I want to be a human being
As I bring this final 130th newsletter to a close, I feel it's time to pause for a while.
Ему было всего1 18 year old when he wrote these lines in a letter to his brother:
Человек есть тайна. Её надо разгадать, и ежели2 будешь её разгадывать всю жизнь, то не говори, что потерял время. Я занимаюсь этой тайной, ибо3 хочу быть человеком.
Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.
Не теряй времени4. Work your miracles. Help others find their niche. Urge them to reveal their talents and chase their dreams. In doing so, you’ll grow too. It’s certain.
Since the beginning of 2025, more frequently than ever have I sent away newsletters. As once mentioned, письмо5 slows things down; it allows you to see through what a human being you truly are. Give it a shot. ;)
What I find most flattering is that письмо is not reserved for the chosen few. Not only artists or poets have wielded the pen: the most gifted surgeons (N. Amosov6, L. Bokeria7), doctors (A. Chekhov, M. Bulgakov) published non- and fictional books. While teaching, I часто напоминаю8 my students of this. Writing grounds us. It helps us reflect — and, in doing so, fight off exhaustion and burnout.
Однако9, what’s the point of staying empathetic, of caring, of paying attention, if people around us are selfish anyway, putting themselves first no matter what? Ну что ж10, it’s your choice to remain human, or to become just a biological fragment of something less.
С января11, this one newsletter has become the most read of all.
Still my favourite one is this.
It’s one of the most ariculate expression of an idea that reflects my culture and myself to-day, shaped by meeting people from Vladivostok and Magadan to Minsk and Lughansk, from Kyoto to Los Mochis in different geographical locations, reading coutless books and articles, listening to the researchers and more.
Frankly speaking, I owe it all to you.
Take care, and notice whether your feet are warm. :) We’re often so out of touch with our own mind and body that we forget we’re meant to power our own lives.
Believe in yourself the way I believe in you.
Rise above your circumstances, не позволяй им определять тебя12.
He was just
old-fashioned, если = if
old fashioned, потому что = because
Don’t waste your time
writing
the inventor of the “artificial lung” apparatus
“Today all doors are open for young people. I have worked in many countries around the world, and believe me, nowhere is there such a wide range of opportunities as in Russia,” Leo Bakeriya says in the interview-article about him.
remind (кому? студентам)
However
Well
Since January
don’t let them define you