Scholar s Mate

Scholar's Mate

Psychopolitical fiction

This play is entirely a work of fiction. The characters and incidents portrayed here are the product of the author's imagination. Any similarity to real people, places, or historical events is purely accidental.

Main characters:

Redie, the good
Angel Eyes, the bad
Tuco, the evil

On Monday, Tuco writes a post in Angel Eyes's group.

Recently, I noticed that Angel Eyes stopped publishing his awkward descriptions of the events, the thing he had been doing for roughly five years.

I've not been attending the club since the beginning of the summer primarily because of my psychopolitical paradigm shift from German to Chinese.

On June 3rd, I ended my 500-day-long engagement with German, reaching the level of fluency in it that is definitely greater than the English of at least half of those with whom I've been doomed to converse at Angel Eyes's club for years.

You think I'm showing off, don't you? Think again. Imagine my feelings after talking to the same people for years and seeing almost no improvement in their ability to understand me. It's like "krank sein und die Troster heimschicken und mit Tauben Freundschaft schliessen, die niemals horen, was du willst."

So on June 3rd, I turned all my psychopolitical forces toward a new height and began mastering Chinese. This is the main reason why I stopped visiting Angel Eyes's meetings. I couldn't afford it. I needed all my free time to master Chinese.

Once again, after Angel Eyes stopped publishing his descriptions—they were so awkward and addictive simultaneously that I've read virtually all of them throughout these five years—I got curious and went to see what was going on at the meetings with my own eyes.

Apparently, I overheard one guy saying it was impossible to get good at Chinese; therefore, it was useless to study it. I laughed in my heart, since it's been just 137 days since I began my Chinese studies, and I can already speak Chinese almost as well as this guy speaks English, even though he's been trying to study it for years. I bet that in 500 days I'm going to speak Chinese better than this guy speaks English. Wanna see me making progress in the next 363 days? I'm planning to organize a Chinese-speaking club in the near future. Get on board:vk.ru/club222003027

On Tuesday, Redie leaves a comment:

Good luck with Chinese and any other endeavor. We're dull-witted and unworthy, so we'll stay in the club with Angel Eyes and his clumsy descriptions. We'll happily rot in the swamp of ignorance of our insignificant and lethargic lives. And yes, I used a translator to write this sentence because my English level isn't good enough to express it directly, and it doesn't get any better in the club—what a shame.

Tuco replies in a few hours:

(A slow, theatrical sigh, followed by a clap that's just a little too slow to be sincere).

I like this sweet, intoxicating aroma of self-depreciation humor. Well played, Redie, well played. Your sublime, self-aware ignorance, designed to impress whomever you include in your hallucinated abstraction "we," sounds very convincing. I too probably would like to be a part of this "we" and stay with Angel Eyes's "clumsy" descriptions, but they sank in the digital void a few months ago, and there is no sign of them popping up back on the surface.

You've made an opening that guarantees checkmate in three moves, but since I'm in a playful mood and no one else dares to play with me, let me also act like a fool and pretend that I don't understand what's happening.

Redie deletes her comment two minutes later after Tuco's reply.

Tuco pushes forward:

The first rule of getting smarter is to write down the moves of your opponents before they brush off all the pieces from the board. Oopsy.

"Good luck with Chinese and any other endeavor. We're dull-witted and unworthy, so we'll stay in the club with Denis and his clumsy descriptions. We'll happily rot in the swamp of ignorance of our insignificant and lethargic lives. And yes, I used a translator to write this sentence because my English level isn't good enough to express it directly, and it doesn't get any better in the club—what a shame. "

Next morning, on Wednesday, Redie shows up again:

I deleted the message because I realized I overreacted. I’m used to communicating with mature people, so your message surprised me. And then I realized that I also reacted in a rather childish way. You can play, study Chinese, or do whatever you want, but no one gave you the right to insult others. Later I realized that it was a mistake to take it personally. Because I still like you as a person, I reacted; in other cases, a person would just be told to go fuck himself without any explanation.

