Letters to young readers. Letters to young readers Letter fourteen About bad and good influences

About life and death

Koran: “Be sure to plant a tree, even if the end of the world comes tomorrow.” You must live morally as if you were to die today, and work as if you were immortal. Predictions and foresight in science and prophecy are not so far from each other: both are not statements of inevitability, but forecasts at the moment and in given conditions. Inevitability is always destructive for morality. A person is capable of changing the future to one degree or another - at least his own. When Saint Gonzago, Roman seminarian was asked while playing ball with his peers what he would do if he were told firmly that the world was about to end - he said: “I would continue to play ball.” But this, of course, is the case complete inevitability. But his real answer to his conscience, when he could change something, was different - it was given by his death: he died at the age of 23, caring for plague patients.

Notes and observations
But clearly the happiness is fighting
It's starting to serve us.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We are pressing the Swedes, army after army;
The glory of their banners is darkening,
And God fights with grace
Our every step is captured.

Happiness can only be through combat—only something we have won. There is no such thing as eternal, permanent happiness. You can't be happy when there are people suffering. But you can be happy with something that has now been mined and received. A television announcer in one of his programs stopped people on the street and asked: what do you think happiness consists of? In response, millions of people listened to baby talk. Something like: “Happiness is when there is prosperity at home and good work at work” or “Happiness is when my girls grow up beautiful, healthy and get married well.” This is all philistinism. And even when big people insisted: “This is harmony between something and something,” they didn’t go far. You can only be happy for a short period of time after achieving something, and after that new worries begin, because, I repeat, there is no happiness for anyone as long as there is unhappiness nearby.

I am eighty years old. How should we feel about this? Respectable age! Life would be incomplete if there were no sadness and grief in it. It's cruel to think so, but it's true. Is it possible to jump out of your era in your worldview? Of course not. Any attempt to return to any century or jump far ahead - into the future - is impossible. A person lives in his own era, in his own years, and only in his own. But this does not mean that he should blindly follow the era, the dominant worldview. A person has free will and is obliged to choose, is obliged to create something new. He is a creative being. If he ceases to be a creative being and to be focused on the future (his own and that of his country), he ceases to be a Man. In life, you must be able to soar above the era and in the era, choosing those air currents that go from bottom to top, or, at some moments, glide through the air without falling.

They console: transmigration of souls! But what consolation can there be when the soul moves alone, to someone else’s family, to a different way of life, and from childhood does not remember anything from its previous life (even if it could) and only shouts: “Wa, wa!!” They summon spirits by turning the table. The dead, even the most famous and arch-genius, speak to the people who called them completely at their level: nothing interesting, incredible, no brilliant advice, instructions, instructions, except the most banal. But at the same time, something should remain? The law of conservation of energy concerns mental and spiritual energy. But this energy still does not have a personal form for long. At first (for more than a year) I dreamed of Faith and consoled me, but now it doesn’t. Her energy has dissolved, and where Vera (daughter) was, I feel emptiness... Nine days, forty days, a year - that’s all. Can't people who lived a million years ago continue to exist after the grave now? This is unimaginable. “There won’t be enough space,” without even inventing settlement for them throughout the Universe: the method proposed by N. Fedorov. If a person does not care about anyone or anything, his life is also “spiritless.” He needs to suffer from something, to think about something. Even in love there must be a share of dissatisfaction (“I didn’t do everything I could”).

A person’s life is not separate events connected in an irregular sequence, but a kind of organism, a “biographical whole.” Actions and events are only links in a chain that has its own form, its own spirituality and its own individuality. There is individuality - like a person, and there is individuality - like his life. The latter depends on the first, but both are complete wholes. And a person should know this, and not complain (“unlucky in life”). A shepherd who was 110 years old, but who never or rarely came down from his mountains, lived a short life. “Don’t you have eternity to rest...” “Et in Arkadia ego” (“And in Arkadia I”). The meaning of this well-known, but also unclear in origin, saying has been interpreted differently. In the Rococo era, it was believed that the “I” (ego) is death. Death makes its presence known even in happy Arcadia. In Rococo gardens, for all their “happy essence,” there were very often gravestones or monuments dedicated to the dead - friends, relatives.

There are such monuments, for example, in Pavlovsky Park. In the Uzkom estate near Moscow, on one of the paintings depicting a garden, there is a sarcophagus with the same inscription. In the happiest moments of his life, a person should not forget about his mortality. At the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest I was told that on the first day of her marriage a woman had to make the first stitches on her shroud. This shroud was made red. After twenty-five years it was supposed to be ready, and the woman began to embroider the blue shroud. Twenty-five years later she was preparing a white shroud for herself. “Folk art is not only beautiful, it is wise,” a museum employee told me.

Atanas Dalchev treated death with extraordinary wise reconciliation. Here is one observation about old age as a transition into oblivion: “Having reached a certain age, you begin to understand that life, in essence, is a continuous loss. You lose not only your teeth, hair, the shine of your eyes, but also all the strength and wealth of your soul: abilities, affections, memories, feelings and even desires. One after another, the cables that attached the spirit to the ground fall, cut, and, almost freed, it trembles with its own lightness.” And again: “With the death of our loved ones, we gradually die.” And here is a wonderful poem by Atanas Dalchev “Evening” on the same topic, translated by Maria Petrov:

I wander alone through the streets, where it’s evening
over the red-red roof tiles
the same red-red burns out.
And, looking at the sunset, I remember:
now he is blushing over Naples,
and the windows of the upper floors shine,
reflecting flaming glare,
and the Gulf of Naples
the waves touched by the wind brighten,
and ripple like the grass in a meadow,
and return in a lowing herd
Steamships arrive at the noisy port in the evening.
There's a motley crowd on the embankment
sends this one off with blessings
the past day, lived carefree,
but now I’m no longer in that crowd.

