Exercises inВ Loneliness. Unfinished Essays

Julia Shuvalova

Exercises in Loneliness is a collection of philosophical essays on a common topic of solitude that started as a series of blog posts. “There is something romantic and legendary about loneliness because every knight searches for the Holy Grail on his own. Even the best fairytales are born out of an extreme loneliness. So the secret is to stop asking to be saved and to start saving others. Before long you will see how your own loneliness subsides – like a tide that runs away with sunrise”.

Exercises inВ Loneliness

Unfinished Essays

Julia Shuvalova

© Julia Shuvalova, 2017

ISBNВ 978-5-4474-0850-3

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Exercises inВ Loneliness

For my grandmother (1924—2014) and my mother

Preface

This is my first book. Like some of the first books, it’s taken a while to write. The genre of “unfinished essays” meant for quite a long time that I was writing occasional posts on my blog without a specific goal to turn them into a collection. Then it became obvious that it was possible to assemble them into a collection… and just about that time I gradually began to lose interest in the topic.

Regardless of circumstances, the essays are now ready to face the world. The book consists entirely of my essays and poems. In writing and then assembling the essays I went from irregular sketches on the topic of loneliness and solitude to a more concerted effort to share my views in the hope that someone may find them useful and benefit from my opinion or experience. Of course, this method can also be regarded as a means to combat loneliness. However, I genuinely believe there is something to benefit from in these texts. I’ve got a long way to go to reach the age and experience of Casanova, but on occasion of these essays I share the same attitude to letting others see into my inner world: my life is my subject, and my subject is my life.

Throughout the book you will find references to people whose work and thought has influenced, supported and developed me, so I won’t mention them here. And I don’t mention by name anyone who participated in creating the experiences that prompted me to write the essays. Some of them are physically gone, others I don’t want to name for a reason. Strictly speaking, although I couldn’t help drawing on some of my personal experiences, I never considered them as mine only. They were mine as far as my own circumstances were concerned, but they could be yours, too. The way I look at it, I describe some typical situations that one of my readers may have experienced.

I want to dedicate this book to my family. I published enough work for my grandma to see her prediction coming true, for I have become a writer. But I never managed to complete a book for her to know about it, at least. My mother will undoubtedly be proud. I owe her a bigger part of the home library and an undying support of my efforts and projects. Last but not least, I shall follow in the footsteps of those eccentric academics who thank their pets. I am very thankful to my pets for blissfully sleeping, while I was finishing the collection, and proving me right: loneliness subsides when you help and share your time and effort with those who need it. This is why, after some thinking, I added a short story, Felina Petrarcae, at the end of the book. It wasn’t composed as a complement to Exercises in Loneliness, but as it touches upon a similar subject, I thought it was a fitting addition.

В В В В Julia Shuvalova, Moscow, FebruaryВ 2015

Introduction

I am writing a series of essays, Exercises in Loneliness. The title came from out of the blue, but I like its ambiguity, or better put – the variety of interpretations that the title has in other languages. I think, in one way or another, I will be writing this series forever, yet now I must stop somewhere to make further reflection possible. So I stop here… to cont