, freedom from care, freedom to contemplate, a disdainful attitude to loss, a readiness to die.
One should live in a permanent state of readiness for death. You should live every day as if it were your last. Try to end your life in such a way that you leave nothing behind you. A small legacy gives rise to ridicule and scorn. A large one promotes anger and enmity among the legatees. Any legacy leaves people with chores they have to deal with. Try to exit in such a way that no one notices your departure and that no one is aggrieved at having to clear up your unfinished business. You appeared on this earth unbidden and will leave unmissed. Do not envy those who are left behind: a similar fate awaits them.
In the end we shall all disappear and no one will ever know that we existed. It is better to die in a fight or in some catastrophe. Try to make it to the grave on your own two feet, without causing anyone any trouble. It is better to die healthy than sick. The weak hang on to life. The strong are ready to leave it with a light heart. It is better to die unwittingly and suddenly than to face death slowly. The fortunate ones are stabbed in the back and from round a corner.
* * *
There are many examples in my books of my characters having conversations with themselves, and also of inner voices. And in The Madhouse the main hero has dozens of different “egos” and inner voices. This is not merely a literary device. But if it is a literary device, it reflects one important quality of my State, namely the inner partition of the individual into a multitude of different individuals. This is not a case of split personality in the medical sense. The individual retains his unity. It merely manifests itself as a collective of many individuals, united in one organic whole. The medical split personality is similar to a Western pluralist society. In my multiplication of the personality we can detect a communist society, transposed to the consciousness of a single individual and cleansed of the defects of real communism. My State was supposed to become the ideal version of communism, but confined to the consciousness and behaviour of one person. There would be conflicts between the individual “egos”, there would be tendencies in the direction of vice and evil. But nevertheless my inner collective would be able to overcome all this and preserve its unity and idealism. This multiplication of the personality, moreover, would guarantee the self-sufficiency of the individual and protect him from the sufferings connected to loneliness. The inner partition of my “ego” into a multitude of different “egos”, often in conflict with each other, became one of the principles of my State.
Naturally the question arose as to who would be the supreme judge of my behaviour according to the principles of my system for living. People in the main are unfair, inclined to error, to self-deception and to violence.
A higher being (God) who is absolutely just, who sees everything and understands everything, does not exist.
That means that I myself would have to fulfil the role of this supreme judge in my individual State. One of my “egos” would have to become my own God with all his attributes. There is no difference in principle between my own god and God as the creator of everything in existence and judge of everything that happens, for in my capacity as my own god I created my own Universe and I established its laws.
The principles that have been expounded had to be observed in the routine of ordinary life, which was composed of thousands of small acts of behaviour. None of them, taken individually, singled me out as an individual from the people around me as someone claiming to be in any way exceptional. But systematic behaviour, which manifested itself in a multitude of such acts, could not pass unnoticed by those around. They reacted favourably to at least some of the principles underlying my behaviour.
In particular, I did not compete with anyone in the battle for a place to live, for a particular post, for rewards. I received no payment for my work over and above the plan. I had friendly relations with everyone, participated in nights out with the lads. Everyone knew that I made do with the minimum of material goods. I never let anyone down, never toadied up to anyone, never informed on anyone. I sacrificed much in the interest of others. I helped those near to me and anyone else who asked me for help. Although I had stopped drinking myself, I was happy to be part of drunken orgies, paying for it as if I too had been drinking. I was fair-minded and stood up for anyone who was unjustly treated. I was a good conversationalist, knew how to let others have their say. I scattered ideas around, not concerned with issues of copyright. Such behaviour earned me a good reputation in my circle, respect and even love.
I was completely satisfied with my share of the good things in life and did not wish for more. I had a wide circle of friends. I had students. There were followers.
I had unrestricted access to the best that culture had to offer. I was healthy, cheerful, the centre of attention.
It appeared that my ideal man-State was about to be realised. But then the dialectics of real life intervened: the nearer my ideal approached perfection, the more susceptible it became to external attack.
