Dear Felix,

I haven’t been posting much to this forum lately but I read most of your posts as I received them on my inbox. I understand the contrast you feel between the USSR kind of upbringing and striving to be someone in a capitalist world.

I was born in the USSR too although grew up a little later, in “perestroyka” times, which were very difficult for everyone.  I know what you mean about the comparison as I moved to London at 17 and struggled a lot to deal with that culture.  Harshness is something very familiar to most people from the Soviet Union. And what I see in your posts is how extremely critical and harsh you are with yourself.  Almost as if there is a part of you which hates yourself and thinks deserves to be punished. I can be like that too. And I realise I am the result of the environment I grew up in. and harshness, criticism were very common traits shared among all of us. If you feel this way, have you ever thought it is just a certain pattern you acquired and which later became your habit or personality? It is just a pattern…and patterns can be broken!

I don’t think there is any perfect political or social system and we as humanity keep re-organising ourselves thinking we are progressing or getting better. At the core of it, we are the same as we were 10.000 years ago. Be it in communism or capitalism or any other system. I see the same greed and same problems in both sides. Yes, there are some differences, but there are superficial. Communism didn’t work, neither does capitalism. No other political system will ever work if the aim is to end human misery. Psychologically we are exactly where we were before…  That’s the truth of it. When one actually sees this, it becomes pointless trying to fit with the system’s values. Or giving such importance to them.

To live in this world and earn a living, we all need to have a speciality.  Your inquiry into how to earn a living and not sell your soul is something that troubled most of us, I am sure when we understand ourselves better, the answer will be there for each one of us. I wish you to have a quiet mind and some peace.