I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...Emerson

Last week consisted of me running all over Moscow, and hence, constantly riding the metro. The Moscow metro is a terrible place to spend one's days - the grime of millions of zombie-people has been building up for decades. The instant you step into the tunnels you stop being human. All of your senses are overwhelmed, so you simply turn them off. Too much motion is confusing, so you stop looking in people's eyes, and when you accidentally catch someone's passing glance, a strange sense of shame fills both parties. The beasts of the underbelly of this enormous city roar through their tunnels, screeching as they go. To drown the creaking and screaming of the wagons, you listen to music, podcasts, or just wear the headphones to block out sound.

Anyway, to survive travelling on the metro, I have to do something that takes my attention away from it. For the past two months I've been reading War and Peace, and on Thursday night, while an oh-so-Moscow rainstorm drenched the above world, I was hurtling through the underground as I finished the novel. There was more than one time in my reading of the book that I just wanted to turn to the person next to me and say something like, 'I can't believe it, ____ is dead!' 

I especially loved the reoccurring theme of finding regeneration, or re-finding meaning in life. Here's one of my favorite parts of the book:

...он ничего не видал. Над ним не было ничего уже, кроме неба, — высокого неба, не ясного, но все-таки неизмеримо высокого, с тихо ползущими по нем серыми облаками. «Как тихо, спокойно и торжественно, совсем не так, как я бежал, — подумал князь Андрей, — не так, как мы бежали, кричали и дрались; совсем не так, как с озлобленными и испуганными лицами тащили друг у друга банник француз и артиллерист, — совсем не так ползут облака по этому высокому бесконечному небу. Как же я не видал прежде этого высокого неба? И как я счастлив, что узнал его наконец. Да! все пустое, все обман, кроме этого бесконечного неба. Ничего, ничего нет, кроме его. Но и того даже нет, ничего нет, кроме тишины, успокоения. И слава Богу!..» (if you don't speak Russian, this is from book 1, part 3, chapter 16, the last few paragraphs).

Isn't that just so incredibly beautiful? I couldn't stop thinking of this theme on my latest trip to the countryside of Russia. Last year I made this same trip with my rock-climbing friends to Dernovo, a tiny town a few hundred km south of Moscow. Picture rolling fields of soft grass blowing in the warm spring wind backed by a bubbling brook, and of course, cliffs! Got the image? Great, now let's see how accurate your imagination is compared with the real thing.

 The running here was absolutely fantastic. Kilometers and kilometers of soft green grass covering rolling hills is just amazing to run on. I've never found another place where I can run so far barefoot.

 The trip was meant to be a rock climbing trip, so I got some of that in as well. I'm really in terrible shape for climbing right now, but the only other two guys on the trip are rock climbing instructors, and they really pushed me to do better than I have in a long time. They kept telling me to take a step into the unknown, and just trust that there will be something to grab once I get there. These two photos are at the top of a climb that I was sure I wouldn't be able to do at all, but ended up climbing it on-site (on-site is climbing it the first time without having seen it done before, and without falling).

The trip to Dernovo acted as sort of a reset button for me last year, and this year didn't upset. The camping, running, and climbing were all just so great to get me excited about life again. I know this sounds super corny, but I really can't get over how many beautiful things there are in life. So many wonderful books to read, hills to run, cliffs to climb, and unknowns to be stepped into.

Thoughts going out to Boston

The recent tragedy at the Boston marathon shocked the world. As an avid runner, I'm sickened at the thought of so much hatred in such a discordant context. A marathon is an event of human triumph...over self, nature, pain. How can one now ever think of running and not be moved to feelings of despair, futility, pain. I read dozens of posts on facebook about 'hearts going out to' and 'prayers being with' Bostonians, but this all seemed a bit of an underplay. As if my thoughts or the desires inside of me will help someone across the country deal with this.

In the darkest of my thoughts, and the anger that came along with them I'm fortunate to have the influence of people better than me to help. Ironically, it was the 'thoughts and desires' in the form of my niece's rantings on facebook that turned me around on this one. As an introduction, my niece is one of the sweetest and most genuine people on the planet.

'My initial reaction after was to reason angrily at whoever was twisted enough to do this. I passed most of my morning trying to understand what even happened. I was angry at the world, and despaired for everyone's future. What kind of planet are we, to mindlessly hurt one another?'

Then she made the moral leap that I was too cynical, too stuck in my own anger to make. She talked about what you can see in the pictures in Boston, about people helping each other, about people's hearts really 'going out' to others. '...as a society, we are still good. We still care, love, and want to protect one another as a whole. My faith in mankind, and also my beliefs are confirmed today by the people in Boston.'

Beyond the pain and horror of the event is what everyone says about it. Everywhere I go, I get a short discussion on terrorism in America. The administrator in my building just gave me a 5 minute lecture on how 'these guys aren't evil, if you want to see evil, take the guys who are inventing time machines. (perplexed, awkward silence on my part) Yeah, these guys are inventing time machines so they can go back to when everyone was born so they can abort them all! (another, more perplexed, and even more awkward silence on my part) -Ummm...I have to go, um, over there.'

I guess, in summary, there are a whole range of crazy people out there. From the amusing to the disturbing to the amusingly disturbing.