Alexander Zinoviev, A Russian Fate. Confessions of a Renegade (Munich, 1988)
Alexander Zinoviev
ZINOVYOGA
As regards the (external) behavioural aspect, I constructed for myself a system of rules of behaviour (rules for life). Students of my system jokingly referred to it as “zinovyoga”.
I created “zinovyoga” for my own personal use. But sometimes I would jokingly recount aspects of it to my acquaintances. Usually they laughed at it. A few of my listeners however took it seriously and even practised it. Some of the elements are set out in my books On the Threshold of Paradise, A Gospel for Ivan, Live! and Go to Golgotha. In the latter book I called it “Laptism” or “Ivanism” after its hero Ivan Laptev. Of course, there it is set out in literary form and includes many additions which do not form part of my personal “zinovyoga”.
My “zinovyoga” is similar to well-known forms of religion, particularly Christianity and Buddhism. But unlike them, it is was designed by me for a person living in the second half of the 20th century who grew up in an atheist society and who is familiar with the greatest achievements of culture. Moreover, it was designed not for someone who retired into himself, who thought only of himself, who avoided normal communal life, but for someone who lived a normal life in soviet society, who was required to work and eager to work, to live in a collective and observe its rules, to carry out professional and social duties, come into contact with the powers that be, use transport, stand in queues, sit in meetings, approve the decisions of the authorities, participate in campaigns and initiatives, acquire a family and friends, in short – to be immersed in the turmoil and quagmire of daily life.
My literary hero Ivan Laptev defined this particularity of “zinovyoga” (“Laptism” in his terminology) as follows: how to be saintly while still continuing to indulge in sinful behaviour, how to live in the quagmire of our society in such a way that it recedes into the background of our consciousness and activities, leaving the foreground to be occupied by something else, namely our own particular inner world with its own criteria, which inform our judgments and values and which are manifest in our behaviour.
I offer by way of example some of the principles of “Laptism” which were also to be found in my own “zinovyoga”.
* * *
I reject the goal of material wellbeing for myself, but I do not insist that this should be the case for everyone. Today’s society offers a wealth of temptation. But at the same time it allows one to make do with very little. It makes it possible to have everything without having anything. It is better not to have something than to lose it. One should construct ones life in such a way that one can have, without having. This means that one has to establish what one can have without actually having it. One has to establish where one can reduce ones requirements to a minimum and where one should develop them to their maximum. Moreover, with minimal effort and maximal success. Learn to lose. Learn to rationalise your loss and compensate for it. Don’t acquire anything you can do without.
A characteristic sickness of our times is the quest for pleasure (for enjoyment). Learn to resist this epidemic and you will understand what makes life truly enjoyable – the fact of life itself. What are required are the qualities of simplicity, clarity, moderation, spiritual wellbeing, in short the simplest, but in today’s world the hardest to acquire. For the overwhelming majority of our population, a miserable existence and the lack of everything pleasurable is t be their lot for the next few hundred years. We have to think how to adapt to this situation, how to compensate for it. The only available solution, if we exclude as the main purpose of life fighting for its material blessings, is to develop a spiritual existence, a culture of spiritual interaction.
It is true that mankind seeks happiness. However happiness is not possible without self-restraint and self-control. Happiness is the reward for self-restraint; it is the result of self-control. Restricting and confining yourself to the normal humdrum parameter of existence, you transpose your “ego” to the only other parameter where you may experience happiness. Otherwise only a short, fleeting illusion of happiness is possible. Satisfaction is the result of victory over circumstances. Happiness is the result of victory over yourself.
I regard every human being as having the status I attribute to myself, that of a sovereign state, irrespective of his or her social position, age, gender or education. I relate to people not in terms of their rank, wealth, fame, or usefulness to myself but in terms of how and to what extent their sense of self, their soul, has matured, how they behave in society.
In this respect I am guided by the following principles.
Maintain your self-respect. Hold others at a distance. Preserve the ability to behave independently. Treat other people with respect. Be tolerant of other people’s opinions and weaknesses. On no account debase yourself, be anyone’s lackey or toady. Do not look down on anyone, even if that person is insignificant or contemptible.
