I've spent a lot of time in the former USSR. Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita was recommended to me by a former soviet. The book impressed me. It's a fun read. I highly recommend it. I found that it has been read by nearly everyone in the former USSR.
I've always loved Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. I was surprised when I learned that Sympathy for the Devil was inspired by The Master and Margarita, but then it all made sense.
(I've been to Bulgakov's house in Kyiv (Kiev))
As a youth and a young man, this song had made a strong impression on me. When I was young, I had strong feelings of nostalgia and endless thoughts of "what if". I remember that self of old, but he isn't me anymore. The self is not constant. It is difficult to say when a former self fades and a new self arises. What I do know is that there have been many selves that have come and gone. Some threads persist, from beginning to end. Perhaps that is the true essence of self, what persists throughout the transitions from one self to another? The only threads that have persisted are a love for knowledge, a love for language, a love for exploration, and a strong feeling of empathy. The rest, however, consists of fleeting fancy, misunderstood relationships, errors that provided lessons, successes that never satisfied, and the baggage of memories - memories that fade, not in their content, but in intensity. Those I missed, I no longer miss. Those I thought I understood, I now understand better and am glad to have taken a different fork in the road than they took. I would rather perish than return to a former self. I would rather go forward into the unknown than "to go home". Life is journey. The stops along the way are like info-points in a museum. Read them. Think about them. Move on.
