Alexander Koptyakov
Applied Love
Engineer: All we are talking about is that the living is not living, the whole is not the whole. I offer such a conditional scheme for the image of any living essence:
Consultant: Very similar to the diagram from Kurt Lewin's field theory: P-person and around – living space. But this knot on the top of the border is your industrial controller?
Engineer: Not really, but close to that. Look. What you see is any living essence: the first living cell, an acorn, an oak, a fish, a bird, a human. The main thing here is that there is a border between the internal and external environment, and it is kept in balance.
Writer: The first life appeared on the border of the Worlds…
Consultant: I will say more, from what I observe – a new life appears only inside another already living essence, and then it separates and becomes, as it were, independent.
Engineer: I did not draw sensors (senses) and actuators. It is clear that they are both inside and outside. And the border is not deaf, but, like a cell membrane, it allows metabolism. A living essence is an open dynamic system that maintains a balance between the inner and outer world. As long as the balance is maintained, homeostasis works, “something” lives, and this is visible to the naked eye. Both the internal state and the external environment are monitored, this is how the border and its control appear. When boundaries are violated, illness or even death occurs.
Writer: How graceful!
Engineer: Do you remember the Consultant said that the red light of a traffic light is pure convention? I'm starting to doubt it. Imagine that in the winter in the forest a hunter shoots an animal, and then goes to check: “hit – didn’t hit”. If he finds red spots of blood on the snow, then you can go to catch up with the beast – the integrity of the living creature is broken and the forces will leave him.
Consultant: Now it is clear why women, in order to attract the attention of men, paint their lips in bright red!
Engineer: And wear red dresses! As if subconsciously saying – "look, I'm all open!"
Consultant: By the way, about the subconscious … How do you like this modification of your scheme?
Writer: Is this the union of two living essences?
Consultant: No, it is still the same single essence, or rather, even a separate Human. I just enlarged the knot controlling the worlds on the border a little and highlighted the conscious part – above, and the unconscious – inside. You can call it a brain, but it is clear that everything is more complicated. The main thing is that consciousness is only the tip of the iceberg that supports life in a person, but it is directed outward and, if consciousness is joint knowledge, then it is something that unites people into something more and, possibly, unites them into something too whole and also alive…
Writer: Here I am looking at your scheme and it reminds me of all this – the theater. Stage, orchestra pit or backstage and large auditorium. Moreover, now there is a performance, three “characters” are standing and talking on the stage: an Engineer, a Consultant and a Writer. And the true “I” sits in the theater porter, but sometimes it is forgotten and completely merges with the “Writer” on stage.
Consultant: I'll tell you more – we are all now sitting in our "theaters", where the same performance is being performed in parallel, only we see it each in its own way. And even then – we see, until the spotlights are extinguished. Although, even if the spectator does not see anything, life is in full swing behind the stage!
Engineer: Well, then let me add my own five cents. Imagine a baby. Who is the first to appear on the stage of consciousness? Mum. Then dad. Then brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, and so on. And only at two or three years old a little person appears on the stage with the name that the child hears most often. Self-consciousness appears!
Consultant: But the “spectator – I” by this moment has been sitting in the hall for a long time and looking at the unfolding performance. From the very beginning to the very end. Alone, in an empty theater porter…
Writer: I will only say between us. Sometimes it seems to me that I am not alone in the theater. Someone sits next to me and looks at the stage with me. Someone who is the only one who can see both the play and the real me, sitting in a theater chair. It becomes both scary and incredibly blissful at such a moment. And there is a hope that when the curtains close at the end of the performance, we will get up from the chairs with Him and together we will leave the theater into the Real World…
It's late now. See you again, my friends!
10 Love
Engineer: You know, in the Bible I stumbled badly in only one place, I still can't understand.
Writer: Only in one place? Lucky! In which?
Engineer: The Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus instructed the twelve disciples. I will read straight out: “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me." How did it happen? Isn't the family the cradle of love, isn't it in the family that we learn to love from our first breath? How can you love someone more than your parents?