The sunset is now burning over Paris.
The Luxembourg Gardens are locked there.
The trumpet sounds persistent and passionate,
and as if in response to her drawn-out call
Dusk descends into the white alleys.
A crowd of children follows the watchman
and listens in silence, in rapture
the commanding song of copper,
and everyone would like to be closer
to the magical trumpet player.

From those carved gates, wide open,
people come out cheerfully and noisily,
but now I am no longer in their crowd.
Why can't we do it at the same time?
to be there and here, always and wherever
Is life bubbling powerfully and endlessly?
We are dying irresistibly
we die every day, disappearing
from there and from here - from everywhere,
until we finally disappear completely.

I met A. Dalchev in 1973 as an old man on the corner of Russian Boulevard and Rakovsky Street - in the noisiest place in Sofia. P.N. Dinekov introduced us. I don’t remember what words we exchanged, but I vividly remember only the feeling of peace and silence with which, despite the noise of the evening streets of Sofia, Atanas Dalchev was surrounded... And the next year, 1974, he sent me his book “Favorites”.

I dreamed that I was writing a story

An elderly, emaciated man stands on a dirty staircase and shouts through the window:
“Ira, Ira!
Keep my money. Just sew yourself a coat. It's better not fashionable to wear for a long time. Neutral! So that it could be changed. Be sure to sew. And good quality. And keep the rest of the money. I will need them. Us! Can you hear me? I will be thinking about you. They don't grow old here. That's what they say. We will live well. I'm almost used to it. It's not so scary.
God bless you!"
All...
14.III.68

Man artist

And there was one day.
One day.
It was raining outside.
A man came from work and said: “Wife (he always called his wife wife), don’t heat up dinner. Give me some tea!
He lay down on the sofa without taking off his boots.
And he died.
When the commotion was over, the wife took the cold glass of tea in her hand, was amazed that the glass was so cold, and then she just started crying and realized. And from that moment her grief began to grow.

Old age is sadness. It is so important in old age for others to understand your old age. Dealing with old people is not easy. It is clear. But you need to communicate, and you need to make this communication easy and simple. Old age makes people grumpier and more talkative (remember the saying: “The weather becomes rainier in autumn, and people become more talkative in old age”). It is not easy for the young to bear the deafness of the old. Old people don’t hear enough, answer inappropriately, and ask again. When talking to them, you need to raise your voice so that the old people can hear. And when you raise your voice, you involuntarily begin to get irritated (our feelings often depend on our behavior than our behavior depends on our feelings).

An old person is often offended (increased touchiness is a characteristic of old people). In a word, it is difficult not only to be old, but also difficult to be with old people. Nevertheless, young people must understand: we will all be old. And we must also remember: the experience of old people can be very useful. And experience, and knowledge, and wisdom, and humor, and stories about the past, and moral teachings. Let's remember Pushkin's Arina Rodionovna. A young man may say: “But my grandmother is not Arina Rodionovna at all!” But I am convinced of the opposite: any grandmother, if her grandchildren want, can be Arina Rodionovna. Arina Rodionovna would not have become for everyone what Pushkin made her for himself. Arina Rodionovna showed signs of old age: for example, she fell asleep while working. Remember:

And the knitting needles hesitate every minute
In your wrinkled hands.

What does the word “slow” mean? She did not always hesitate, but “minute by minute,” from time to time, that is, as happens with old people who fall asleep from time to time. And Pushkin knew how to find sweet traits in Arina Rodionovna’s senile weaknesses: charm and poetry. Notice with what love and care Pushkin writes about the senile features of his nanny:

Longing, premonitions, worries
Your chest is constantly being squeezed,
It seems to you...

The poems remained unfinished. Arina Rodionovna became close to all of us precisely because Pushkin was next to her. If it weren’t for Pushkin, she would have remained in the short memory of those around her as a talkative, constantly dozing off and preoccupied old woman. But Pushkin found the best features in her and transformed her. Pushkin's muse was kind. People, communicating, create each other. Some people know how to bring out the best in others. Others do not know how to do this and themselves become unpleasant, annoying, irritable, and sadly boring. Old people are not only grumpy, but also kind, not only talkative, but also excellent storytellers, not only deaf, but have a good ear for old songs. Almost every person combines different traits. Of course, some features predominate, others are hidden and suppressed. You must be able to awaken their best qualities in people and not notice minor shortcomings. Hurry to establish good relationships with people. Almost always, good relationships are established from the first words. Then it’s more difficult. Old trees are the subject of intense care and veneration in the Baltics, the Caucasus, the Balkans...

In Montenegro, two-thousand-year-old olive trees are amazingly beautiful (near the city of Budva). In Bulgaria, images of “one old tree” growing near a town are being circulated... I forgot which one. The year of his “birth” is 16... I also forgot, but I remember clearly, the 17th century. And in our village of Kolomenskoye, trees (oaks) are 500 years old and do not receive due respect and attention. They are dying. Maybe this phenomenon is generally typical for us Russians, when old people are not given a seat in transport? What a contrast with the Caucasus! We traveled along the Volga in 1987 on a ship, on which there were many Georgian passengers with children. A Georgian boy of about 13, whom everyone on the ship considered a big naughty man, was one of the first to get off at each pier and helped my wife and I and other elderly people get off at the gangway! One Canadian told me that their old trees, the old ones, receive medals, and these medals are attached to them. There are record-breaking trees: the oldest in their area, the tallest, the thickest in the trunk. In Estonia and Latvia, all old trees are registered.

