Homo Ludus (English edition)
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Gustav smiled. He liked this approach to things. Always liked it – whether someone suited you or not, always look at how they do something. Learn, not envy. It's much more useful and productive.
"You say that about Americans. – said Gustav, turning his eyes with interest from the treetops to his interlocutor. – As if you were counseling them on these matters."
The Spaniard smiled, his swarthy features gleaming slightly, yet retaining a certain masculine roughness; he was certainly popular with the women: black hair, almost as black as the earth, tactful manners, strikingly precise and quick in character, and very successful, giving no doubt about the legality of his illegal income.
"Gustav, you remember what I do… My father did the same thing for Franco – the dictator always had problems with his neighbors and with everyone around him, especially after he was the only tyrant in Western Europe, and he'd cooperated with the Nazis before that, not everyone was sure they'd want him in his place… But you had to survive…" Vincent waggled his eyebrow, as if trying to confirm his thought with more than just words, and then continued: "You can't survive without oil in the modern world, you know, and it's a very fast commodity, a tradable commodity – the livelier the economy, the faster it eats it up, nobody ever thought about the population… So that's what I'm getting at. From the outside, it looks very vague that you can hold on to some left transportation for a long and stable time, but it is not so. And it's everywhere "not so" – any thing, any process, seemingly impermanent, can actually become so. And, believe me, in time, when you work out and adjust everything, smuggling is much easier and faster than crowding and fiddling with filling out declarations and going through customs inspections. And the best example is the flow of drugs from Latin America to the United States. It seems that they catch it in containers along the whole route and strangle it at the production sites, but it does not become less… Actually, what I am saying. Americans. They're hated all over the planet, I guess. It's like they behave defiantly, live at the expense of others. Well, that's true, of course, but it didn't just fall out of the sky. It all came from their system. System, that's what I'm saying. It's all done "scientifically", let's say. Like the Roman Empire used to be. Like McDonald's now. It's very simple, very clear, very well practiced. And, most importantly, there are general rules that have to be observed. For example, in the U.S. system of government, such a system is called "checks and balances" – one body does not let the other go beyond its limits, and the entire state apparatus is permeated in this way. And so is the legal system, and so are elections. Of course, everything is not perfect, but no one has ever thought of anything better. "Worthy," Gustav nodded. His interlocutor's monologue clearly satisfied him in the part of the answer, and it was evident that this answer had long been formed, thought over, corrected, but perhaps submitted to someone for evaluation for the first time.
"So, my father, when he started smuggling crude oil for Franco, had also heard enough that his volumes would accomplish nothing, because only large-scale government volumes, possible only by open means, made sense, and he said that anything systemic mattered. And he turned out to be right… Of course, his achievements did not cover all the needs, but it was enough to survive in those conditions, especially when his methods were applied in different directions". This time the Irishman said nothing. It was clear that he agreed. He only nodded – his interlocutor had given him some thoughts about what was missing from the whole. Just that systematicity. I mean, it was there, of course, on some level, but it was all grounded and developed empirically, after a number of mistakes and misconceptions. There was no doubting Gustav's skill and ability to manipulate people and provoke the right situations, but it worked on a case-bycase basis – there was no common goal or connection in all this… And it was worth doing.
Gustav looked inside the glass – bourbon, a radiant brown liquid, sweet corn. It had once been just moonshine. From Kentucky. Then it became Kentucky moonshine. Then it became seasonal Kentucky moonshine from Kentucky oak barrels. Then it was called bourbon. Systemic. That's the reason this liquor became bourbon, and booze from neighboring Virginia remained just one "of". "So the U.S. is so all about being systemic. – "said the Irishman in the affirmative. – And what explains such selectivity in them. Did it fall out of the sky?" Vincent smiled: "If it had come from the sky, my friend, I wouldn't have lived more than a generation… It's all very attractive, of course, when the best things seem to come from somewhere above, from the unruly peaks, so to speak. But it's the opposite in this life. All the achievements, all the successes, all the incredible accomplishments come from the pit. If you like, from the cesspool." – Oh, yeah!
