I’ve been thinking about Moscow again.
I was there in the late spring of 1997. I can still remember gripping the arm rest on the plane as we circled the dachas outside the city.
I was terrified. I thought of Moscow as the “Wild, Wild East” (It turns out it had calmed down considerably since, say, 1994, when the mafiya is reputed to have used subway cars for target practice–while the commuters were still in them.)
But I was researching a novel and somehow I was more curious than afraid.
I fell in love with the city immediately. I loved the energy, the half-intelligible murky soup of Russian, the Caucasian grubbiness of the “things market” and even the black-and-gray crows. It wasn’t anything like the Orwellian clichés of anti-Soviet propaganda. It helps that the city was celebrating its 850th anniversary, so the mayor had ordered that the whole city be given a good paint job.
But it wasn’t really the Byzantine golden domes or the breathtaking scale of Red Square that got me. It was the people.
Every person I met was reinventing himself
Russia had completely overturned its economic system. Everyone needed to find a new way to make a living. The old rules had been thrown out the window, and no one knew what the new rules were going to be.
I remember spending an afternoon with a cynical hipster named Yuri. Before glasnost, he’d been a third-generation propaganda artist. His family had the official license to reproduce Lenin’s signature for political posters. (And before glasnost, political posters were the only kind of posters there were.)
When Yuri was 20, he figured he’d copy Lenin’s signature for the rest of his working life, as his father had done. When overnight that turned out not to be viable, he became a Photoshop wiz and started hitting up the new breed of entrepreneurs. He started teaching them about this whole advertising thing, even while he was learning it himself.
On the side, he was a rock star. Rock stars still needed day jobs in 1997.
That was Moscow.
The illusion of privilege
Yuri was also a documentary filmmaker. He showed us some video he’d just shot in Paris, of three sullen French boys in black leather complaining about unemployment.
We watched it and laughed until tears ran down our faces. Even me, who had only been in Moscow a few days.
It was preposterous to watch these overgrown children sit on their Versace-clad backsides and bitch. These were not the lean, angry boys from outside the city, who truly are locked out of opportunity. They were privileged kids with superb educations whose parents had tony apartments in fashionable neighborhoods.
It was shocking to listen to them whine about the fact that not everything was being handed to them any more. To watch them smoke cigarette after cigarette and wish things would get more comfortable, so they could go back to sleep.
Watching them from Moscow, a cauldron of hustle and reinvention and drive, was ludicrous. But if I’d first encountered them through friends in Paris, I probably would have felt badly for them.
I’m not calling you a crybaby
Believe me, you’re nothing like these three pouty boys were. I have no patience with people who say that the recession has been “manufactured by the media,” or that the sickening economic crisis is “just in your head.”
If you’ve just been laid off, that’s not in your head. If your mortgage is due and you don’t know how to pay it, that’s not manufactured by anyone. It’s hard and it’s real and you have my empathy.
We’ve all been shaken up hard. You have every right to be scared.
Maybe this shake-up isn’t quite glasnost, but it’s getting there. Maybe we aren’t in Moscow yet, but we can see it from here.
So rather than freefalling, leap.
Obsessively study something new. Take massive action. Throw away your TV. Find the partner who will put the last piece into place. (Yes, Partnering Profits is closed now, but it will open up again.)
Start a side business or a second job or a third, something that can break you out to a completely new place.
Feel like you’ve been spinning your wheels?
Have you been trying to create a business online, or to build a content net that can support you? Trying to make something happen, but not seeing any movement?
Maybe you haven’t been spinning your wheels after all. Maybe you’ve been getting ready for take-off.
In 10 years, look back at this as the time you faced disaster by reinventing yourself and creating something truly new.
The winds are shifting. We’re rewriting all the rules. This is the time to be more curious than afraid.
This is brilliant Sonia – so many layers to it, so many stories, so much point.
Thanks.
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What an interesting story about Yuri–and an inspirational one. I’m certainly the soft Parisians in the story, but I’ve been building for a time as well. Your point is well taken. If I’m going to take off at some point, why not now? Thanks for the post.
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rock on, sonia. now is the moment of power. the engines of novelty are cranking out vibrations of change and the ground is ripe for new seeds. just like the soil in a garden becomes depleted when it grows the same thing season after season, yet bursts into life with the introduction of new varieties, so has the ground of our being begun to reject the old ideas and nourish the new.
not only is right now the best bet for our own personal transformation/reinvention, that very transformation/reinvention right now is also the best hope for a future that continues to open itself enthusiastically to creativity and self expression.
thanks for the shot in the arm. or was that a kick in the…
peace in chaos,
chas
chass last blog post..the gift economy
Hi Sonia,
That was beautiful, compelling , inspiring and a much needed shot in the arm during these scary transitional times. It’s great to be reminded that when something dies it clears the way for something new to be born and that destruction of an old pattern or way of life or way of being is an integral part of the cycle of creation.