In pagan times in Rus' there was worship of old trees and there were sacred groves. Near Novgorod, there still exists a “sacred grove” in the Peryn tract (from “Perun” - his idol stood here). But no one cares about the safety of the grove, and the self-renewal of the pine trees has stopped. They set up some kind of holiday home, or maybe a tourist center (I don’t remember), and the roots of the pine trees are trampled down, the earth around the pine trees becomes compacted, and no one is bothered by it. Why do old people in some areas live up to 100 years or more? In the Caucasus, Abkhazia, Bulgaria! They look for answers either in the mountain air, or in their usual way of life, or in Bulgarian sour milk, etc., etc. But the matter, it seems to me, is simpler: old people live longer where they are respected, where they feel better, where, how they seem to be more useful with their advice.

Caring is what unites people, strengthens the memory of the past, and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

The Apostle Paul says: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may be tempted...” This means that you should not blindly imitate what “this age” suggests, but have much more with “this age.” more active relationships - on the basis of transforming oneself by “renewal of the mind,” that is, on the basis of a sound discernment of what is good and what is bad in “this age.”

There is the music of time and there is the noise of time. The noise often drowns out the music. For the noise can be immeasurably great, but the music sounds within the standards given to it by the composer. Evil knows this and therefore is always very noisy.

Evil tends to be gregarious. The evil ones gather in a crowd, they are unanimous in attack, but, having won, they begin to gnaw at each other. Parties are the same flocks.

Idleness does not at all consist in the fact that a person sits idle, “with folded arms” in the literal sense. No, the slacker is always busy: he talks idle talk on the phone (sometimes for hours), goes to visit people, sits in front of the TV and watches everything, sleeps for a long time, comes up with different things to do. In general, a slacker is always very busy...

The physiologist Ukhtomsky has the “law of an honored interlocutor,” which should be taken into account in everyday life.

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Trace a person's life.

A person is born, and the first care for him is the mother, gradually (after a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, there was already care for him, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - until the birth of the child parents were preparing and dreaming about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish. Girls also love to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.

Gradually, children become objects of increasingly higher care and themselves begin to show real and broad care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care placed them, about their village, city and country...

Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their elderly parents - when they can no longer repay the children’s care. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole. If concern is directed only at oneself, then one is selfish.

Caring is what unites people, strengthens the memory of the past, and is aimed entirely at the future. This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring. A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Somewhere in Belinsky’s letters, I remember, there is this idea: scoundrels always prevail over decent people because they treat decent people as scoundrels, and decent people treat scoundrels as decent people.

A stupid person does not like a smart person, an uneducated person does not like an educated person, an ill-mannered person does not like a well-mannered person, etc. And all this is hidden behind some phrase: “I am a simple person...”, “I don’t like philosophizing,” “I lived my life without it,” “all this is from the evil one,” etc. And in the soul there is hatred, envy, a feeling of one’s own inferiority.

Miscavige said somewhere: “The devil is a coward, he is afraid of loneliness and always hides in the crowd.” And again: “The devil seeks darkness, and we must hide from him in the light.”

Always remember that there is something that you have not yet matured into. Be brave in trying to embrace other cultures. Be brave in a complex and incomprehensible culture, in relation to what is intellectually superior to you.

Vladimir Nabokov said about himself shortly before his death: “I think like a genius, write like an average writer, and speak like a child.” But the first thing is the most important, the reflection of thought carries in itself any bad letter and any childishly helpless speech.

A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person is a big step for humanity.” Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feed a child, carry an old man across the street, give up your seat on a tram, work well, be polite and courteous... etc. and so on. - all this is simple for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

Habakkuk about himself: “There are no good deeds, but God glorified.”

Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.” A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind. I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

“Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to him, said of him: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile”fn (Gospel of John, 1, 47.).

What does this text mean? First of all, what kind of “cunning” are we talking about? Deceit is a lie. The father of lies is the devil, the “evil one.” Wed. in prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Cunning is all kinds of pretense, insincerity, temptation by something that a person does not need.

Does what Jesus said mean that the national characteristic of the Israelites is the absence of guile in them? No, what has been said means that the true nature of a person of any nationality is revealed when the husk of lies, deceit, and pretense falls off; when a person is completely sincere, simple.

"Week of open good deeds." This is a topic for thought and a short essay. The action takes place at an unknown time. Maybe in the year two thousand. The word “kind” is despised, and they say “dobrenky” when they want to insult. There should only be “irreconcilability.” And suddenly a decree: you can and even need to do good deeds - do them individually! It is even recommended to engage in charity. You can give and beg for alms. It is possible and even recommended to give and receive in debt. You can come to hospitals to help the sick, wash the floors. You can, you can, you can... And now people discover the happiness of kindness. For many, acquisitiveness, the passion for profit, for collecting trifles, dissolves like fog. People smile at each other after doing a good deed. Someone is carrying an elderly man across the street. Not “someone”, but everyone gives up their seats on the subway to the elderly.