Give everyone their due. Call a genius a genius. Call a hero a hero. Do not extol a nonentity. Keep clear of careerists, schemers, informers, slanderers, cowards and other bad people.
Argue, but do not quarrel. Converse but do not expatiate. Explicate but do not agitate. If you are not asked, do not answer. Do not answer more than you are asked. Do not attract attention. If you can do without someone else’s help, then do so. Do not thrust your help on others. Do not become too intimate with others. Do not seek to invade the privacy of others. Let nobody invade yours.
Make a promise only if you are sure that you will keep it. Having made a promise, keep it whatever it takes.
Do not deceive. Do not dissemble. Do not engage in intrigue. Do not pontificate. Do not gloat over the misfortune of others. In a fight, offer your opponent every advantage. Do not stand in the way of others. Do not bother anyone. Do not seek to outstrip anyone. Do not compete with anyone.
Choose a path which is free, or which other people are not following. Go as far along your chosen path as it is possible to go. If many people have trodden this path, change it – it is not the true path for you. Only a few individuals speak the truth. If many people share your convictions, it means that these convictions contain some ideological falsehood which is of use to them. If you are faced with the choice “to act” or “act as if”, choose the former. Resist the pull of fame and glory. It is better to be undervalued than overvalued. Remember who the judges and appraisers are. Better there be one true and adequate judge than a thousand inadequate ones.
Do not coerce anyone. Coercion of others does not denote will. Only coercion of oneself denotes that. But do not allow others to coerce you. Resist superior force by any available means.
Blame yourself for everything. If you have hard-hearted children, you brought them up to be so. If a friend has betrayed you, you are to blame for having trusted him. If your wife has been unfaithful, you are to blame for having given her the opportunity. If the authorities are oppressing you, you are to blame for having contributed to their power.
Do not act on behalf of, or in the name of others. Think of the consequences of your actions for other people – you are responsible for them (these actions). Good intentions do not excuse the bad consequences of your actions; good results do not justify evil intentions.
Invisible bacteria feed on the body. Petty upsets and worries feed on the soul. Do not permit life’s trivialities to take possession of your soul.
Never rely on people judging your behaviour objectively – no such “objective” judgment exists. What we regard as an objective judgment is how we ourselves would like people to assess our behaviour. Your motives for your actions do not coincide with the motives that others ascribe to them. Your motives change with time and are often variable and contradictory. You yourself involuntarily seek suitable grounds for your actions and even a justification for them. People regard your behaviour from the viewpoint of their own interests and understanding of how the world works. People vary. The same piece of behaviour can be adjudged as bad by some people and as good by others. Moreover, when assessing people’s behaviour, assessing the truth of the facts is only sometimes possible, and even then only partially.
You live without being understood by others and you will die without being understood. This is a general law. Only someone who does not expect others to be able to have an objective understanding of his behaviour lives a life worthy of a human being. In this respect death and oblivion correct all “injustices”. Add to everything else the deliberate lies and slander, as well as people’s desire to idealise selected individuals.
Such is the human being that, without any internal or external monitoring of his behaviour, he is capable of any dirty trick with regard to his fellows. It is only other people that restrain him. Using their collective forces, people invent a system of constraints on the behaviour of the individual and consolidate it in the form of rituals, the law, religion, morality. But these constraints are not all-powerful, nor are they absolute. Even the best of people conceal within themselves a scoundrel who can come to the fore in the event of a weakening or absence of control, the absence of an external or internal judge of their behaviour. One should not therefore trust people absolutely. One always has to bear in mind that they might let you down, deceive you, play some dirty trick on you. This particularly applies to people who are close to you. They can cause you the most pain because you least expect it from them, and they, knowing you and counting on their close relationship, are less afraid of having to pay for their misdeeds. As Christ reminds us, a man’s enemies are those close to him.
You should not simply put your trust in people. You must place them in a situation where they will do what you want, not for your sake, but for theirs. Avoid situations where you might be deceived. Be moderate in your attachment to people so that if you lose them, the losses are less than catastrophic.
