"We are on a journey of life. We do not know where it leads us nor we know how it is going to end. One thing is certain - we are on a journey. What we seek we do not know for often we realize that the things we sought and fought for are not the things we need and not the things were really looking for. Life is a mystery, but mystery with a purpose. Had we known the purpose of our lives would we still pursue it? If the purpose was given to us would we still agree with it? Are we free to make our own choice and make up our own purpose? Are we free to make the decision? Are you free? Freedom though meant as a blessing but for some is a curse. What submissive ones thirst for the defiant reject; purpose not to be given, but found. Freedom though meant as a blessing but for some is a curse. What submissive ones thirst for the defiant reject; purpose not to be given, but found.
What I seek is truth, nothing more, nothing less. And my quest is of knowledge, of knowing, of experience. If there is higher purpose it must surely guide me for I find myself in mysterious places."
I was born on May 1st, 1975 in Smolensk, a millennia old town with population of 350,000 situated 250 miles to the west from Moscow. Ravaged by many wars the city still stands in its magnificence. Burnt and destroyed countless times by Polish, Napoleonic and German armies Smolensk had always managed to rise from its ashes and therefore bears Phoenix on its coat of arms. Paying yearly homage to my city of birth it pains me immensely to see desolation and neglect that reign in the city since the demise of the Soviet Union in fateful 1992. Great country gone its people are exiled, degraded and systematically exterminated. The war is not over still for its traces are seen everywhere. Covering the area greater than that of Netherlands and Belgium the region of Smolensk boasted population of over 2 million in 1941. Only 1.2 million were counted fifty years later, and only 1.1 million are there today decreasing each year by 30 thousand. Driving north of Smolensk for 70 miles I could not help but wonder whether the last war lasted for 4 or for sixty years. The barren single-lane road took me through abandoned shrub-grown fields, ruins of collective farms and desolate villages. Not a single human being, not even an animal to be seen for miles and miles around. Observing the landscape one gets an eerie feeling that Wermacht had marched their just yesterday or if some evil wind had swept all living souls out of this place. At last after two hours driving I got to my destination and finally saw people. For the first time in my life a fear struck my heart, a fear that I could be listening to the Phoenix's last song.
A Slavophil by nature I used to scorn over the fate of the country, which once was so great yet had fallen so low and keeps sinking still. Pondering the matter I became convinced that this premeditated act was further catalyzed by the industrial age. Loosing the drive to procreate those industrialized countries will fall first, whose nations have the highest potential for self-sacrifice and lowest value of life, all the attributes of Russia and its people.
But there is hope, too in Pandora's box.
When I graduated from high school in 1992 everyone was scared. The age of idealism. Deprived on national idea the country was left without a purpose, and you could see it in people's eyes. It was the time when I made my first choice: I scrapped my life-long dream and love of physics and decided to apply to the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering and study computers instead. I was thinking of making a living amidst the turmoil of change. Dwelling on fried bread and hearing people being beaten and killed by my door at the dormitory I survived, even got married! and graduated in 1997 with Masters in Computer Engineering. Then I fled, fled to the United States like so many before me. I felt that in my escape I was saving myself from filth and corruption, which surely would have overcame me had I stayed in the country.
For the next seven years I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma working as a computer consultant and enjoying the American way of life, which nevertheless I could not make my own. Perhaps my most important observation is that the words American and freedom although considered synonymous are in fact antonyms! This country is the least free from all countries I know (and I have seen a few) for you cannot do anything or even own anything (much less parent a child) without a blessing of the government. In the US nobody can own anything, even wealthy ones are forced to pay rent to the government (in the form of taxes) for the luxuries they possess. You pay your mortgage for 30 years, but you pay Uncle Sam forever and if you fail to make a payment on your tax your house will be taken away from you and auctioned off. The same rule albeit in a slightly different forms applies to parenting: you live your child under age of 13 at home unattended, somebody reports it and you get a warning. If you do it again and somebody reports it again you get a 'family evaluation' at which point your child may be transferred to a foster family. Regardless of all of the shortcomings of the shark life of perpetual swimming that American way of life imposes this country has a huge advantage - the supremacy of law. Not freedom, but law makes this country unique, while unchecked freedom and total lack of laws in Russia make Sodom and Gomorra bleak in comparison.
Still, after first chasing then living the American dream I came up against a crisis. The crisis of purpose, from which I emerged by resuming writing music and conducting research in astrophysics.
Inspired by revelations that dawned upon me I seriously considered following through with my original dream of a career in physics. Pursuing the matter energetically I was disgusted to discover that contemporary science has nothing to do with the quest of truth I was associating it with, that it is all about money, careers and self-glorificating snobbism. The professional ethics and the code of scientific conduct is at all times low. I thought that my observations must have been in error somehow until I stumbled upon established scientists -
Tom van Flandern, Halton Arp and Zecharia Sitchin - with whom I shared the opinion and experiences. The latter have profoundly influenced me and solidified my belief in major crisis in Academia, which can lead to two things - revolution and abandoning of dogmas or stagnation and the the new dark age caused by systematic inquisition of original thought.
Once I realized that the way of mainstream Academia is futile I scrapped my plans for joining the ranks of academics. I can do more when I am not bound by the framework that is failing so badly. Thank god for Internet and libraries: they truly make the world flat and knowledge unobstructed.
This is where I am now. Living next door to a major university (PennState, University Park Campus) I am determined to keep making my living by writing music and software (consulting) services while pursuing my research and my ultimate quest for truth.
I know one day I will walk on Mars, sail Ethane seas of Titan and land on Nibiru among the Annunaki. I know this will happen. This is my way.