Happy faces. The saleswomen are happy to sell and are happy to carefully wrap their purchases.

And they are already asking to extend the week of open good deeds. They write letters to the top about this.

Children are zealously taking up the revolution of goodness. They are the most and the first to be infected with goodness. Good becomes their favorite game. They learn to do good from the village old women. They look for the poor, the sick, the elderly, orphans who need help, and find the unfortunate. Groups of “pathfinders of good” are organized.

There is a reconciliation with the world. That's why there are unhappy people: to give happiness to others. The unhappy become the happy cares of others, for the unhappy in one thing can be happy in another.

Stravinsky spoke about Vl.Vas. Stasov that he did not speak badly even about the weather.

Among the many trifles of narcissism in V.V. Rozanov also has wonderful, well-expressed thoughts; here is one: “It is good to move with a reserve of great silence in the soul; for example, travel. Then everything seems bright, meaningful, everything fits into a good result. But “sitting still” is good only with a lot of movement in your soul. Kant sat all his life: but he had so much movement in his soul that from his “sitting” the worlds moved”fn (Rozanov V.V. Solitary. St. Petersburg, 1912, p. 153.).

In order to get “silence” while traveling, it is good to take notes or take photographs: this seems to separate a person from himself.

During my anniversary, an incredible amount of good things were written about me, but I always have the feeling that I am reading not about myself, but about someone else, and only my wife and daughter know me. Therefore, this other one is standing nearby, but he is not me. I'm more happy for this other one. But what if I created this other one, then good. But only “good” - no more. Popularity is disgusting. By the way, Boris Pasternak was really deprived of it (in reality, and not just in his poem “Being famous is ugly...”).

The most amazing quality of a person is love. This is where the connectedness of people is most fully expressed. And the connectedness of people (family, village, country, the entire globe) is the foundation on which humanity stands.

There are a lot of well-worn words and expressions for this connection. Everyone now feels the need for this connectedness. For this connection, it is necessary either to find new words and expressions, or to use frequently used ones not in a well-worn context, to feel their significance. I will not list these expressions that we constantly hear and use ourselves.

The worst (not the “most”, but one of the most) qualities of a person is not to take care of his wife, not to remember his parents, not to take care of his children (really), not to visit the graves of loved ones, to leave helpless old people, to demand only for himself. All this, at some point, begins to take possession of a person en masse, together, in the aggregate. And therefore, using one of these signs, you can determine the presence of all the others. These people are unreliable in every way.

Walter Scott's novel "Old Mortality" (in Russian translations it is called "The Puritans") tells about an old man who cleared moss and lichens from old gravestones with inscriptions on them.

The famous Soviet oncologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Petrov (I remember him) was resourceful and witty. Alive, small in stature. He always operated lightly. The robe was put on directly over the linen. One day, an equally famous French oncologist arrived: a perfumed, pomaded dandy. They took me to the operating room. Petrov came out in his underpants, walked up to the Frenchman and pretended to blow a speck of dust off him.

In Aswan in February 1990, at the Conference of Heads of State of the founders of the Library of Alexandria, the head of the Egyptian government, Mubarak, decided to show his significance and made him wait a long time. The presiding President of France, Mitterrand, came out of the situation brilliantly. He went deep into reading the papers and when Mubarak finally entered, Mitterrand did not notice his appearance and only after a while, lifting his head from the papers, he opened the meeting, forcing Mubarak to wait in turn. The most brilliant speech on the importance of libraries in general and the future of the Library of Alexandria was undoubtedly delivered at this conference by Mitterrand. Mubarak spoke platitudes. I decided to make a very short speech, because our state did not provide funds for the library and my speech could not be long and pretentious.

If a heavyweight breaks a new world record in weight lifting, do I envy him? What about gymnastics? What if in diving from a tower into water?

Start listing everything you know and what you can envy: you will notice that the closer you are to your job, specialty, life, the stronger the proximity of envy. It's like in a game - cold, warm, even warmer, hot, burned! On the last one, you found an item hidden by other players while blindfolded. It's the same with envy. The closer the achievement of another to your specialty, to your interests, the more the burning danger of envy increases. A terrible feeling that primarily affects those who envy.

Now you will understand how to get rid of the extremely painful feeling of envy: develop your own individual inclinations, your own uniqueness in the surrounding humanity, be yourself - and you will never envy. Envy develops primarily where you are a stranger to yourself, where you do not distinguish yourself from others.

“No one is a hero in the eyes of his lackey” (Rousseau Jean-Jacques. New Heloise, letter X, part IV).

“Bekhterevsky complex” - joy in the misfortune of others.

Pasternak said the same thing that I say. I only read his words on May 1, 1988: “There is nothing more beneficial to health than straightforwardness, frankness, sincerity and a clear conscience. If I were a doctor, I would write a work about the terrible danger to physical health of crookedness, which has become a habit. This is worse than alcoholism”fn (In the book: A. Gladkov. Late evenings. Memoirs, articles, notes.).

E.B. Pasternak, who cites this entry in his manuscript, adds: “Cf. words of Dudorov in the epilogue of “Doctor Zhivago”” (rkp., p. 30).

B. Zaitsev. The Path (About Pasternak): “Petrarch wrote from Avignon to Rome to friends. He sent letters “on occasion”, with merchants traveling to Italy. Sometimes merchants were robbed by robbers near Florence. They were especially pleased if the loot included letters from Petrarch - they could be sold at a high price. But some letters reached Rome. Then the recipient hosted a dinner, treated his friends, and for dessert, as the highest dish, Petrarch’s letter out loud.”