Be restrained with women. If you can avoid a liaison, avoid it. Do not indulge in general sexual dissoluteness. Preserve in yourself a pure romantic relationship to love, even if in reality you see dirt and have plunged into it. Avoid scabrous language, unworthy behaviour, cynicism, swearing.
Spiritual purity and chastity offer a human being immeasurably more enjoyment than the dirt and vice of the everyday world.
Despise your enemies. Pretend that for you they do not exist. Ignore them – they are not worth fighting. On no account love them – they are especially not worthy of it. Avoid being the victim of your enemies and do not let them become yours. Do not personify your enemies. Do you consider the mosquitoes and flies that bite you to be your enemies?! And what about festering bacteria and worms?… And yet they will destroy you! Treat your enemies like the mosquitoes and flies, like the putrid bacteria and the worms in your grave.
Be a conscientious worker. Be professional in everything. Be fully immersed in the culture of your time. This offers a certain defence and an inner sense of rightness. As for other organisations and collective activities, avoid them. Don’t join any parties, sects or unions. Do not take part in any collective actions. If participation is unavoidable, participate as an autonomous entity, do not succumb to the moods and ideologies of the mob, act in the light of your own convictions. Do this as a personal matter, not that of others.
Be a good member of the collective but do not let yourself be subsumed by it. Do not participate in the intimate life of the collective. Do not participate in intrigues, in spreading rumours or scandal. Do not make the life of the collective your own. Try to occupy an independent position within it, but do not go against your principles. Avoid indulging in careerism.
If this happens against your will, stop it, for otherwise it will destroy your soul.
In creative work the most important thing is not success but the result. Judge yourself from the point of view of what you have brought to the sphere of your creative work that is new. If you feel that you are incapable of offering anything new or significant in this sphere, leave it and
find another, no matter what you might lose as a result. Do not succumb to mass opinion, mass pastimes, tastes or fashions. Work out your own taste, your own opinion, your own path.
Do not act illegally. Do not participate in the exercise of power. Do not participate in the theatricalities of power. Ignore everything that is official. Do not seek to confront power on your own initiative, but do not yield to it. On no account deify power. Power does not deserve to be trusted, even when the powers that be seek to speak the truth and to do good. It is in their social nature to lie and do harm. Ignore the official ideology. Any attention paid to it reinforces it.
Do not be ill. Cure yourself. Avoid doctors and medicine. Engage regularly in physical exercise. But do not overdo it. Too much is harmful, as is too little. It is best to work out a system of exercises that you can carry out anytime and in any circumstances. Do them every day no matter what happens. If you want to keep your body youthful, care about fostering a youthful spirit. Eternal youth is primarily a state of mind. Physical old age can be postponed until the last few years of life, perhaps even the last few months. A youthful spirit can be preserved up until the very last second. A life can be organised in such a way that the ageing process will come as something entirely natural, without the fear of old age or death. There exists a technical training system for this. But what is most important is systematically following the entire “zinovyoga” system. As regards the lifespan, it is not the number of years lived that counts, but the sense of the duration of existence. A long biological life can seem to pass by in an instant, a short one can seem to last an eternity.
Only a rich inner life can give the sensation of the duration of the external life.
Man is alone. Your life’s journey will fly by in such a way that you only outwardly and randomly come into contact with other people, moreover without any mutual spiritual or soulful understanding. This is man’s most agonising condition. Any suffering can be borne except loneliness. There is no medical cure or exercise regime that will overcome it. There are two forms of loneliness – the external and the internal. The former is conditioned by circumstances. It can vanish if the circumstances vanish.
The other form of loneliness is much more serious. This is a condition where the individual is surrounded by other people, not isolated, where he is free to choose his acquaintances, yet has no one who is close to him. This is the loneliness of the individual in any collective, in the midst of other people. This kind of loneliness is dreadful. You are constantly living with a feeling of being doomed, that the end is nigh. There is no hope, no ray of light. My system teaches you how you can avoid this type of loneliness. It is a prophylaxis against loneliness, a preparation for loneliness as an inescapable consequence of life. It teaches how to engage with loneliness fully armed, how to regard it as the norm, as something inevitable, as a condition which has its advantages: independence, freedom from care, freedom to contemplate, a disdainful attitude to loss, a readiness to die.