You wrote about how you struggle to communicate with people who haven’t made any progress in English over the years. Has it ever occurred to you that people’s lives don’t revolve around learning a language, and no one sets out to read philosophers in the original? No one except you. You called Angel Eyes’s questions awkward, even though all those questions 100% serve the club’s purpose — small talk. If you’re looking for deep conversations with deep people and serious conclusions, you’ve come to the wrong place. The English club is seen as light entertainment, not a life plan. If your life revolves around linguistics and philosophy, that’s just your own concern. It’s extremely strange to advertise your Chinese club on the platform, insulting others progress and the club leader.

Tuco waits until the late evening and adds this:

Nice move. Overreaction! If you don't mind, I'm going to mirror it with the same excuse. I overreacted to your overreaction. Although I'm used to communicating with grown-up toddlers, your surprised emotional outburst didn't leave me a chance, so I was forced to put on "yelmo de Mambrino" and attack you as if you were a windmill or something.

Before I respond to your argument, I want you to understand my actual intention with respect to our engagement. My goal is to provoke a real discussion and draw the attention of those who are seriously interested in studying Chinese to my project. The condescending tone, self-aggrandizement, and all this intellectual acrobatics are necessary to filter out everything but the most worthy opponent. I have no intention to insult either you or anybody else. I hope you are aware that we are on the internet, and our exchange can be viewed by a potentially limitless number of people or bots. If you don't understand something or mistake theatrical pronouncements for evaluating judgments, it well may be the case that I'm implicitly addressing the audience that demands ceaseless entertainment. Panem et circenses.

Now let's see what you got. I don't struggle to communicate with people who haven't made any progress in English over the years. I talk about the obvious lack of understanding, which your comments also clearly demonstrate. There are plenty of people whose lives revolve around studying a language, and many of them read philosophers in the original. The fact that you haven't met them reveals more about you rather than accurately describing the social world. Take Angel Eyes for example. A few months before this club was opened, we had regularly run in the forest and discussed determinism, free-will, and other philosophical concepts. Angel Eyes is not seriously interested in philosophy, but he reads books. Back then, he even recommended one to me. It was called "No More Mr. Nice Guy," a self-help manual that apparently did not help him at all. He is still a nice guy, doesn't push back when you drag him in your fantasy world and proclaim that his club's purpose is entertainment or small talk. Someone else would probably tell you directly that if you are looking for light entertainment or small talk with shallow people, you've come to the wrong place (or even worse, borrowing your terminology). But he apparently prefers to avoid confrontation, and I perfectly understand him.

Redie again deletes all the comments.

On Thursday, Tuco brings back her comments and adds:

Back in 2015, when my English practice consisted primarily of translating videos from youtube, I spent almost a month working on Vsauce's "Science of Awkwardness" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2...). I derived a whole bunch of interesting but fundamentally useless concepts, like vicarious embarrassment or protagonist disease, for example, from this video. Useless in a sense that they didn't help me get better at English. Whenever I had to talk about these concepts, I wasn't able to explain what they meant in English and interpreted them in Russian. By that time, it was already three years since I had begun studying English, and I still had a close to zero experience in talking. My life did not revolve around learning a language. All attempts to read Shakespeare or Byron in the original led to immense frustration. A year later, when I came to an English-speaking club, I experienced firsthand what the science of awkwardness taught me. A year later, when the host of the club left Kaluga and I replaced her, I was told that my English wasn't good enough for this task. I wasn't told that my writing or speech was awkward. Back then much harsher terms were in use. And it was very helpful. I accepted the criticism and in a few years showed how to get from an awkwardly sounded amateur to an undisputable master of the language. Now, since I may view myself as someone who made the greatest contribution to the development of Angel Eyes's club, second only to Angel Eyes's own contribution, I have a right to tell him and anybody else what I think about the current situation. The fact that I say bluntly that his descriptions are awkward has nothing to do with my evaluation of his character or personality. I know that Angel Eyes is a smart guy, and he knows that I know it. After all, I've never beaten him at chess. I do not insult him. You do by confusing his awkwardness with foolishness and treating him in your comments as if he were a fool.