Writer: I'll try to explain how I personally understand this. Remember we talked about human values? About their hierarchy. That one thing is always more valuable than something else. If you make a long list of what is valuable to a person, and then ask him to start crossing out the less important in relation to the rest, then in the end one thing will remain, something most valuable. I have determined for myself that for me, as an Orthodox person, this is Love. If I put my father and mother first, then with what will I come to them? And if in my very core there is Love, like, for example, a glass of water, then every time I come to my father and mother, I am not empty, I can give them drink or warm them. The way they do it for me all my life. “God is love” – St. John the Theologian.
Consultant: Now it is difficult to find a true believer. Since you've started again yourself, tell me – do you really believe in God?
Writer: It is difficult to find, most likely because people are looking for where it is brighter, and not where they have lost. There are always a lot of people in the church on Sundays. And about faith in God… I can't say that this is faith, but rather faithfulness. It is difficult to reach infinity with the mind, but if “there” there is nothing, then “here” everything is meaningless. And reason requires meaning. I came to church as wise men – wise men from the East. Before my thirty-third birthday, I thought: my parents did not go to church, they lived in the Soviet Union, but all my other ancestors before them went to church for a thousand years, prayed to God. Were they really fools, and I am the smartest? Unlikely. So, it turns out that logically I came to this. I went into the church, began to look around, and looked closely. Ridiculously – I chose a seemingly kinder granny, plucked up courage, approached and asked: “Excuse me, please. This is my first time here, I want to receive Holy Communion. Can you tell me what book I can buy to read about it? " That grandmother showed me everything, told me. Her name was Alexandra, same as my name, God bless her! And then, when I appeared before the Lord, when I felt that all my ancestors were also standing before the icons, they were praying for each other and for my future, and for the next thousand years my children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren will also stand in the church and to pray, when I felt all of them nearby – both the dead, and the living, and not yet born, then I realized that I finally came home… Of course, I had to remember all the evil that I had done to people in my life. After you weep about your sins, the sins of others are no longer interesting.
Engineer: How does it all fit in with Japanese martial arts?
Writer: Apparently, I was lucky. Lucky with the entry point and teachers. When I was twenty, I read Nietzsche's “Push the Falling One” and realized that if I don’t engage in some kind of single combat, then the place for me, frail and weak, is in the dustbin of humanity. I began to search. I didn't want to hit others in the head, so I came across Aikido. They say, of course, that Aikido is the path of harmony and love, but it is better to see once than hear a hundred times. Let me draw you with your own schemes:
Writer: Basically, other martial arts are aimed at controlling the enemy by suppressing him, destroying him, and at the very least, killing. In Aikido, control is exercised through merger, that is, if at the beginning of the battle there are two alive systems 1 and 2, then during the battle a new alive system of size 1 + 2 is formed, but controlled from one center.
Engineer: It is perfectly understandable. It is love by definition! :)
Writer: And what is important, as with violin, Aikido can be practiced until old age, until the end of life. If you control only through suppression, then sooner or later you will come across a system that will suppress you. But, practicing Aikido, even in your declining years, you can unite with a train rushing towards you, taking one step at the right time in the right direction, and letting it pass, leaving the rails.
Консультантов: Don't you think that any art is about love? Be it a skater, about whom we say that he skates as if he was born in skates. Whether it is a violinist or a pianist that merges with the instrument. We always admire when a person controls something as if it were part of him.
Writer: I fully support you. With one comment: the path of true art is painstaking hard work. For example, before controlling an opponent in martial arts, you must first at least begin to control yourself. And, ending about Aikido, I like that a readiness for contact is developed, but without the desire to suppress. In the ancient Chinese treatise “Sun Tzu. The Art of War” is written that there are two tactics: attack tactics and defense tactics. At the same time, not having mastered the tactics of defense, it is foolish to move on to the tactics of attack. And I like the third tactic – non-aggression. This is not a pure defense, not a passive state, and not an aggressive attack.
Consultant: Progress is movement forward, regression is movement backward, aggression is movement towards…
Writer: And, of course, I am immensely grateful to all my teachers. Not only in martial arts, all teachers in life. This is the one who shows love more than many others! Constant surrender of yourself.
