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[Alexandr Korol]

someone to babysit them, help them, advise them. And there are people who live like that. But if you leave that kind of person alone — they’re nothing, just emptiness. But I’m the opposite. Since childhood I’ve been very independent. All my decisions — I know they’re right, correct. I don’t need anyone’s advice — I know exactly what I want, I have my own taste, my own vision. I want to work myself, earn my own money. I want to do everything myself — I don’t want handouts. To me, that feels like disgrace. For some reason, I’ve had that attitude since I was a kid. Of course, some mean person would now say it’s pride. But it’s not that simple. Anything good can be called something bad — that’s the paradox of the bright world and the reversed dark one: all the good things can be called bad, and all the bad things can be seen as good. I explain that well in Volume Four too, but that’s later. And so just by making this kind of decision... it’s like, you know, when I did something that wasn’t from the heart, as I used to say back then. When I did something just because I was told “you have to study, you have to do this, do that” — it was so hard for me. I always had migraines, headaches, tension, fatigue, because I felt like I was different and couldn’t keep forcing myself like that. But again, nowadays any lazy person might latch onto this and use it to justify themselves, saying they’re just like that — when in reality it’s just laziness. I wasn’t lazy at all. I’m a workaholic. I can go without sleep, without food, and work endlessly. The point is that I’ve always felt this inner nature that I had to follow to the fullest. It was very painful for me to go against it — like going against the soul. You see, to say such things, you first have to actually have a soul. It’s not something everyone has. And I felt it — felt that my soul was crying when I did something that went against it, and my soul wanted freedom. That’s why I left home. And you know, when someone experiences a crisis — anything at all — there are always two types of reactions. Imagine, for example, someone is told: “Your car’s been stolen,” or “Your dog died” — there are always two reactions that arise. It’s like two different states awaken in a person, or you can say they fall into two different “worlds,” in quotes. If someone tells me my car was stolen or my dog died, I go into “cosmos” — that’s how I used to describe it as a kid. No thoughts, pure vacuum, no sense of time or space, I’m just here and now, with an insane surge of energy and crazy faith. As if the shock gives me this jolt — and it sets my chest on fire even more. That’s what I felt during every crisis. Because it’s like the mind I was beginning to develop —