Welcome to Crisis: Expect Less

-I am not very funny. So, if you want to have a good time,
LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS!
Comedian at the Comedy Strip Club in New York City

People often ask me, “How is the crisis? What’s new with the crisis?”

I am not quite sure what to tell them. I am afraid that I simply not knowledgeable enough. And I am also very skeptical that we will be talking about the same thing, as people understand crisis differently. I looked up the term crisis in the storage of all human wisdom, Wikipedia!

So, there is a “crisis” definition from the Wikipedia.org: It may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person's life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change.

Now, let’s try to make some sense out of it. The crisis is a change. We got that. But how much of a change does it have to be to become a crisis? Let’s take a look at the problem on the personal level.

I used to love to go to Vietnamese take-out kitchen for lemongrass soup. It was wonderful! Spicy but not too much, with flavors of the right herbs… Ah… Anyway, for one reason or another business failed and they closed. And there was no one around who made this soup well enough! So I have to go from wonderful soup to no soup at all. From one (yes) to 0 (no). That is that drastic traumatic change they were talking about! That is the crisis. That being said, you can guess that I survived that one. Thus we come to understanding that there are also degrees of crises.

Right now everyone is talking and worrying about global financial crisis. A lot of people got affected by it very quickly, others did not. What happened? What has changed so drastically and so quickly? I am not an expert; I just play one in my column. But let me speculate. The world lives on credit. I will borrow from John; John will borrow from Mike… We all know each other; trust that that the other has money to pay off when time comes. That belief is fundamental. That belief makes the financial world work. And as usually, the belief in prophet is stronger, the prophet himself. It appears to me that somebody came and said that famous line, “Show me the money!” And it turned out that the king is naked. Where is the money? There was no money. Our expectation was wrong. People never lost their money. They never had it. What they had is a wrong expectation. So, what has really changed is a ratio of expectation to reality.

So, here is my résumé. While we are all affected by macro-events, to avoid personal crises, keep your expectations down.

Fog

“There”, said hedgehog, “I can see nothing, not even my paws”
S. Kozlov: “Hedgehog in Fog”

Photo by Asmactic

Driving late in the evening along the Hudson River, from time to time, I find myself in dense (at times simply engulfing) fog. The headlights of my car hit the wall of the suspended droplets of water and return to me with proverbial reply, “your needs are very important to us… Please proceed with the speed, at which you are capable of feeling whether you are still on the road.” The fog penetrates my consciousness and sub-consciousness. Suddenly, I can see the blinding light in my left side mirror. That is my savior. The dude passes me with confidence. My first instinct is to speed up after him. After all, if he goes through the fog with such poise, he must see something. Maybe his eyes see better, maybe his headlights are stronger. I rely on the vision of the genius of speed and rush after him. But being an over-cautious person with inborn skepticism, I start to doubt. What if he is wrong? Then, if I tailgate him (one cannot afford too much distance from the leader, in the fog), I will get exactly where he leads without a chance to hit the breaks.
So, I prefer to rely only on myself.

How many such visionaries there were? I’ve lost count. Everybody lead somewhere. Everybody promised heaven, some promised heaven on earth and prosperity. And often, regardless of the level of our intelligence, we believe in the new prophet. But in the fog, you must follow the leader very close. And you have to decide now.

But I hesitate…
I am not sure…
Maybe his headlights are not that strong.
Maybe his eyes are no better than mine.
And maybe he is drunk and simply does not see the fog.

The Road to the Temple

-Say, does this road lead to the Temple?
-This is Varlam Street. Not this one leads to the Temple
-Then what is the purpose of it? Who needs a road if it does not lead to a Temple?
From the movie “Repentance” by Tengiz Abuladze

It is 2008. The year 2009 is knocking on the door. How much time has passed? Well, that depends how to count. It has been almost 21 years since I saw “Repentance”. It’s been almost 15 years since I left my home town for United States of America. It’s been… only god knows how long since the Varlam street was built. And this street is still alive. It is alive here, it is alive there, and will likely survive all of us.

Everybody has own faith or absence of such.
Everybody has own Temple.
And everyone walk his road to the Temple.
One’s own Temple.
And that is right. And that’s good.

Just don’t walk on the Varlam Street.

Photo by Sergei Zdorovtsev

Ivan, Remember No Relations

In old-times Russian Empire, when a thief or a run-away slave was caught and interrogated, they were asked their name and origin. The answer was the same: “Ivan, Remember No Relations”. From those times a person who lost his roots is called “Ivan, who remembers no relation”. I was told this story by my chess coach, my Teacher, Ivan Alekseevich Sidorov. He was one of the most important people in my childhood. And not only mine. There are people who are regarded for turning bad kids good. He did better than that. He kept good kids good and made them better. . I have never heard anyone referring to him, even behind his back, without using his patronymics. That, in my opinion, is the greatest measure of respect.

It has been 12 years since I have seen him or heard from him. How did I become that “Ivan, who remembers no relation”? It is always easy to find an excuse: too busy, too far away, too many Mondays. How did I lose touch with a man who shaped me so much? We grow up, we move on, but loosing sight of people like Ivan Alekseevich is irreparable. I hope he is still alive and well. I hope I could find him to say: “My name is Albert, I remember what you did for us. Thank you.”