Many of us are familiar with the atmosphere of deep understanding, when it is possible and interesting to discuss important details. It can be a scientific seminar or a conversation between artists, or maybe just a conversation between two people who graduated from the same school half a century ago. We are talking here about a special kind of alignment — the same books read, a common scale of values, the foundation of what has already been well discussed. Something that can be thrown over the shoulder and move on, says the writer Leonid Kostyukov.
Classmates, including former ones, are connected by many things: signs of the time and place, favorite films, common acquaintances, a common profession. Expanding the layer, moving simply to peers, just to fellow countrymen, we inevitably compress the common zone. However, there remains something common and important, for example, for the Germans, the French, or Europeans in general. It was, of course, in the USSR, and twice: the generally accepted figures of speech and the generally accepted system of behavior. There is no Russian national norm — neither in words nor in deeds. Neither from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, nor even within the Moscow Ring Road, we all know together whether there is a God (and what he is, if any), where our country is heading, whether we trust the authorities, whether it is necessary to follow the laws, how much a glass of juice costs in a cafe around the corner.
An astute reader will say that even before this common zone of silence united rather the intelligentsia, but today it does not unite the intelligentsia either. If these supports flash in the conversation — we understand you — then the end of the phrase is likely to be tired and negative. We both understand that there is no point in talking about this. Since the time of Chekhov’s heroes, these conversations about the main thing have not led anywhere. Issues of faith, deep convictions are not discussed, but not because there is obviously something in common, but because we respect each other and do not invade personal territories. This is privacy. Where there used to be delicacy as the ability to meaningfully talk about the personal and nervous, now delicacy is the ability not to speak. This new default zone does not offer a common foundation. Discussing particulars is painless, but almost meaningless.
Seriously, only a common enemy unites in a good way: it is easy to treat Stalin or Chikatilo in approximately the same way. Probably, in the old days we were surrounded by an ideologically foreign space — it built us up. And when it — well, not exactly collapsed, but staggered, we turned out to be frighteningly different. Pragmatists and romantics, agnostics and convinced believers. It was good to go back and forth with quotes from the «Prisoner of the Caucasus». What next?
And then — a new and mysterious art of communicating cordially and easily, always leaving the interlocutor room for maneuver. Nine hours with a neighbor on a plane. Three years with employees in the office. Indefinite period — with the son-in-law. Without any guarantee of common foundations and views. Or are we just looking in the wrong place? Or was our main and common all this time nearby?
Children grow up and leave.
Mood is important for health.
The main thing is that in the morning you want to go to work, and in the evening you want to go home.
Everything is slowly forming.