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[Alexandr Korol]

I myself also wanted to be defined, at least at first, because it made me uneasy — why am I so undefined? Like, this one has chosen to be this, that one chose that, and so on. And who am I? I can do this and that, but it all feels like just small facets, and I don’t want to be limited — I want to be everything at once. But how? I can’t split myself apart. So what can you choose? Something higher than all of it. And that’s when I started searching for a way to adapt myself, my inner nature. I was, in a way, of a different kind than most people, than the masses. Over time, I came to the point where I became a writer, because it’s convenient — you can write about all worlds, all professions, all people, and how you see it all. And if you’re that “observer,” in quotes, then I can remain that observer, because once I choose something and settle in one little world, it’s like I make myself limited. I don’t want to be only in the world of sports — I want to be in the world of fashion, of clothing, so to speak, in the world of art, in the world of history, in the world of Indiana Jones too. So how can I be everywhere at once? And I realized that only when I’m in that position, when I’m like nobody, I feel like I’m everything, but also nothing. And in that position as an observer, I see and know everything, but at the same time, I don’t drown in any of it. That’s how it all came together that I became a writer. After all, “Alexander Korol” – that came from this idea that this character, these books, is already something I express through books. And also, since we live in the age of technology, cybernetics, social media, and everything like that, yes, it was convenient for me to ask some random people in social networks questions, to later take something from it for my book, publish a picture, observe the reaction, and then write about it in the book. It pleased me that I could observe people’s reactions without leaving my house, see how they react to others, including to me, and understand cause and effect, then explain it in my books. And that presentation, that format, which I haven’t changed, even though many urged me to change how I write, I kept this format of... Like how you’re accustomed to reading texts, the format where I write in the first person, like a message, like a diary. It all started with this, with everything. And here you go, an interesting combination. The character, Alexander Korol, the hero of the book, is also the writer, he is both the hero of the book and the writer of it, and this novel is written in the first person, and all my rough drafts are essentially about this. In all the rough drafts, I touched on everything that’s in my novel “Alternative History,”