Grigory Tulchinsky read for us the book by Nikolai Kryschuk «Biography of the Inner Man»
“This book is about self-determination and self-knowledge, but written in a special genre. These are not memoirs (which, according to the typology of Simon Soloveichik, answer the question «What did I see?»), not a confession, and not a diary telling about «how I lived.» These are monologues in which there is an attempt to answer a direct question: “And what did I understand?” An answer that requires special sincerity, because any confession that I understand is at the same time the risk of being substituted, opening up.
Usually such attempts are hidden behind artistic images or scientific research. Nikolai Kryshchuk collected stories of people who have already taken place in many respects (sometimes widely known) about what and how they understood on their life path. Its co-authors — a psychologist and philosopher, writers and sociologists, a sculptor and a clergyman — talk about events, meetings, decisions that significantly affected their understanding of themselves, their relationship to other people, their place in the world.
All of them appeal to the experience deeply internal, personal, unique. And this special way of assembling oneself, of course, requires both authors and readers to do very serious work of mind and soul.
Only by taking responsibility for yourself can you become a free person.
In most of the monologues published in the book, life appears either as a service to the great and boundless, manifested in tiny branches of personal illusions, or as an expansion and exploration of space, or even as a gift. For some, the importance of being true to oneself, maintaining sincerity and integrity of emotional memory has been revealed, for others it is important to build relationships with their generation. And for someone — the understanding that you are going your own way, although the play is not yet finished and its intention is not clear.
It is important to set goals for the achievement of which you yourself are responsible — only through responsibility can one become free. The book is important and interesting precisely because, individually and collectively, the monologues infect with a sense of openness of the question, anxiety of search, when a person does not know the final answer, but knows what to look for and at the same time — not to lie to himself.
It gives not only the joy of understanding someone else’s understanding, but also helps us to find the key to the circumstances of our lives ourselves, when events, meetings and seemingly “bare facts” of personal biography are “clothed”, explained, lining up in fate.