You get to this page any time you click on "notes" at the end of each chapter. I expect this page will be long...
... If you are familiar with my writing on resurrection, the texts on technology will make even less sense. There is an unfortunate event took place in human history, many books weren't written in English. The Russians had this strange tendency to write in Russian -- Fedorov was one of them. Maybe it's not bad after all, he was a bad writer. Although, his Common Task idea is good. Without using PC he understood that what we call "technology" is the apparatus of resurrection, i.e. common effort to gain immortaly. Of course, it could be done only together, that's something that communists got right.
It should be... it will be...
If we can stop looking back and see the next millenium, we would realise that our recent techno-miracles are only the beginning. If only we could believe in our own desires...
[Repeat] This is the last chapter, the end of the Big Book. Something happened in the Fall of the 1995, my fifteen anniversary of the discovery of America. In fact, I just returned from Africa, and I knew -- something has changed. What? What was it? Like a detector I went after the evidence. I opened my writings of the 1995 -- nothing, the usual stuff. I took many days to crack this case. The murder.
From my diaries, 11.5.97:
Could I consider my physical travels to be over, since I'll
have no time for anything but writing? Maybe I better see 1995 as
the end of my mortal life. What does stop me from "sentencing
myself to death"? An animal and a human in me ask for an
extension, they can't accept it, but I know that I have to die to
write the Book. Taking literally, this thought is new to me. It's
not less dramatic than my decision to leave Russia, I remember
many years I lived with that thought (I still do). If this a fact
(my death), I have a better view of my own life. Also, I need all
the time I can have to complete the writing. Actually, I should
see the date as the Fall of 1995, when I came back from Ethiopia.
Two years ago. What do I do since then? I write. I should know
even the week when it took place -- Aleosha was in the hospital
with meningitis. He lived through death and I know that then I
knew -- our travels are over. I was forty six, an old age by the
last century standards. Enough years to live and learn about
living. I should stop my narrative right there.
Well, my begining has no sharp borders either. I don't
remember my birth, my childhood memories are vague, not till I
was four or five. Even the forty years are enough, a lot of space
and time. What were the ten years of my Russian writer existence
which had not produce anything to read? There was too much
living, even between 1975 and 1980 -- the writing for myself,
which made me leave Russia. I must take a second look at the
seven ages of man (Shakespeare). Why did it take so long? (I
asked many times in my diaries). Because nobody told me who I am?
Because I didn't believe them? Because I had to educate myself?
To discover myself? Because it's the fate for the ones after me.
Single. Equal. Alone. That's why our life span had to be
prolonged.
The new maturity is the self-discovery, self-establishment,
self-realization.... self-esteem, as they put it. Maturity is the
time to do -- to take on yourself as a business. Why is it so
important? Didn't we hear about the end of man? A man in me must
die before I can be born. But why is it needed? Well, that's what
Resurrection is supposed to be -- the return of a soul.
How typical is my life? Every time I hear that my life-story
is unique I want to tell that my life is only an exaggeration of
Everyman's life. I was born a Soviet and ended up living as an
American -- what about being a boy and becoming a man? Isn't this
transition even more dramatic? I would like to tell about the
normal behind the exotics of my biography (That's why I don't
consider it as a biography). Being Dead should help me to go
beyond my "personal" story without losing myself.
The topical (philosophical writing) and the personal have
not meet yet. That's a matter of re-writes. (I tried this genre
in my Russian writing -- what was missing? The personal? The
close, super-close observations when the macro and micro are the
same.)
So, 1955 -- 1995? The "--" is the Book.
I don't know the day or the hour of my death. I wish I could
describe it in full details as writers do. You know, the weather
and the thoughts before the end. I am embarrassed to say that I
didn't notice it, my death. As you see from the diary I
discovered that I am dead later, two years after my death. I
understand why such an event had no significant reaction. You
see, usually we know what takes place because of the others. They
arrange the funeral, not the deceased. Since nobody knew that I
died, I myself paid no attention to my death. I don't blame them
-- how would they know? -- my heart didn't stop. I kept moving,
even driving. According to the logic of the corporeal, I was
fine. No wonder that they are surprised when somebody dies. They
see that he stopped moving -- ah, he must be dead!
WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.[1]
I envy them, the mortals. They were poets. They were young.
They would live ten, twenty years of a mature life, would write a
few great books and -- farewell! Their mortal maturity was full
and definite as their deaths. They need short lives to express
their appreciation for being. I remember myself at the age of
twenty five, I knew that I don't need a long life. But I haven't
write a single great book, so I had to go with living. And the
reason why I didn't write anything great, because I didn't know
the difference between them and myself. I had to live longer, to
experience and to learn.
The poetry is dead. There are some who write poetry. I did
it myself too. It's our private business. But the Poetry is no
more. I knew that the poets have died. I lived next to Pasternak.
I had many friends who wrote poetry, but they weren't poets. I
was a member of the Writers Guild and they, thousands, thought
that they are writers. But a dead can't write. They, the dead,
have to die first before they can even think about being writers.
Of course, nobody thought that they are dead and they went on
writing as if they were alive. They still pretend that they are
humans. If they were poets, they would know the truth.
11.14. After the death. The invisible man. Feelings of Christ. Not the world but me presence in this world is puzzling. Even as a teen I had to remind myself that I am a part of it; people see me, talk to me.... I would accept the world easily if I wouldn't be there. Invisible? Am I needed? How easy I can be excluded. The life will roll on.... that much for the death of God. That's the reason to feel the extreme sense of significance and even the mission. Why the existential self-construct isn't enough? What are the limits of the self-invention? Humanism. Like others, very democratic. But about the difference? How different? And what did them mean by the "differance"? Being unique is a complete unlikeness to the others. I am not one of them. "In image and likeness" now applies to the social engineering. Being self is becoming invisible. The child is alone, it take time to discover it. Is this a foundation (in image and likeness) for godhood? Alone. One and only. And I, mortal and physical, I am a prophet of myself. There is a difference between Jesus and Christ. It took that long for Adam to understand the taste of the fruit from the tree of life and death. Is it time now to eat from the second tree -- the tree of knowledge? Only after we fully experienced the mortality of life. To die is not enough; it's only a fact. "To be or not to be" must be re-written as "To be
and not to be"! Hamlet was young, he needed another four
centuries to understand neither/nor. He was born again in Denmark
under a different name. The very question our prince asked is
rooted in the phrase "To be is not to be" -- the paradox of the
postmodern, when the whole world fell for the complete
humanization (in our image and likeness). The full circle -- the
great return, back to the Creator. Almost six billions (is it
Nietzsche's return?).
Each death is a murder case. "Natural causes"? Not anymore.
In our world it's always a mistake or a crime. We think that I am
the cause of my own death. If I take care of myself, I can live
longer. Longer than Tolstoy, the lucky one. But in our case this
business of living becomes the goal. Of course, I have no time
for anything else. I slave to support myself and the slaves do
not write great books. In actuality, I am dead and keep myself
from physical dying. That's all what I do through my entire
so-called "life."
I am glad that I have died. I wish I would do it earlier,
but when you are dead it's not easy to die.
How the Webman's Diary is incorporated into the TECH?
To frame each chapter with the diary pages? At least. Maybe even to break it into smaller pieces...