Thanks for the call to courageously and curiously embrace the opportunity for reinvention!
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This one was truly a keeper, Sonia. Thank you.
Jean Gogolins last blog post..A Fresh Look at the Despised Cliche
Amazing Sonia! This is the kind of article I most love to read. Stories like yours make us feel so much – absolutely inspiring.
Ironically, I posted an article on fear yesterday that’s more fundamental. I just sent yours out to the entire CAREEREALISM Career Network as a follow up and told them to send it to everyone they know who needs to bury the fear.
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I like the subtlety of your ass-kicking skills Sonia. It’s like you’re gentling easing the baby birds out of the nest instead of dumping the nest on the ground.
Fly little birdies! Fly! You can do it! Weeeee!
(Okay, it’s obvious I’ve been reading too many blogs and must stop for the day).
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndromes last blog post..Measuring the Changes: Lab-Rat Wrap Up Part 1
This was beautiful Sonia (I threw away my TV two years ago and I definitely wouldn’t have Writer Dad if I was still watching).
One of my favorite people I ever met was named Dmitri. He came over from Minsk in ’97. He was so full of vibrant life and hunger for opportunity. He came to the country not being able to speak a word of English and spoke it as well as any of my friends within a year. Thanks for bringing him to my mind this morning.
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Phil Graham move over, Sonia is in town. Girly girl you are beyond right about this. Absolutely wonderfully written, but more importantly true, true , true.
Right there on the run way with you, sheesh, now if the plane had tires….working on it. Working on it. 😉
Very very cool.
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Thank you all! I was proud of this one, so thanks for the comment love. 🙂
I haven’t actually been back to Moscow. The more time that goes by, the less I want to go. I’d like to preserve that fragile, amazing time in my mind. I wish I could magically give you all a snapshot of the faces I saw there, everyone exhilarated and scared to death at the same time. It was such a privilege to see and (in a limited way) share.
Wonderful Sonia. Just what we need in these trying times, a little push on the self confidence. My #1 rule to live by, “Have no fear.”
Jamess last blog post..Warning, the Wolf is at Your Door
It’s funny how certain places have a energy and a *feel* about them that you just can’t find anywhere else. I find that Sedona is not like Key West is not like Seattle.
J.D. Meiers last blog post..Lessons Learned from Peaceful Warrior
This is one of those awesome posts that actually makes me excited. Excited about doing stuff, taking one of those nutty ideas scampering about in my brain and actually try moving forward with it. Or sideways, or upside down…just moving 🙂
Thanks for prose that motivates!
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James, you always have a calming effect on me, thank you. 🙂
Go Zoe go!
This post totally fired me up! Call me naive but I’m really excited to see what changes are coming in our culture and economy. I’ve seen a lot of talk of the recession combining with the attitudes of younger generations leading to a COOPERATIVE business system instead of a competitive one. I’m certainly doing my part to try and make that happen!
You’ve got something here – what you’re saying is despite the dismal, scary economic conditions here, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to have faith, take the leap and make a change even when “outside conditions” indicate you shouldn’t do. At least that’s my perspective.
Take me for instance. I decided when I was given an opportunity to look at a business opportunity to jump in and get my new online business up and running despite how some people might think “it’s not the right time.”
Truth be told, bad economic conditions or not, there’s never really a “right time.” Either you do it or you don’t.
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good point stephen, about the “right time.” starting a business or making a leap is a lot like breaking up…there never is a good time, there is always a good reason to wait…holidays, birthdays, economic conditions…if god had waited for the right time to manifest as universe we’d all still be floating about in undifferentiated nothingness. and even though there are discrete moments in which I might prefer that state of affairs…
now is the moment of power!
peace to all of you leapers, movers, booty shakers!
chas
chass last blog post..friday afternoon update! 9: i’ve got a secret
“Maybe you haven’t been spinning your wheels after all. Maybe you’ve been getting ready for take-off.”
This is brilliant! Thank you so much for putting things into perspective.
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High quality writing on the Internet. Yay! I found you through Copyblogger & am delighted to find you’ve also got this site. I’m signing up! Many thanks! P. 🙂