"Gurdjieff, G I - Beelzebubs Tales To His Grandson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gurdjieff G I)

every cause occurring in the life of man, from whatever phenomenon it arises, as one of two opposite
effects of other causes, is in its turn obligatorily molded also into two quite opposite effects, as for
instance: if "something" obtained from two different causes engenders light, then it must inevitably
engender a phenomenon opposite to it, that is to say, darkness; or a factor engendering in the organism of
a living creature an impulse of palpable satisfaction also engenders without fail nonsatisfaction, of course
also palpable, and so on and so forth, always and in everything.
Adopting in the same given instance this popular wisdom formed by centuries and expressed by a stick,
which, as was said, indeed has two ends, one end of which is considered good and the other bad, then if I
use the aforesaid automatism which was acquired in me thanks only to long practice, it will be for me
personally of course very good, but according to this saying, there must result for the reader just the
opposite; and what the opposite of good is, even every nonpossessor of haemorrhoids must very easily
understand.
Briefly, if I exercise my privilege and take the good end of the stick, then the bad end must inevitably fall
"on the reader's head."
This may indeed happen, because in Russian the so to say "niceties" of philosophical questions cannot be
expressed, which questions I intend to touch upon in my writings also rather fully, whereas in Armenian,
although this is possible, yet to the misfortune of all contemporary Armenians, the employment of this
language for contemporary notions has now already become quite impracticable.
In order to alleviate the bitterness of my inner hurt owing to this, I must say that in my early youth, when
I became interested in and was greatly taken up with philological questions, I preferred the Armenian
language to all others I then spoke, even to my native language.
This language was then my favorite chiefly because it was original and had nothing in common with the
neighboring or kindred languages.
As the learned "philologists" say, all of its tonalities were peculiar to it alone, and according to my
understanding even then, it corresponded perfectly to the psyche of the people composing that nation.
But the change I have witnessed in that language during the last thirty or forty years has been such, that
instead of an original independent language coming to us from the remote past, there has resulted and
now exists one, which though also original and independent, yet represents, as might be said, a "kind of
clownish potpourri of languages", the totality of the consonances of which, falling on the ear of a more or
less conscious and understanding listener, sounds just like the "tones" of Turkish, Persian, French, Kurd,
and Russian words and still other "indigestible" and inarticulate noises.
Almost the same might be said about my native language, Greek, which I spoke in childhood and, as
might be said, the "taste of the automatic associative power of which" I still retain. I could now, I dare
say, express anything I wish in it, but to employ it for writing is for me impossible, for the simple and
rather comical reason that someone must transcribe my writings and translate them into the other
languages. And who can do this?
It could assuredly be said that even the best expert of modern Greek would understand simply nothing of
what I should write in the native language I assimilated in childhood, because, my dear "compatriots", as
they might be called, being also inflamed with the wish at all costs to be like the representatives of
contemporary civilization also in their conversation, have during these thirty of forty years treated my
dear native language just as the Armenians, anxious to become Russian intelligentsia, have treated theirs.
That Greek language, the spirit and essence of which were transmitted to me by heredity, and the
language now spoken by contemporary Greeks, are as much alike as, according to the expression of
Mullah Nassr Eddin, "a nail is like a requiem."
What is now to be done?
Ah … me! Never mind, esteemed buyer of my wiseacrings. If only there be plenty of French armagnac
and "Khaizarian bastourma", I shall find a way out of even this difficult situation.
I am an old hand at this.
In life, I have so often got into difficult situations and out of them, that this has become almost a matter
of habit for me.