A collection of articles dedicated to the work of B.L. Pasternak Munich, 1962, p. 17.

Boris Zaitsev also read Pasternak’s letters aloud to his friends.

A person develops from the very first day of his birth. He is focused on the future. He learns, learns to set new tasks for himself, without even realizing it. And how quickly he masters his position in life. He already knows how to hold a spoon and pronounce the first words.

Then he studies as a boy and a young man.

And the time has come to apply your knowledge and achieve what you strived for. Maturity. We must live in the present...

But the acceleration continues, and now, instead of studying, the time comes for many to master their situation in life. The movement proceeds by inertia. A person is always striving towards the future, and the future is no longer in real knowledge, not in mastering skills, but in placing oneself in an advantageous position. The content, the real content, is lost. The present time does not come, there is still an empty aspiration to the future. This is careerism. Internal anxiety that makes a person personally unhappy and unbearable for others.

S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”) states: “Everyone brings their own acoustics to the theater.” This idea can be expanded: everyone comes into the world with their own perception of it; A person retains, develops or destroys this perception throughout his life.

If one of the disputants gets excited, then it is advantageous for his opponent to be cold, emphatically cold. The hot one exposes his side to the enemy.

Ivan Nikiforovich Zavoloko had three letters as his motto: R S T. If these letters are read by their Slavic names, it will be: “rci the word is firm.” Don't change your word, say it firmly.

A typical (I think) conversation between a Bulgarian waitress and a visitor. P.N. Berkov (sometimes irritable) tells the waitress who served him soup: “I always believed that soup can only be eaten with a spoon.” The smart waitress replies: “I’m convinced of the same thing, so the spoon is on the right side of the plate.” P.N. himself told me about this. Berkov (well done - managed to evaluate the answer).

Prejudices should not interfere with convictions.

Morality is highly characterized by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is the consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.

“Man is a wolf to man,” people of bad inclinations like to repeat. But few people have heard another maxim: “Man is sacred to man.” Seneca (I think) argued that “human society is like a vault, where different stones, holding on to each other, provide the strength of the whole.” This is amazingly true. Just one example: we walk down the street and trust, intuitively trust thousands of drivers, their experience and basic moral principles. We don’t just trust their diplomas, street traffic rules and police service, but we trust them as people with a sense of responsibility...

A remarkable thought by S. Lec (“Uncombed Thoughts”): “The weakest link in the chain is the strongest: it breaks the bonds” (the entire chain - no matter how strong it may be).

A person becomes a person by being among his own kind.

I also remember the saying: “Prudence is the best part of valor.”

Moral concepts that we really lack in our assessments of people: decency and honor. Very rarely, when praising a person, they say: “he is a decent person.” And even less often: “he acted as honor told him.”

Meanwhile, think about how many applications both concepts have: decency in family life, decency of a critic, decency of a journalist, decency in love. The honor of a doctor, the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a school, the honor of a factory, the honor of a Komsomol organizer, the honor of a citizen, the honor of a husband or wife. A word given by a person, no matter who he is, must be kept, otherwise his honor will be tarnished. How to be a “slave of honor” - this is the highest freedom and independence!

If Pushkin had not challenged him to a duel, had not defended the honor of his wife (although he failed to do so from our modern “gossips”), he would never have defended the honor of his poetry. A poet cannot have his honor tarnished, for the poet's personality is part of his poetry.

And another forgotten moral concept is “courtesy” in behavior. It is most natural and easiest to maintain independence by being polite. You should be polite not only to ladies and with ladies, but with everyone and always.

Honor. In the realm of morality, this concept is extremely important, but honor is a two-faced Janus. On the one hand, there is external honor. A man defends his honor. He does not tolerate insults or what he perceives as insults. He does this mainly for those around him. Such, to a large extent, was the honor of a nobleman, the honor of an officer. And it was this honor that went down with the revolution and pulled with it another honor - honor of paramount importance - internal, honor before oneself, independent of its external assessment, but still of enormous importance for society, for its moral atmosphere, for moral relationships between people and public organizations (government institutions, trading enterprises, factories and factories, military, educational communities, etc.). How is this “internal” honor externally expressed: a person keeps his word both as an official (employee, statesman, representative of an institution) and as a simple person; a person behaves decently, does not violate ethical standards, maintains dignity - does not grovel before his superiors, before any “blessing giver”, does not accommodate other people’s opinions for profit, does not be stubborn to prove that he is right, does not settle personal scores, does not “pay off” with the “right people” at the expense of the state (various concessions, “devices”, etc.), in general he knows how to distinguish between the personal and the state, the subjective from the objective in the assessment of others.

Honor is dignity, first of all, the dignity of a positively living person. This dignity, in turn, is external and internal. External dignity is importance, pompousness, solidity. Internal is essentially dignity when a person does not stoop to pettiness in behavior, in conversations and even in thoughts. With a developed sense of honor and dignity in society, there cannot be protectionism, nepotism, deception of people and institutions, what is called “additions” and artificial lowering of plans or the pursuit at all costs of bonuses, gratitude, and promotions.

Honor obliges a person to think about the honor of the social institution that he represents. There is the honor of a worker, the honor of an engineer, the honor of a doctor, but also the honor of a student of a certain school, the honor of a regiment, the honor of a factory, the honor of an institution.