Consultant: As you said: where there is true love – there is no sacrifice! In fact, we can all be teachers to each other without even realizing it. If a person always adapts to the environment, then we must not forget that for any other person we are the very environment!
Writer: I used to think that in order to be a teacher, two conditions are necessary: to have knowledge and to be able to convey it. Because I saw a lot of people who were professionals in their field, but could not teach others. And then, at some point, I realized that I have some kind of knowledge, and I am able to transfer it, but I don’t do it – I do other things, I take care of myself and my life. Now there are three necessary conditions for being a teacher: knowledge, the ability to transfer it, and actions to transfer it.
Engineer: Love demonstrated in its interaction… I recently read with Lyudmila Petranovskaya, a child psychologist, that love is the basic instinct. If a baby has an adult who loves him, then he will have everything: and eat and not be lost. And if there is no such adult – certain death. People do not survive without each other at all. And, if you look closely at other human needs, then many of them are just a variation on the theme of uniting with something in the external environment.
Consultant: Love is an insatiable need! Or maybe, just as the whirligig needs to spin in order not to fall, so the boundaries of love need to expand in order for the Worlds to remain in balance?
Writer: Here we are philosophizing, philosophizing. And I know for sure that I will go to church on Sunday, and all the fuss will subside. All the love that I lost in a week will fill my heart again. I don’t know about other nations, but we were definitely lucky. There is where and to Whom to come and warm up.
Consultant: Come on. In the country, look, eighty percent of the baptized, and only five percent go to the church.
Writer: Tell me, if you suddenly feel bad on the plane, how many doctors do you need to be in the cabin? Trust me – one is enough. The main thing is that he really can help and, which is also important, that he (or she) responds when asked – "Is there a doctor?" So it turns out that it would be great if all the Orthodox went to church, yes, maybe it’s not bad anymore. Personally, I have already experienced early Christian maximalism, when, immediately after churching, I accused others that they wear a cross around their necks, like a gym membership ticket, but don't go to the gym themselves, so there’s no point. And is it possible to fit everyone in the church? Previously, as it was – the church was built of such a size that all Christians in the area could gather together under one roof. And now two villages of people live in one high-rise building. Is it needed to build two churches for each house?
Engineer: By the way, it seems to me that we have the only country in which churches are being built again, and not destroyed or converted into hotels or clubs.
Consultant: Please do not forget that the world is large and diverse. Writer at thirty-three became an Orthodox Christian. That is, it was your conscious choice. And now children are baptized from birth, no one asks them.
Writer: Well, first of all, I was also baptized as a child. And in fact, I regret that most of my life passed without the realization of God and the love that He gives. Especially exuberant youth, which, analyzing with hindsight, miraculously survived, walked along the edge. And secondly, it's the same as genes. The religion of the fathers, which has passed the test of evolutionary strength, is passed on to children. Yes, like the language. Will you refuse to teach children from birth the Russian language, letting them become adults and choose which language to learn. Mowgli's example shows that if a child does not talk with other people during the first years, then he will never be able to learn to speak again.
Engineer: Writer, what do you think about the miracles of the church? So everything seems to be correct: love, interaction, a large whole, living particles. But my rational brain refuses to believe in all kinds of miracles. It seems to me that these are all some kind of tricks.
Writer: What is a miracle? This is something that is not possible, but it happens. I'll speak for myself. I'll tell you a story that happened to me. It was in the Intercession Monastery, where we were standing in the human line to bow to the relics of the Matrona of Moscow. Everyone there stood for the miracle, and so did we. Desperate, we went to ask the impossible blessed Saint. And then, standing already a few meters from Matrona, an insight came to me. After all, the greatest miracle is my life – that I was born, I stand here and think about all this! What could be more wonderful than this miracle? Everything else is magic, as you said. But my life is a miracle. And the life of any other person from that moment is also a miracle for me! True, then, after a few years, I ran into another miracle unattainable to the mind, something that is impossible, but will surely happen – death. Today, as an Orthodox person, I believe in only three miracles: “that I live”, “that one day I will die” and “that later I will be resurrected and will live forever”. All these three miracles seem impossible to me, but I believe in love and every new day I take a step forward, as if I know that there is solid ground ahead.