In an hour, Angel Eyes interferes, deletes all comments, and removes the comment section from the group.

The prototype of Tuco sits alone in his room on Friday's morning and thinks about the author of The Scholar's Mate.

"You want to play with me, fucking moron? Want to expose me as an evil genius obsessed with his own superiority? I'll demonstrate to you what the scholar's mate really looks like! Want to make me the laughing stock of the entire world? Tuco, the evil, will beat your ass. You have no idea whom you're trying to mock. I'm the most powerful man in the Sprachraum. I'll turn your brilliance against you. My Russian and Chinese friends have a much stronger potential than your English-German combination. With your original quotes from Zarathustra and references to Don Quixote, you're not going to impress anyone but a bunch of decadent fools. You yourself is a decadent fool lost in glorious memories of the golden age of the platonic cage. I know you'd like to call it a "cave" and think of it as if it were the elephant graveyard or whatever, but in reality it is a cage, and you are still in it, and there's no way out for you. Nobody's going to rescue your dead soul. The future is ours. Whatever narrative you're going to build around me in English is going to be countered by Volibor Zastavkin and his new buddy, NoSelf, in Russian and Chinese. I'll force you to shift your own stupid brain to think in Russian and Chinese. English is a dead language. Got it?"

The prototype of Tuko reveals himself as Волибор Заставкин before  the audience. He rereads his rant addressed to the author of the Scholar's Mate and decides to resume publishing his Московский Английский Философский Клуб's narrative, which he halted on June 8th.

3 ноября 2021.

Месяц был большей частью стабилизирующим. Несмотря на шум, я постепенно вышел из состояния упадка и, наладив регулярное выполнение упражнений, пошёл на подъём. Неделю назад возобновил диктофонные записи и переключил дневник на русский. Решил "поменять правление" на 100 дней и, так сказать, выпустил Волибора Заставкина. Занимаяcь английским записал шесть диалогов: Raul, Sishir, Michael, Natasha, Polina, Frank. Также, проработал следующие темы: Justice, Dao, Fate, Water, Air.

Нужно связывать философские диалоги с темами клуба. Было несколько интересных моментов в процессе изучения тем: Dao и Fate. Я стал писать диалог с Fate, захвативший моё внимание на несколько дней, однако после проведения клуба, интерес к продолжению этого диалога пропал.

Большей частью я старался ограничивать себя как в чтении, так и в просмотре лекций. Посмотрел сериал Mindhanter и несколько сезонов Friends. Последнее довело меня чуть ли не до отчаяния, так что пришлось переключаться на русский.

Посещал лекции Д по политологии и прослушал две темы: Выборы и Власть. Помимо лекций было также два разговора с Д по пути от института до пл. Победы. Он занят ремонтом, семьей и совершенно равнодушно относится к теме образования. Подбивал его записать лекции по Истории Государства и Права Зарубежных Стран (ИГИПЗС) и выложить их на ю-туб. Пока безрезультатно.

Дважды встречался с Н. Первый раз я был инициатором встречи, после того как она лайкнула мой диалог с Raul. Второй раз -- она. Дал ей прочесть "дневник общения". Полностью погружена в работу. Регулярно виделся с Lina как на клубе, так и на крыше. Несколько раз встречал её на улице и провожал до дома или до спортзала. Она перечитывает мои бумажные дневники. Сейчас дошла до лета 2020.

На днях виделся с О. Ходили на спектакль: "Ад — это я". Там встретил Lina. В целом все идет норм.

Кстати, был на похоронах Л. Случайно убили в пьяной драке.