Worker's honor: work without marriage, strive to create good things. As in the old days: the honor of the typesetter, the honor of the foundry (do not stop the open-hearth furnace even during strikes).

Administrator’s honor: keep your word, fulfill your promises, listen to people’s opinions, don’t be afraid to change your mind if the facts require it, don’t adhere to the “frontal psyche” and don’t be proud of the fact that “I never change my opinion.” Be able to admit your mistake in a timely manner and correct the mistake.

The honor of a citizen: do not take revenge for personal reasons, do not provide services at the expense of the state, avoid protectionism if it is not “business” but personal, support capable people only for business reasons, do not write or read anonymous letters.

The honor of a scientist: do not create theories that are not fully confirmed by facts, do not hold positions for which you lack competence, do not be “personal” in your relationship to scientific conclusions and works, do not appropriate other people’s ideas, always accurately and completely refer to predecessors, do not sign works that do not belong to you, do not join groups and cliques, do not intrigue, be able and willing to distinguish between what is scientifically worthwhile and scientific, etc.

It is necessary to create a complete code of scientific morality. Publish it. Find ways to identify its violations.

In the old days, there was a merchant's word and merchant honor. The largest transactions between merchants of the old style were made this way: they went to church and sealed the deal with a prayer service. In St. Petersburg, between the Duma and Gostin, opposite the portico of Ruska, there was a semi-underground chapel where merchants held prayer services.

Merchant's honor!

And in the City of London, major deals were concluded with a handshake (the British rarely resort to handshakes).

And if merchants and businessmen had a sense of honor, then why not develop it in our society?

And one more consideration: diplomats around the world should have a sense of honor. How often now the word, the promise given by diplomats diverges from deeds! And this is all over the world. I just read in the newspapers: arms reductions in one area of ​​arms are being adopted in order to be compensated for in another. They're being cunning! They cheat like petty swindlers, like businessmen who are far from the Russian merchants of the 19th century

Lack of morality brings chaos to social life. Without morality, economic laws no longer apply in society and no diplomatic agreements are possible.

They say that at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), the French commandant of the fortress came out to meet the British, took off his hat and shouted: “Gentlemen of the English, shoot first!”

And our barbarism has reached the point where we start a war even without declaring war.

Little things of behavior // Notes and observations: from notebooks of different years. – L.: Sov. writer. Leningr. department, 1989. – P. 316 – 347.

It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feeding a child, walking an old man across the street, giving up a seat on a tram, working well, being polite and courteous... etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

During his entire life, the Soviet scientist Dmitry Sergeevich wrote more than 1000 articles, left about 500 scientific and 600 journalistic works. Including more than 40 books on the history of ancient Russian literature and Russian culture.

But one of Likhachev’s most interesting and valuable books is his testament book: “Letters about the good and the beautiful.”

These “letters” (46 letters) are addressed to young people who still have to learn life and walk its difficult paths. Today it is the most authoritative collection of wisdom. This book is being translated in different countries and into many languages.

Take care of your youth until old age!

1. Big in small.

The saying “the end justifies the means” is destructive and immoral.Dostoevsky showed this well in Crime and Punishment.

The main character of this work, Rodion Raskolnikov, thought that by killing the disgusting old moneylender, he would get money with which he could then achieve great goals and benefit humanity, but he suffers an internal collapse.

The goal is distant and unrealistic, but the crime is real; it is terrible and cannot be justified by anything. You cannot strive for a high goal with low means. You must be equally honest in both big and small things.

2. Take care of your youth.

True friends are made young. I remember that my mother’s only real friends were her friends from the gymnasium. My father’s friends were his fellow students at the institute.And as much as I have observed, openness to friendship gradually decreases with age.

Undivided joy is not joy. Happiness spoils a person if he experiences it alone. When the time of misfortune comes, the time of loss - again, you cannot be alone. Woe to a man if he is alone.

Therefore, take care of your youth until old age.Appreciate all the good things you acquired in your youth, do not waste the riches of your youth. Nothing acquired in youth passes without a trace.

Habits developed in youth last a lifetime. Work skills too.

Get used to work - and work will always bring joy. And how important this is for human happiness! There is no one more unhappy than a lazy person who always avoids work and effort...

Both in youth and in old age. Good youth skills will make life easier, bad ones will complicate it and make it difficult.

And further. There is a Russian proverb: “Take care of your honor from a young age.” All the actions committed in youth remain in memory. The good ones will make you happy, the bad ones will not let you sleep!

What is the biggest goal in life? I think: increase the goodness in those around us.

And goodness is, first of all, the happiness of all people...

Much, as I have already said, begins with little things, originates in childhood and in loved ones. A child loves his mother and his father, his brothers and sisters, his family, his home.

Gradually expanding, his affections extend to school, village, city, and his entire country. And this is already a very big and deep feeling, although one cannot stop there and one must love the person in a person.

You have to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There is no need to hate every other family because you love yours. There is no need to hate other nations because you are a patriot. There is a deep difference between patriotism and nationalism. In the first - love for your country, in the second - hatred of all others.

The great goal of good begins small - with the desire for good for your loved ones, but as it expands, it covers an ever wider range of issues.It's like ripples on the water. But the circles on the water, expanding, are becoming weaker.

Love and friendship, growing and spreading to many things, acquire new strength, become higher, and man, their center, becomes wiser.

Love shouldn't be unconscious, it should be smart. This means that it must be combined with the ability to notice shortcomings and deal with shortcomings - both in a loved one and in the people around them. It must be combined with wisdom, with the ability to separate the necessary from the empty and false. She shouldn't be blind.

