Sublimity of simplicity

 

My dear… how are you? It has been a long time since we last saw each other. Of course, you must have wondered what has happened to me. And I, too, wonder what has happened to you.

I have not written to you for months. Yes. But I will not apologize for that, because, frankly, there was no way to reach you. The authorities in the camp would not allow it. Why? They claimed that remembering our loved ones would weaken our capacity to work. Excuses like that. At its core, it was nothing but punishment.

Why should a prisoner have rights? If I have fallen into this place, am I even still human? Why would I deserve any kind of better treatment?

But in the end… they allowed me to write to you. It turns out it was never entirely forbidden. We are permitted to send one letter every three months to those we love. That is something, isn’t it?

I wonder how you have been spending your time without me since we parted. Those deserted night walks through empty streets… those quiet hours when we read side by side without speaking… those dreamlike moments when we climbed to the high edges of the city and watched distant strangers moving below us…

Sometimes we would rescue plants and flowers that their owners had grown tired of and thrown away, placing them back into soil. A corner of our home became entirely devoted to them. Like a small botanical garden. And how beautifully they smelled…

We used to feed the cats that had been chased away from everywhere. Sometimes they scratched us. But the wounds would heal, and we would simply laugh. We would watch how their tiny tongues lapped the milk from the plate. Was this the organism? Is this what life is made of? What is it like to be a cat?

Then we would sit and ask each other, “If I were a cat, would you still love me?” The answer was always yes—because we loved not merely the identity, but the consciousness itself.

Later we would get proper meals from the nearest shops for children who asked for bread, and feed them until they were full. We would give them clothes, even toys. Most importantly, we would tell them not to hope—only in that way could they endure, when years passed and they began to notice the stench of the sewer pit into which they had fallen.

“Then why did you help us?” they would ask, with a pure curiosity in their eyes that the world had not yet extinguished. We would simply smile. And they would understand that we were saying it not in sorrow, but in acceptance.

You cannot do these things anymore. Then again, this is not new for you. You spent decades in this world with no awareness of my existence; you can spend a few more decades without me as well.

Right now, I am placing these words one after another without even knowing whether you are still alive. My wish is that you are still there. Because know this: distances cannot divide us, not as long as nothing and no one can reach the bond that exists within our souls.

You must be wondering how I am. Very well. I will spare you the chatter. Life here is not fundamentally different. Only the routine is harsher, more extreme—but in the end, it is still a routine, and no matter how monotonous, my mind knows how to navigate it.

I find a strange satisfaction in merely being alive now, because I have no hope left—and that, in turn, simplifies my existence, allowing me, even in my weariness, to derive a quiet, almost hidden pleasure from it.

Here, everyone stays in two-person rooms. Everyone is assigned a mandatory roommate. Isn’t that better than the dormitories, at least for me? Sleeping exposed in the middle of everyone would have been torture. A roommate, though still an intrusion on my solitude, is far more bearable. If this person had been intolerable, this place could have become a complete nest of terror for my spirit.

Yet even within the monotony, there is amusement. Because there are all kinds of people: painters, writers, engineers, farmers. Why so many here? They opposed the government, and the government, in turn, struck at anyone who opposed it. Its paranoid aggression allowed them to cram all these people—regardless of their interests or values—into a single commune.

Thus, this place is like a zoo. And since there are so many different kinds of “animals,” I find myself eager to observe them all, and this gives me a sense of childlike wonder, despite being confined.

The routine consists of hard labor. It lasts ten hours a day, six days a week—from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. We dig the mines in the cold, regardless of whether we freeze or not. They have made us miners who work without pay. Even when breaks are occasionally allowed, anyone attempting to slack off is whipped, because we are under constant surveillance.

I used to worry about what people thought of me, feeling shy in their presence. Now, the same awareness stirs fear—and therefore a sense of control—rather than comparison or self-doubt. Shyness is not even possible, because there is no trace of comfort here. Because I am no longer in civilian life; I am in the wild. And, in fact, the harshness of this place lets my lungs breathe in a way they never could before.