One should live in a permanent state of readiness for death. You should live every day as if it were your last. Try to end your life in such a way that you leave nothing behind you. A small legacy gives rise to ridicule and scorn. A large one promotes anger and enmity among the legatees. Any legacy leaves people with chores they have to deal with. Try to exit in such a way that no one notices your departure and that no one is aggrieved at having to clear up your unfinished business. You appeared on this earth unbidden and will leave unmissed. Do not envy those who are left behind: a similar fate awaits them.
In the end we shall all disappear and no one will ever know that we existed. It is better to die in a fight or in some catastrophe. Try to make it to the grave on your own two feet, without causing anyone any trouble. It is better to die healthy than sick. The weak hang on to life. The strong are ready to leave it with a light heart. It is better to die unwittingly and suddenly than to face death slowly. The fortunate ones are stabbed in the back and from round a corner.
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There are many examples in my books of my characters having conversations with themselves, and also of inner voices. And in The Madhouse the main hero has dozens of different “egos” and inner voices. This is not merely a literary device. But if it is a literary device, it reflects one important quality of my State, namely the inner partition of the individual into a multitude of different individuals. This is not a case of split personality in the medical sense. The individual retains his unity. It merely manifests itself as a collective of many individuals, united in one organic whole. The medical split personality is similar to a Western pluralist society. In my multiplication of the personality we can detect a communist society, transposed to the consciousness of a single individual and cleansed of the defects of real communism. My State was supposed to become the ideal version of communism, but confined to the consciousness and behaviour of one person. There would be conflicts between the individual “egos”, there would be tendencies in the direction of vice and evil. But nevertheless my inner collective would be able to overcome all this and preserve its unity and idealism. This multiplication of the personality, moreover, would guarantee the self-sufficiency of the individual and protect him from the sufferings connected to loneliness. The inner partition of my “ego” into a multitude of different “egos”, often in conflict with each other, became one of the principles of my State.
Naturally the question arose as to who would be the supreme judge of my behaviour according to the principles of my system for living. People in the main are unfair, inclined to error, to self-deception and to violence.
A higher being (God) who is absolutely just, who sees everything and understands everything, does not exist.
That means that I myself would have to fulfil the role of this supreme judge in my individual State. One of my “egos” would have to become my own God with all his attributes. There is no difference in principle between my own god and God as the creator of everything in existence and judge of everything that happens, for in my capacity as my own god I created my own Universe and I established its laws.
The principles that have been expounded had to be observed in the routine of ordinary life, which was composed of thousands of small acts of behaviour. None of them, taken individually, singled me out as an individual from the people around me as someone claiming to be in any way exceptional. But systematic behaviour, which manifested itself in a multitude of such acts, could not pass unnoticed by those around. They reacted favourably to at least some of the principles underlying my behaviour.
In particular, I did not compete with anyone in the battle for a place to live, for a particular post, for rewards. I received no payment for my work over and above the plan. I had friendly relations with everyone, participated in nights out with the lads. Everyone knew that I made do with the minimum of material goods. I never let anyone down, never toadied up to anyone, never informed on anyone. I sacrificed much in the interest of others. I helped those near to me and anyone else who asked me for help. Although I had stopped drinking myself, I was happy to be part of drunken orgies, paying for it as if I too had been drinking. I was fair-minded and stood up for anyone who was unjustly treated. I was a good conversationalist, knew how to let others have their say. I scattered ideas around, not concerned with issues of copyright. Such behaviour earned me a good reputation in my circle, respect and even love.
I was completely satisfied with my share of the good things in life and did not wish for more. I had a wide circle of friends. I had students. There were followers.
I had unrestricted access to the best that culture had to offer. I was healthy, cheerful, the centre of attention.
It appeared that my ideal man-State was about to be realised. But then the dialectics of real life intervened: the nearer my ideal approached perfection, the more susceptible it became to external attack.
Alexander Zinoviev, A Russian Fate. Confessions of a Renegade (Munich, 1988)
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