And now a brush with the divine. Also on being a poseur and pastries.

Saturday found me wandering some sites around Moscow, and I eventually found my way into the Christ the Savior Temple. This temple actually has a really fun history, being demolished under soviet antireligious campaign, the area was used as a giant swimming pool for years. Near the end of the Soviet Union, the enormous temple was reconstructed and has graced the Moscow skyline ever since.

Anyway, I dropped by on Saturday and there was a service going on. It didn't seem like anything particularly different than what I've seen before until out of the iconostasis marched a procession of priests, among whom was this man:

 His name is Kirill, and he's the head patriarch for all of Rus'. I was sort of blown away at the beauty of the service. There were two magnificent choirs belting out prayers along with the priests in one of the most impressively gaudy buildings in Moscow. With few exceptions the congregation dropped to their knees as Kirill marched out and began the service. That felt a bit uncomfortable, so I backed away a bit to not interfere. I left the service in a ponderous mood.

This is going to be a bit of a jump in the topic, but watching this procession sort of got me thinking about the individual lives of each of the priests. They each took vows of dedication sealing them to this path for their entire life. What does it take for a person to completely dedicate themselves to one thing? Here's the jump...I can see this same level of dedication  in many of my friends, but in various aspects of life (school, work, athletics). It's one of the hardest things in life to be absolutely passionate about something. I look at my own life and I must admit that I'm equally passionate about, for example, my schoolwork as I am about the pastries they sell in the bakery downstairs (most likely less actually). 

One friend has mentioned her belief that unless you are dedicated to an extreme level, you are only a poseur. When I initially heard this theory I rejected it, and argued vehemently against it. However, as time goes on my opinion wavers, and I find myself wondering what things I really am just pretending to be. What masks have I put on to hide whatever's underneath? This is hardly the forum to take off my masks, but I'd really like to believe that at least sometimes I'm not just a poseur.

I'm not convinced that people who are completely dedicated to something are more genuine, or more real. That's not the point I'm driving at. I think I'm trying to say that it sort of feels empty not having a passion, so that's why I fill the emptiness with sweet, sweet pastries.

Almost Famous

Here's a fun little article about me from the newspaper Moscow News. They just ask me about how I ended up in Moscow, and what my impressions of the city are. The photo's sort of scary, but they can only use photoshop so much.


Sorry if you don't speak Russian. Just imagine my always clever banter, and you'll get the gist of it.

...
The old link stopped working, so as promised, here's the article on the site: http://www.mn.ru/society_edu/20130408/342770642.html

The Less-Than-Perfect Approach to Curing Headaches

There are several sounds that just send a chill down my spine and draw out every bit of hatred stored up inside my very being-my alarm happens to be one of those sounds. This morning's alarm elicited a bit more hatred than usual, waking up with a headache helps you reach down inside and learn more about what you're capable of. In this case, I was much more capable of hating than I ever dreamed possible.

It seems that everyone has their own cure for the headache, whether it's massaging some mystical pressure point, hair of the dog solution (fun fact, there's a verb in Russian for that: опохмелиться), or simply taking an advil. Those might work for you, but I took a different approach...fill that throbbing head with as much as possible; econometrics, museum, and opera marathon to be specific. Let's not talk about econometrics now though, I think everyone can agree on that. I think if we just pretend like we talked about it we'll all leave happier.

So yeah, after that I went to the Tretyakov Gallery to soak in that oh-so-Russian bit of culture. Last year around this time I visited this gallery, and one painting called the Thaw really spoke to me. It is sort of a grim, dirty, in your face look at the change from winter to spring here, and I wasn't super positive about things at the time I guess.

Well, this year on my return I walked into the display room for the Thaw, and to my surprise the painting has since become silent. I still remember why it made sense, but that's part of the mystery and beauty of great art I guess. It can speak to you at different times, or remain silent. This time around I really loved the painting Странник (The Pilgrim) by Perov. You can read into that as much or as little as you want.

When I saw the painting of Tolstoy I got a little giddy. It was then that I realized that I'm a bit of a nerd, and not in a good way. Still, I had to get a picture with the old guy.

See how those eyes just pierce your very soul, begging you to question everything you think you know about life, love, and god? Tolstoy's eyes are pretty striking too.

Next on the agenda was the marathon opera-Strauss' Der Rosenkavelier. It was a 4 hour presentation, and we opted for the student seats, which are extremely uncomfortable. In fact...

...they were so uncomfortable the ticket itself says неудобное место (inconvenient seat) right on it, just so you don't get any false hopes. My brief, and humble opinion of the opera is such: rough at first with the singers really struggling, but really picked up to an incredible, albeit very strange third act. By this time, my head was not alone in bodyparts that were suffering; my back, legs, and neck were burning, but I sojourned as a soldier of culture! Also, my friends peer pressured me into staying. My pain was not unrewarded though, because the finale of the opera was magnificent, and I came home with the sweet taste of opera in my mouth (actually, it was the sweet taste of mickey d's, cause I had it my way home, MC World!).

Note: any reference to enjoying McDonalds is purely satirical, and should not be taken seriously.
Note 2: Late night fast food could very well be the cause of headaches like this.