Here, my life has been reduced to mere survival. Only two meals are provided each day: lunch and dinner. I approach them with a kind of sweet fatigue, sitting at the noisy wooden tables where everyone gathers and eating my portion. Usually, it is the same—simple food. Occasionally, on certain days, they offer tastier or different meals to prevent rebellion, and honestly, I spend my days merely anticipating these. Most others do the same.

There are card games. Many play them because there is nothing else to do. Sometimes they show a film. But most are so exhausted that if the film is calm, they usually fall asleep while watching.

As for me, I usually content myself with writing. I have no interest in cards or films. I merely stand among the others to observe, and I feel not disgust but acceptance—because we are all prisoners of this place, and does that alone not make us, in some sense, companions? There is not a single rogue or “troubled” type here; it is as if a deliberate selection was made. Then… how could I be angry with them?

Everyone chases only fleeting pleasures, because there is no lasting solution here by structure, and this inevitably creates a certain sincerity in its superficiality. I like that, because it makes me feel accepted without having to be invited.

When evening falls and I return to my room, I can devote a few hours to myself, and during that time I focus more intensely on my writing. But yes, I have a roommate—which means there is no true solitude, which means I cannot reach the phase of pure efficiency in which I function at my most optimal.

Yet, honestly, he is no ordinary person. He is someone who inspires me. Like a character stepped out of a novel or a story: an elderly madman.

When I say “mad,” what comes to mind? Someone who talks to himself, who laughs and shouts, who takes nothing seriously, who lives entirely in his own world and is content with it all… in other words, a being of rare value, someone who must be witnessed.

Yes. He talks to himself. Even in the middle of the night, he sometimes rises, whispers something, and then lies back down and falls asleep again. Perhaps he is not speaking to himself at all, but to others who inhabit his own world.

When I listen closely, I hear words that make no sense. Not phrases like “I see you” or “I hear it.” It sounds like another language altogether. Meaningless mutterings. And yet he knows how to speak.

What is he saying in those moments? Are these merely simple episodes of sleepwalking? I do not think so. I believe he has already found his own language—and because he speaks in it, we, foreigners to that language, cannot understand him.

I have been observing him for a long time. There is a certain closeness between us, even if we can actively interact only a few hours a day. And in him I notice something unsettling: he wants nothing.

Was he never taught to desire? How can someone not want? Yet he does not. He is content to be here. Perhaps happier than all of us. Is it because he is foolish? No. It is because he sees everything from an inverted perspective.

What difference would intelligence make, anyway? While I drift uncontrollably into thoughts in the mine just to find a spark of stimulation, I almost bring the pickaxe down on my own foot and notice it just in time. He, on the other hand, can strike the same stone for hours without boredom, even if it never breaks. He has eliminated disillusionment.

In the mornings, as soon as I get up, I sometimes wake him and say, “Good morning.” Sometimes he says nothing. Sometimes he says, “Get lost.” Sometimes, “Good morning to you too.” Any response at all—or none. He is free. From this man, I have more to learn than from philosophers.

We work in the same mine. So we walk together. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we do not. As soon as we arrive at the site, we dissolve into the crowd. Since we work apart, we only say goodbye to each other in the morning and again at lunch.

There are nights when I have fun with him, sometimes. For instance, when neither of us can sleep. During these times, we talk. And as I speak, I say every word fully aware of the impossibility of truly understanding each other—and I feel happiness, not sadness, in that awareness.

Here is an example of a brief dialogue:

He: “Are you watching me? Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Me: “Why does it matter to you? My eyes don’t need to be closed for me to sleep.”
He: “They don’t? Look… you’re awake! How can you hear me then? Do you sleep without actually falling asleep?”
Me: “Is such a thing even possible?”
He: “I don’t know. You say you do it, though.”
Me: “Did I say it like that? No… you understood it that way. I think you should sleep. Why are you awake, then?”
He: “I’m thinking.”
Me: “About what?”
He: “About why I am not sleeping.”
Me: “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
He: “Maybe I am sleeping…”

Then… silence for the rest of the night.