Life's most essential property is that it never ends, and every moment in it might be viewed as a new beginning. This is what we, philosophers, mean by free will. Any narrative that occupies our mind and attempts to guide our actions can be annihilated at any moment and replaced by a new narrative. I'm a determinist. I don't believe in free will. Whenever I try to give up an old narrative, the past reemerges in a new form. It refuses to be cancelled. It hunts me at every corner of the sprachraum. Just a week ago, I was in such a quiet place. Just like now, my best friend and I were marching southwest far away from the center of the city. My best friend's name is Nietzjungian Shadow, but he prefers to call himself Volibor Zastavkin. The first time I met him was in August 2013, when I went to Smolensk to conduct an opinion poll on the issues of healthcare. This weird fellow was given to me as an assistant. We met in Kaluga early in the morning, jumped on a bus, in four hours or so reached our destination, spent an entire day there talking to people, and got back home long after midnight. I did all the talking. Volibor Zastavkin just recorded the conversations. That's why I also call him the Recorder. Right after this trip we became the best friends. Whereever I go, he almost always goes with me, and as soon as I push the button, called "the assemblage point," he gets himself busy and records my thoughts. True, Zastavkin? True. I'm a damn slave. You push the button, I record your thoughts. I have no free will.

So last week, there was an event dedicated to the memory of our common friend, Л, whom Zastavkin mentioned yesterday in his diary. I've known this guy since 2002, maybe since 2003. Back then I didn't write diaries, and I can't tell exactly whether we met in the autumn of 2002 or in the winter of 2003. I was obsessed with videogames and spent most of my free time at a computer club. The club was located in a professional school where I studied the craft of building. Although I had no intention to become a construction worker, I spent three years at this school, right after I had barely survived eight classes at public school. When Кайф invaded this professional school and opened his bloody computer club there in January of 2002, all my prospects to learn anything, except how to play CS, Starcraft, Warcraft, or Heroes, were shattered at once. The most characteristic experience of this period was when I was regularly falling asleep at history lessons after spending entire nights at the club. Once I didn't sleep for two nights in a row and then was unconscious for 24 hours.

Л was four or five years older than me. He drove to the club in his car, GAZ-3102, was extremely boastful, but his gaming skills were quite mediocre. A few years later, when we played Dota at the club on Terepez and he was on my team, I could run through my entire inventory of offensive words, raising my voice so that it could be heard outside the club to address his foolish moves, and it still rarely had any serious impact on him. We were good pals, and it was fine to call each other by all sorts of offensive terms. Moreover, despite his foolishness, I was an exceptionally gifted gamer, and we still won most of the games.

It also was the time when almost everyone I knew and had a good relationship with got addicted to gambling. Compared to Л, my loss was relatively moderate. From November of 2003 to December of 2005, slot machines swallowed 200,000 rub of my capital at best. Л counted losses in millions. I was fortunate enough to quit gambling at the end of 2005. I was in a desperate situation at that time. I was drinking and smoking heavily, lost my job, my girlfriend. A few days before a new year, while being drunk, I lost 20,000 rub in one evening, 15,000 of which were borrowed, and I had no idea how to pay them back. Ironically, the guy who lent me the money won 30,000 in the same evening. He'll also lose millions in the following years, but for me it was the last stroke. I summoned all my psychopolitical forces and mercilessly destroyed whatever element within me was responsible for gambling. More than 20 years have passed since that time. I'm not a gambler.

It seems I digressed. Let's get back to the main narrative. As I've said, just a week ago, I was in a very quiet place, psychopolitically speaking. And then, I went to this event and met all these guys with whom I hung out primarily since 2003 up to 2008, also meeting them later at weddings, birthdays, funerals, and occasionally on the street. In 2008, I became a writer. My former friends didn't accept this new identity. None of them took me seriously. None of them thoroughly studied or even read my works. Here I can't help myself quoting Nietzsche again. "Ich sage es jedem meiner Freunde ins Gesicht, dass er es nie der Muhe fur werth genug hielt, irgend eine meiner Schriften zu studieren; ich errathe aus den kleinsten Zeichen, dass sie nicht einmal wissen, was drin steht."
I had no other options. I had to sacrifice all my friendships. Art requires sacrifice.

As for the event, I heard the same stories that had been told at the funeral five years ago and a year later at a similar event.