–
That's right. – The Spaniard smiled sweetly once more. – Where do you get your boxing champions from: Brooklyn or Disneyland? Nobel laureates, where did they grow up and establish themselves as a person, in the suburbs of Malmo? Do businessmen who create commercial empires from nothing come from Brussels and Hamburg? No. These people were overwhelmingly born and formed in some hellish asshole where, figuratively speaking, you can't even get sunlight if you get a visa. They grew up there and decided that they needed something more, and then they just got into the taste… Look at the biographies of great people – it's the road to death, not a descent from Olympus to people for demonstration."
–
Not bad. It's not bad at all. What does the United States have to do with this? – Well, look at the beginning, it's the land of scum. When they were a colony, beggars, fugitives, felons, criminals, of course, prostitutes and just plain losers in life went there. To start a new life…as you can see, they succeeded. And for one simple reason – they have already been to the bottom to realize one simple and only thing – they don't belong at the bottom. And also, as you can see now, they are already determining where the bottom will be. That's where systematicity comes from.
–
From dirt to princes, then.
–
It's a Russian phraseology. But look, even in this expression, there's something pejorative. Russians don't like such things. They need: if you were born in a palace, you live there, if you were born a merchant, you have to pull your own weight. All your life. A kind of voluntary fatalism. On the one hand, it's kind of gloomy to think that you will stay down there, and most of it is exactly there. And on the other hand – the soul is calm. You don't decide anything, so you die and go to heaven. That's the essence of Orthodoxy. In the West, they won't even think of such things. And if you have achieved something on your own, you are not "from dirt to princes", but you are a selfmademan – a man who has made himself. And there it causes respect, not quiet envy.
Gustav grinned: "You're a Russophobe!" and drank the bourbon in a gulp. Vincent finished his fourth glass: "I don't really care what you call it, to be honest. You can't change people, but you can learn to understand them better, or rather where-what comes from in them… And now the main trend is to be in the trend… The playfulness of the person playing. When the benefit of the game becomes an end in itself. The original goal was to find yourself in this game, to be yourself… But the tool turned out to be so sweet that it replaced the very essence of this game. Not the game for you, but now you are for the game. You're not yourself. You're always in something. Your family, or your job. Maybe your friends. Or maybe God. Or in your worries. Even if you're totally selfish, you're not in yourself, then you're in a bunch of little things that are for you: suits, cars, or your own face. Anything but yourself. You can't be in yourself. It would be a clinic, a madhouse… If you're in yourself… And why would you want to be in yourself?
You're not the center of the universe, even if you want to be. You don't want to be, you just think you are. You don't understand what comes next, what it's for. And this stupid and unconscious "I wanted it that way" only ruins even the most selfcentered personalities. And it ruins not from the side of everyone else, but from the side of yourself. When you start to prove and justify your own actions, invented not by yourself, but only by yourself and made. And it would be good to prove it to someone – you will prove it to yourself, as if defending the fact of your existence. And the more you defend it, the less of you there really is. Gustav never thought of hurting this man. Or death. And it wasn't that he didn't deserve it. It was just that the man was a great conversationalist, something like himself. Destroying him would be like heating the stove with a book with his face on the cover: it might get warm, but there wouldn't be enough of the book to go around, not to mention the fact that there was plenty of other, more suitable material than the structured volume of clever thoughts stored on paper. And Vincent seemed to realize that, not so much that he was in no danger, but that his interlocutor was dangerous. And not to say that it was appealing in any way, but it added to the interest of the whole thing, and made him want to talk about things he wouldn't normally want to think about.
The biggest similarity they had was in their approach. They both looked at people as if from the outside. Usually you look at people who aren't in your life, people who are in the news, people who don't concern you at all. But they looked at everyone that way. As if they didn't have a life of their own, as if no one could be in it.
Yet there is much more power in gentleness. Even when it comes to inanimate objects – take your time, be as timely and natural as water in a stream filling a vast lake or even a river turning into a sea. The natural current never meets with any resistance, and if it deals with something sensible, that sensible thing considers it its duty not only not to hinder but to help it. Such an original natural law is to preserve and maintain the natural. One only has to pretend to be this natural, and one can consider oneself a winner. Whether you are a person, a state, a system, or an alcoholic beverage. Maybe even an insect – like the false queen of the ants, who only pretends to be a queen but does not fulfill any of her functions, and the ants will feed her and guard her and do whatever is necessary to keep her alive, but get nothing in return. And all this only because she is natural, naturally occupying a place that is not her own and not meant for her.