Once, he pressed strange stones into my hand as we were leading to the mine and said, “These are stones of joy. Guard them. Today will be difficult. You’ll need them during the day.”

Even though no day is truly different from another, and the stones are nothing more than stones, I still keep them as if they are mythical jewels.

Once, I showed him my writings, because my constant attention to my papers had made him curious. So I let him read them. He told me to choose a single sentence, saying he did not understand all of it.

I showed him this one: “Society is a game presented under the guise of reality, but at its core, it is nothing more than a costume party.”

When I saw the expression that crossed his face as he read it, I felt like laughing. Not out of contempt, but because of the sheer absurdity of presenting something like that to someone from an entirely different world. It was like carrying water into the desert and showing it to people who had never seen water in their lives.

He first asked me, “What does that even mean?” I said nothing, because he was genuinely thinking, and I did not want to interrupt that process. So there was a stretch of silence.

Then he said, “So… do you mean that the guards over there are actually on our side?” That answer made me laugh inwardly. This man was my source of entertainment. Because after all that intense seriousness on his face, such a conclusion would emerge.

He did not ask why I was writing. Nor why we were here now. Nor whether something called “here” even existed. Nor why, from the very beginning, the restless mind compulsively thinks about these things without gaining anything real. None of it concerned him, because his world was simple. Because he needed nothing at all. Complexity is a result of dependence—and therefore, slavery, including mine: slavery to intellect.

After reading my writing and thinking it over, he returned to his bed. And with one of the pens I had given him, he continued drawing strange shapes on his wall.

The next day, he even managed to take some of the papers with my “strange writings” to the people in the next room, just so they could read them too. Clearly, he showed interest, even if he did not understand. He didn’t need to understand.

That is the kind of person he is: simple. But there is no disgust in me. I do not see him as ignorant. I see him as different. I could trade everyone else in the camp for this man: even if they all vanished and only he remained, I could be content. I love him.

In this way, despite coming from entirely separate worlds, we are able to meet in a shared space. In other words, I have found a home here that I could never find anywhere outside. For the first time, I feel so little alienation, because here, alienation itself is treated as a norm and, naturally, is not regarded as alien.

Here, as long as you do not cross the authorities, you can be as mad as you like—and that freedom brings a certain calm to the spirit. Even though I labor like a slave all day, I have never before accessed such a simple happiness. I suppose it is very valuable to experience this kind of existence, even for a short while, under these conditions.

But of course, this is not for everyone. Many grow bored here. Those who are constantly whining. Recently, someone even committed suicide. They found strange drawings in his room. He was a painter. I give this as an example: that person probably could not adapt to the simplicity born from the regression caused by the extreme pressure here. His inner world was too vast. And the outside world seemed larger than ever, because every movement was under surveillance. He had exited this life.

I, however, am still here. Why? Because I have stopped wanting to be understood and stopped hoping. Yes, I suffer—but in the end, with a deep, quiet smile.

Tomorrow I will go to that mine again. I will swing the pickaxe all day, starving for sensory input. Then lunch will arrive. I will eat. Then back to work. Then food again. Then maybe one more paper of writing. Then another conversation with the madman. Then back to bed.

A person responds to this cycle in one of two ways: by continuing it, even if it yields nnothing,or by ending it, because it yields nothing. I clearly belong to the first.

And I can tell you this: I have not forgotten you. Just as my body is a miner, my inner world is a soldier. And this soldier must always remain invisible—never revealing its presence, never expecting anything from the outside—otherwise, it will be executed.

This has been my life for months. And I still long for you. Please, imagine me. Do you remember our special hours? Let us imagine each other at the same hours, as if we are facing one another. And then you will feel, once more, that we have actually never been apart.

Sincerely yours,

Atrona.