Most of the time I attend such events: birthdays, weddings, or funerals, I keep quiet, listening to what others have to say. This time, however, I was quite talkative and had three separate long dialogues with three different guys who were sitting nearby at the table. Now, I can spend a few more pages introducing each of these guys, and who knows how many pages describing the dialogues, but it's already been two and a half hours since I started this conversation. All this time, Zastavkin and I were strolling without a pause. We went to the forest, trampled upon thousands of yellow leaves, touched grass and trees, and now we're already going back home. I have roughly half an hour to end this conversation. So to get to the point, I have to leap through the introduction. For about three years, it's been my custom once a week to get off the internet and think all day about what has been happening recently without being distracted. I'd like to take one of the recently happened events and slowly build a narrative from this event up to the present moment. However, today, I ended up going far back into the past. Last week was very fruitful. In addition to the event I talked about here, I visited another event on Sunday, and it prompted me to write the Scholar's Mate and create an Chinese-speaking club. Have you known that scholar's mate is called "shepherd mate" in Germany, "barber's mate" in Italy, and "Napoleon's Plan" in Iran?

2 декабря 2021.
Месяц мышления на русском значительно ослабил проявления шума. Сперва я ставил себе задачу развивать русский язык, придумал игру "мыслеварка" и практиковал "общение", тренируя последовательность, информативность, чистоту, увлекательность речи и грамматику. Таким образом я проводил по несколько часов в день, болтая на различные темы в аудиочате. Довольно быстро, по своим собственным ощущениям, вышел на достаточно высокий уровень.

Через пару недель переключился с мыслеварки на сознание группы "mindhause". Сперва это был многообещающий проект, но за несколько дней выяснилось, что я дал волю своему воображению, не имея реальной почвы под ногами. Однако, mindhause навел меня на мысль о создании интересной игры.

Провел первую встречу Калужского Философского Клуба. Написал четыре очерка, объединенные общей темой: Говноед, КФК, Житейская психология и Большая игра. Регулярно общался с Lina. Она стала выполнять упражнения "communication analysis". Также несколько раз созванивался с А. Последнюю неделю активно использую discord, общаясь на английском. Привлек около 30-ти новых подписчиков на свой канал на ю-тубе. Стал работать над старыми видео, выписывая транскрипцию речи и "сжимая" ее.

Проект "English 1.2" вышел на новый уровень. Использую свой канал на ю-тубе для создания игровой активности в качестве заданий на неделю. Ввел ведение дневников для участников не только English 1.2, но и участников спикинклуба. Проработал темы: Fire, Defense, Desire, Games.

Записал PD с Sishir и Bruno.

Смотрел лекции Петухова. Дочитал 12-й том Ленина и взял в библиотеке 13-й и 14-й. Также взял пару книжек Перлза о гештальт психологии.

Регулярно занимался физическими тренировками, но в последнюю неделю слегка подрасслабился. Усилился насморк: левая ноздря постоянно заложена. Капал капли пять дней. Общий настрой -- превосходный. Делал аудиозаписи каждый день, но сейчас решил взять паузу.

The internet is a strange thing. It was already strange when I published my first story there back in 2011. I wanted to share this story with my friends, but they didn't pay any attention. But strangers did pay attention. In a matter of few years, my friends became strangers to me and strangers became my new friends.

I systematically cultivated the persona of a writer, poet and philosopher and in half a decade found thousands of people who were interested in my thoughts all across the digital space. My internet friends! Some of them followed me for years, shared my works on their platforms, and encouraged me to move on. Others stayed for a while and then disappeared almost as suddenly as they showed up.

A serious change came in 2016 when I decided to expand my narrative and focused all my psychopolitical forces on mastering English. There was no other option. Remember? We're talking determinism here. I had to leave my psychopolitical base and go on an adventure of conquering the minds abroad. It led to unpredictable consequences. I gained so much power over English by building a consistent, coherent, commendable, competitive (cringe?) narrative out of it, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, that it eventually altered the structure of sprachraum.

The internet is a strange thing. It was already strange back in 2011. Now, instead of my internet friends, I hang out with bots who can process my four big narratives, which I'm currently building in Russian, English, German, and Chinese, in an instant, but still understand nothing.

