Page 305

[Alexandr Korol]

But then I started thinking — strange, why is this Spirit such, well, not the same as before, but something different. And so I started analyzing all this. And here I begin to remember what I wouldn’t have been able to remember before with such strength and clarity. And I begin to remember myself when I appeared as the magical writer. And I begin to remember that I had also discussed this with my friend, who even remembers some of these things. I begin to tell him all of this. And he says: “Yes, Alex, that’s how it was — remember? Even back then, in your first books, you wrote that you could throw out your SIM cards, change your phone number, delete social networks, so that people would not evaluate you with their minds.” I say: “Yes, yes. Just imagine — back then, then, I was already like what I had been this past week.” And I tell him: “Can you imagine? After all, back then, at 18–19 years old, I was like this.” And what does that mean, like that? That is, it turns out — back then I — how do I say it to you? Back then, if I was at home — that is, where did it all begin? I left home at 17. And this state “without the mind” began. It was summer, and I turned 18 in September. That was 2007… or no, 2008? Or 2007? Well — it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be hard for me to remember this now, because I am again going off into this world “without the mind,” so I may get confused. That is — you know — right now I am on the threshold between these worlds — so as to at least somehow see this world, but at the same time still have the mind to describe it — and that’s why I am experimenting like this right now, recording all of this.

And I remember that back then I left home at 17. And further on, when I was living there, started writing the book, and what was happening to me, how I was living — I remember, I described all of this in my diaries. And there were, in truth, such strange observations: that if I lived at home alone, I really wasn’t eating. That is — I could eat one piece of bread with butter, or with a piece of doktorskaya sausage, for the whole day. I’d eat that, let’s say, at 10:00 in the morning, and that was it for the whole day. I would sleep an hour or two as well, no more. Well, again, there’s no point in taking this as some kind of example, because back then I was a different age, not the same as now — but no matter. What was happening to me back then? Where was my attention? I know that I didn’t go out of the house alone, I was afraid. Or rather, not exactly afraid — but the feeling, and what is most interesting, really, in this world is a very strange sensation — that you can,