Blind admiration (you can't even call it love) can lead to dire consequences. A mother who admires everything and encourages her child in everything can raise a moral monster. Blind admiration for Germany (“Germany above all” - the words of a chauvinistic German song) led to Nazism, blind admiration for Italy led to fascism.

“Inhale, exhale, exhale!” To breathe deeply, you need to exhale thoroughly. First of all, learn to exhale and get rid of “waste air.”

Life is, first of all, breathing. "Soul", "spirit"! And he died - first of all - “stopped breathing.” That's what they thought from time immemorial. “Spirit out!” - it means “died.”

It can be “stuffy” in the house, and “stuffy” in moral life as well.Take a good breath out of all the petty worries, all the bustle of everyday life, get rid of, shake off everything that hinders the movement of thought, that crushes the soul, that does not allow a person to accept life, its values, its beauty. A person should always think about what is most important for himself and for others, throwing off all empty worries.

We must be open to people, tolerant of people, and look for the best in them first of all. The ability to seek and find the best, simply “good”, “overshadowed beauty” enriches a person spiritually.

To notice beauty in nature, in a village, a city, a street, not to mention in a person, through all the barriers of little things - this means expanding the sphere of life, the sphere of the living space in which a person lives.

The greatest value in the world is life: someone else’s, one’s own, the life of the animal world and plants, the life of culture, life throughout its entire length - in the past, in the present, and in the future...

And life is infinitely deep. We always come across something we haven’t noticed before, something that amazes us with its beauty, unexpected wisdom, and uniqueness.

5. Vital purpose.

By what a person lives for, one can judge his self-esteem - low or high.

If a person sets himself the task of acquiring all the basic material goods, he evaluates himself at the level of these material goods: as the owner of the latest brand of car, as the owner of a luxurious dacha, as part of his furniture set...

If a person lives to bring good to people, to alleviate their suffering from illness, to give people joy, then he evaluates himself at the level of this humanity. He sets himself a goal worthy of a person.

Only a vital goal allows a person to live his life with dignity and get real joy. Yes, joy! Think: if a person sets himself the task of increasing goodness in life, bringing happiness to people, what failures can befall him?

If you are a doctor, then perhaps you misdiagnosed the patient? This happens to the best doctors. But in total, you still helped more than you didn’t help. No one is immune from mistakes. But the most important mistake, the fatal mistake, is choosing the wrong main task in life.

Didn't get promoted - disappointing. I didn’t have time to buy a stamp for my collection – it’s a shame. Someone has better furniture than you or a better car - again a disappointment, and what a disappointment!

When setting the goal of a career or acquisition, a person experiences in total much more sorrows than joys, and risks losing everything.

What can a person who rejoices in every good deed lose? It is only important that the good that a person does should be his inner need, come from an intelligent heart, and not just from the head, and should not be a “principle” alone.

Therefore, the main task in life must necessarily be a task that is broader than just personal; it should not be limited only to one’s own successes and failures. It must be dictated kindness to people, love for family, for your city, for your people, for your country, for the whole universe.

Does this mean that a person should live like an ascetic, not take care of himself, not acquire anything and not enjoy a simple promotion?

Not at all!

A person who does not think about himself at all is an abnormal phenomenon and personally unpleasant to me: there is some kind of breakdown in this, some ostentatious exaggeration of his kindness, unselfishness, significance, in this there is some kind of peculiar contempt for other people , the desire to stand out.

Therefore, I am only talking about the main task in life.

And this main life task does not need to be emphasized in the eyes of other people.

And you need to dress well (this is respect for others), but not necessarily “better than others.”

And you need to compile a library for yourself, but not necessarily larger than your neighbor’s.

And it’s good to buy a car for yourself and your family – it’s convenient.

Just don’t turn the secondary into the primary, and don’t let the main goal of life exhaust you where it’s not necessary. When you need it is another matter.

6. What unites people?

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. It binds families together, binds friendships, binds together residents of one city, one country.

Trace a person's life.

A person is born, and the first care for him is his mother; gradually (after just a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, care for him already existed, but was to a certain extent “abstract” - the parents were preparing for the birth of the child, dreaming about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl doesn’t speak yet, but she’s already trying to take care of the doll, nursing it. Boys, very small, love to pick mushrooms and fish.

Girls also love to pick berries and mushrooms. And they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They take it home and prepare it for the winter.

Caring is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for caring for themselves by caring for their elderly parents, when they can no longer repay the children’s care.

And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, seems to merge with concern for the historical memory of the family and homeland as a whole.

If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.

Caring brings people together, strengthens the memory of the past and is aimed entirely at the future.

This is not the feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of the feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. A person must be caring.

A carefree or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Morality is characterized to the highest degree by a sense of compassion. In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with humanity and the world (not only people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.).

A feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory.

In compassion there is a consciousness of one’s unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its complete revival and development.

A surprisingly correct thought: “A small step for a person, a big step for humanity”.

Thousands of examples can be given of this: it costs nothing for one person to be kind, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind.

It is impossible to correct humanity, it is easy to correct yourself. Feeding a child, walking an old man across the street, giving up a seat on a tram, working well, being polite and courteous... etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

Good cannot be stupid. A good deed is never stupid, because it is selfless and does not pursue the goal of profit and “smart results.”