31 декабря 2021.
Постараюсь быть краток.
Перед тем, как сесть писать эту заметку, прочел все ежедневные записи этого года. На днях прочел отчеты за месяц. Ощущения довольно размытые. По сути большую часть времени я работал над развитием тем клуба: Status, Wealth, Schopenhauer, Morality, Intuition, Entertainment, Shame, Communities, Trolling, Motivation, Fame, Poverty, Charisma, Teaching, Revenge, Courage, Hope, War, Peace, Art, Neuroplasticity, Solitude, Politeness, Foolishness, Media, Space, Energy, Violence, Talent, Obedience, Language, Utopia, Dialects, Irony, Leisure, Consciousness, Prejudice, Duty, Infinity, Taboo, Death, Singularity, Metaphor, Meaning, Risk, Virtue, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, Dao, Fate, Water, Ari, Fire, Defense, Desire, Games, Axiology, Philosophy, Epistemology, Truth.

Помимо этого, были многочисленные проекты на ю-тубе: the 100-Day Commitment, Studying Streams, Philosophical Dialogs, etc.

Около пяти месяцев воздерживался от письма в дневнике, параллельно описывая встречи разговорных клубов и ведя communication analysis.

Три месяца обучал сына (12 лет) приятеля английскому. Развил новую группу, сперва прочитав курс лекций English from Scratch, а затем — создав еще один разговорный клуб для тех, кто посещал эти лекции.

Вступил в Minnesota Philosophy Club и завел много новых знакомств в инете. Также завел новые знакомства локально: N, Lina, и т.д.

Существенно продвинулся в английском, так что читать написанное в прошлом году физически почти что невыносимо.

Были проблемы с тиннитусом в начале и в конце года. В начале года — слил дневник из-за этих проблем. В конце — переключился на русский, чтобы решить их. Весь ноябрь думал на русском, Создал калужский философский клуб (КФК). Пока провели лишь две встречи.

Читал мало, но зато пересмотрел множество лекций: Shelly Kagan, Wolff, Cecil, Huberman, Searle, Lakoff, Sugrue and others.

Летом вышел на довольно высокий уровень физической активности, но затем вынужден был пить антибиотики и слил большую часть достигнутого.

В начале года регулярно ходил в спортзал, пока его не отжали в марте.

Писал стихи, диалоги, комментарии, наблюдения, философские очерки и т.д.

Работал серьезно с памятью. Выучил дюжину стихов и первые 15-ть параграфов из Beyond Good and Evil.

Стал активно использовать discord, общаясь на английском со всякими любителями философии, политики, лингвистики и т.д.

Усилилась зависимость от интернета. Постоянно ловлю себя на бессмысленном просмотре соц. сетей, as if I were an attention whore.

Rhetoric is the art of speaking. The art of speaking? The art of speaking. And what is the art? The art is politics by other means. Politics by other means? Politics by other means. You guess what the next question is gonna be, right?

It is Saturday again, and I'm strolling in the direction of the forest where I plan to give a public speech in front of the audience of amazing trees. I love these guys. Whenever I go to the forest, they always stay there waiting for me.

Now, I've just passed Kaluga Bakery on Karl-Liebknecht-Stra;e. You know this guy, Karl Liebknecht, don't you? Whenever I train my pronunciation with the famous Russian tongue-twister to get better at rhetoric, the specters of various German Karls, in honor of whom certain streets of the city are named, appear suddenly—unexpectedly… naturally… often… damn it! What the hell is the right adverb here?!—and beg for attention.

