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[Alexandr Korol]

Most interestingly, I used to advise all my close friends to do the same.
I remembered a moment… Imagine the scene. I am a boy, say, 20 years old.
I’m meeting a friend, a guy or a girl, somewhere on the street or in a park;
we’re walking around with cameras. Suddenly, this friend starts telling
me for the third time about how their classmate or neighbor promised
them a chocolate bar but never bought it. As I listen to my friend tell this
story, I see how they get nervous and angry; they tell me this every day,
they tell everyone else. And I see that because of this, they don’t see how
beautiful the world is. They don’t feel me, the park, nature, or the animals.
Their whole head is plugged in there, as if it’s a trap sucking out their energy.
That is how I perceived it when I first appeared — that magical boy-writer,
Alexandr Korol. Back then, I advised all my friends and acquaintances:
“Let the situation go. Don’t think about your enemy; don’t think about that
chocolate bar. If you want, I’ll give you two chocolate bars, but just forget it.
Look at how many interesting things there are — do you really want to give
your whole life to a chocolate bar and this situation? To dedicate all your
energy and attention to some bad person you think about every day? Why?”
That was my approach. And it was so deeply built into me; I didn’t do it
from the mind. I also remember that when I first emerged as a writer and
wrote various short chapters, I told many such stories in my first book,
Paradox. It was as if I was... “afraid” is the wrong word... it wasn’t fear,
but I’ll use it for now. Actually, let’s use “avoid.” I avoided everything that
could strain, irritate, unnerve, or cause aggression. I avoided all of it to
the maximum. It was as if I were super-hypersensitive — as if I would die
if I felt even a hint of it. If it happened that a taxi driver cheated my friends
and drove them in circles to run up the meter, or if I saw a waiter
miscalculate the bill, I always asked everyone not to conflict, not to prove
anything. I told them it wasn’t worth it; if you do this now, we’ll lose the
mood we’ve had for the last few hours, and we might even end up fighting
among ourselves. I didn’t use these exact words back then, but it was
as if I was “shouting” to everyone: “Don’t open the door to hell! Don’t
open the door to this underworld!” I meant that I saw people falling
for daily conflicts and provocations even though they weren’t worth it.