A good deed can be called “stupid” only when it clearly could not achieve the goal or was “false good,” mistakenly kind, that is, not kind.

I repeat, a truly good deed cannot be stupid, it is beyond evaluation from the point of view of the mind or not the mind. So good and good.

7. About Education

You can get a good upbringing not only in your family or at school, but also... from yourself. You just need to know what real good manners is.

I am convinced, for example, that true good manners manifests itself primarily at home, in your family, in relationships with your relatives.

If a man on the street lets an unfamiliar woman pass ahead of him (even on the bus!) and even opens the door for her, but at home does not help his tired wife wash the dishes, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he is polite with his acquaintances, but gets irritated with his family on every occasion, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he does not take into account the character, psychology, habits and desires of his loved ones, he is an ill-mannered person. If, as an adult, he takes the help of his parents for granted and does not notice that they themselves already need help, he is an ill-mannered person.

If he plays the radio and TV loudly or just talks loudly when someone is doing homework or reading at home (even if it’s his small children), he is an ill-mannered person and will never make his children well-mannered.

If he likes to make fun of his wife or children, not sparing their pride, especially in front of strangers, then he is (excuse me!) simply stupid.

A well-mannered person is one who wants and knows how to respect others; he is one for whom his own politeness is not only familiar and easy, but also pleasant. This is someone who is equally polite to both senior and junior in age and position.

The reader has probably noticed that I am addressing mainly the man, the head of the family. This is because women actually need to give way... not just at the door.

But an intelligent woman will easily understand what exactly needs to be done so that, while always and with gratitude accepting from a man the right given to her by nature, force the man to give up primacy to her as little as possible. And this is much more difficult!

That’s why nature made sure that women for the most part (I’m not talking about exceptions) are endowed with a greater sense of tact and greater natural politeness than men...

There are many books about "good manners".

These books explain how to behave in society, at a party and at home, in the theater, at work, with elders and younger ones, how to speak without offending the ears, and dress without offending the eyesight of others.

But people, unfortunately, draw little from these books. This happens, I think, because books about good manners rarely explain why good manners are needed. It seems: having good manners is false, boring, unnecessary. A person with good manners can actually cover up bad deeds.

Yes, good manners can be very external, but in general, good manners are created by the experience of many generations and mark the centuries-old desire of people to be better, to live more conveniently and more beautifully.

A well-mannered person in all respects does not behave “loudly”, saves the time of others (“Accuracy is the politeness of kings,” says the saying), strictly fulfills his promises to others, does not put on airs, does not “turn up his nose” and is always the same - at home, at school, at college, at work, in the store and on the bus.

What's the matter? What is the basic guide to acquiring good manners?

The basis of all good manners is the concern that a person does not interfere with another, so that everyone feels good together.

We must be able to not interfere with each other.Therefore, there is no need to make noise. You can’t stop your ears from the noise – this is hardly possible in all cases. For example, at the table while eating.

Therefore, there is no need to slurp, no need to loudly put your fork on the plate, noisily suck in soup, speak loudly at dinner or talk with your mouth full so that your neighbors do not have concerns.

And you don’t need to put your elbows on the table - again, so as not to disturb your neighbor. It is necessary to be neatly dressed because this shows respect for others - guests, hosts, or just passers-by: it should not be disgusting to look at you.

There is no need to bore your neighbors with continuous jokes, witticisms and anecdotes, especially those that have already been told to your listeners by someone. This puts your listeners in an awkward position.

Try not only to entertain others, but also to let others tell you something.

Manners, clothing, gait, all behavior should be restrained and... beautiful. For any beauty does not tire. She is "social". And there is always a deep meaning in so-called good manners. Do not think that good manners are just manners, that is, something superficial.

By your behavior you reveal your essence. You need to cultivate in yourself not so much manners as what is expressed in manners, a caring attitude towards the world: towards society, towards nature, towards animals and birds, towards plants, towards the beauty of the area, towards the past of the places where you live, etc. d.

You don’t need to memorize hundreds of rules, but remember one thing – the need to respect others. published If you have any questions about this topic, ask them to the specialists and readers of our project

P.S. And remember, just by changing your consciousness, we are changing the world together! © econet

The master of artistic expression focuses on an important problem: the dependence of a person’s “content” on his “form.” Likhachev writes that you can and even need to be cheerful, but in moderation. There is no need to be intrusive and noisy, because this belittles those around you. Also, don’t be ashamed of your shyness; it only becomes funny when you yourself are ashamed of it or try too hard to overcome it. The author notes that this can contribute to the development of an inferiority complex, and with it other bad qualities.

Likhachev's position is quite clearly expressed.

He talks about a person’s appearance, which reflects his “form”, becoming his elegant “content”. By attractive “form” he means simplicity, truthfulness, lack of pretension in clothing and behavior.

I agree with Likhachev's position. Indeed, in many ways, a person’s behavior, his shortcomings and how he treats them determines his “content”.

Firstly, in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fairy tale “The Little Prince,” the main character meets a man on one of the planets who is dressed to the nines. He admires his appearance and constantly asks himself to be applauded. The little prince finds his behavior funny and strange. The way he dresses and his narcissistic behavior determines his far from pleasant “content.”

Secondly, in the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" the main character is a rather timid person.

Sonechka is silent. This attractive “form” has become her elegant “content”, because she is characterized by such qualities as kindness and compassion.

This text confirmed my opinion that not only “content” determines “form”, but “content” also depends on “form”.

Updated: 2017-07-29

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