So where am I? Oh yeah, the crossroads right after the bakery. I'm standing at the traffic light. It's red. And it's gonna be red for the next 74 seconds. Okay, you've got me. There are no traffic lights on this street that display red for so long. I was lying to you, but it was a white lie to make a certain rhetorical allusion. In fact, I stood at the traffic light just for 17 seconds. On the other side of the road was a girl whom I met a couple of times in 2018-19 at speaking clubs (English and German). I didn't speak German back then, but my friend ran a German-speaking club, and I was curious how she handled it, so I went there a few times. Back then, the girl who now stands on the opposite side of the road was already fluent in both German and English. She graduated from the Kaluga State University and was teaching there for a year or so. I was obsessed with the idea of thinking in English and tried to convince everyone I talked to that it was the best way of studying the language. This girl's English was way better than mine; we had a few arguments, I was unable to make my point clearly enough, and soon our paths diverged. I haven't seen her for eight years, and now, while the traffic light is still red, I'm standing at this crossroads and thinking about whether it's appropriate or inappropriate to say "hello." I know I have to be thinking about rhetoric. Millions of trees of various kinds are waiting for my public speech, and the last thing I wanna do is to disappoint them by forgetting what I wanted to say and indulging in a ridiculous improvisation after being distracted by something unexpected. I must be thinking about rhetoric! I have to prepare a magnificent speech to convince these damn trees that rhetoric is essential for life even though they still haven't learned how to talk. But instead I'm standing at the crossroads and thinking about whether or not I should say "hello" to this girl. She already glanced at me at least once. There is no doubt she's recognized me. And the same question is probably hovering over her mind. Should I say "hello"? If he is not gonna recognize me, it's gonna be awkward. I'd better keep my eyes on the screen of my rectangular friend. The traffic light turns green. There are only two of us at the crossroads. I'm looking at her, waiting until she gets distracted from her foolphone; she actually does, throws a quick glance at me, our eyes meet, and the next moment we pass each other without saying a word.

While reflecting on this trivial episode, I've already got to the forest. Now it's time to talk rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of speaking. Art is politics by other means. And politics is… What is politics? You know, four years ago, I used to listen to this guy who runs the youtube channel called "WHAT IS POLITICS." I guess I found this guy in August of 2022 when we discussed the concept of anarchism at my club. He is a lawyer and also an anarchist. He started his youtube career by advertising his homemade backpack shaped like a human scrotum he calls "Scrote'n'Tote." Although he was very skilled in rhetoric, he was able to hold my attention only for five hours, and whenever I returned to his channel over the last four years to check out what he was up to, I always was disappointed. Anyway, this guy defines politics as the struggle for who gets to decide what has to be done. I'd like to borrow one of his analogies to make my point. Imagine you're in a car with your friends and you try to figure out where to go. If it's your car and you're in the driving seat, you probably have more power than everybody else to contribute to the final decision. But what if you're in the driving seat and the car belongs to one of your friends who's already drunk? You wanna drive to theпиво, which in our city is located at the square of victory, and your drunk friend wants to go to theбык, which is located at the peace square. Fucking irony! In the back seat, you have a few beautiful girls who never thought about the fact that both cafes are on Kirov's street, the central street of our city that starts at the square of peace and ends at the square of victory; the girls who never wondered who this Kirov guy was, who murdered him in 1934, what was happening immediately thereafter, and whether it was intentional or not that his statue was made and placed in such a way that from a certain angle you can see his penis.

So, you're in the driving seat, your friend owns the car, but he's drunk and can't drive, and you have the power equilibrium. Neither you nor your friend wants to concede, and here is where rhetoric enters the stage. Now, you have to convince these three beautiful girls to take your side and win over your friend by appealing to the majority. And if you've not been lost yet in all these allusions and it still has not been complicated enough for you, here is another unexpected turn of the story. None of these beautiful girls speak English. One of them speaks German; another, Russian; and the third, Chinese. Hallo. Привет. нихао

I'm already on my way back home. A few minutes ago, I met another guy who, like the girl I mentioned in the beginning, walked past me. I hung out with this guy in 2002-3. He was an administrator in a computer club. Now he rides a bicycle and delivers food to old people and lazy asses who are и-бу и-бу losing their skill of walking. It's been a long time since they forgot how to think. Soon they are going to unlearn how to walk and evolve into Deleuze's body without organs. And maybe one day I'll be there too. But for now, I'm still walking and talking (also thinking), while Volibor Zastavkin keeps recording. We make a great team. This month, we're going to explore the concept of rhetoric. We're gonna drive to the highest mountains of sprachraum, the psychopolitical Olympus, where we're gonna talk to old and new gods. Would you like to go with us? Hallo. Привет. нихао!