The metaphor of fighting gives me strength. I fight depression by floating in the current, brushing teeth, eating and sleeping on schedule or close to it, going outside at least sometimes. What looks like basics is a deal for me. Not really big, yet requiring an effort.

Patient, heal Thyself © 🙌

The most sabotaging feature of depression is that every time it’s wiping out all the meaningfulness from my life. Eating on time? Too weak to get up yet. Sweeping the floor? Postpone as I’m not into it now. Brushing teeth? Not today. Just lie in your bed and breathe normally, trying to float.

However, the fact that the chemical processes in my brain shifted and drifted does not yet mean depression’s supremacy over my life. I just remind myself that every action in my life is another brick in the wall, and to build something great, I need to keep going.

This Idea had a profound effect on me, actually. When the E̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e depression strikes back, I regard every household chore as a small and yet meaningful and determined act of resilience. This is not about hyperbolisation; I’ve been in depression’s chains for 12 years already, and I’m not giving up.

Reading thread starts here:

Crafts thread starts here:

What does the brave new world of socialism look like?

Long story short: famine, racketeering and despair under scorching heatwave.

People exercising power and people left with nothing and nowhere to go. One by one, they fade away, showing their best and worst sides

Being humane matters.

#booksky

>>> One by one, one small detail at a time, you get to see the image of what the southern part of what used to be the Russian empire looked like soon after the 1917 revolution. The fine art of introducing small details makes the storytelling thrillingly vivid. >>>

>>> By the way, have you ever been excited by some location depicted in a story so much that you wanted to go there? Tell me! Because I have a list of travel destinations inspired by books!

#booksky #readingclub #traveldestinations #fiction

>>>

>>> When the reader is exposed to the story at the beginning, what impressed me most was... descriptions of nature. The wording is fascinating.

Due to first financial, then political reasons I have never been to Crimea. With all due respect, now I can say this is one of my dream destinations. >>>

2. «Солнце мёртвых» / The Sun of the Dead

One of the hardest readings in my life. One could never be prepared to this story. Yet I do believe that this book is worth reading. Moreover, for every USSR admirer this book is a must. >>>

#booksky #readingclub #russianliterature #fiction

2. Whatever they say, the people who start wars are often thinking chiefly about domestic politics

5. Wars are easy to start and hard to stop

Photo exchange of motivational minions complete ✅

>>> I have no right neither to forget nor to turn away from. There were no good people, no good nations/ethnicities, no good authorities here. At all.

Violence and murder is never the way.

The scenes of raids and hiding everything you could hide were, too, heartbreaking. Realising that it was only the beginning of the whole era of racketeering, arrests, surplus appropriation system and threats, made the reading ever darker. Yet this is the period of my history that >>>