Do you believe in fate/destiny?
From an early age I have always believed in something.
I remember how on a walk with my mum, in Moscow, I would look into the sky, up above me, and ask myself whether there was more to this world and our universe.
Moscow is a city of high buildings, but it also has lots of space. Streets are larger than here, in the West, it is easier to imagine that there is something else in this world, than what is shown to us by embracing purely the objective reality.
I am not sure where my faith came from, maybe from my great grand-further who had been the head of a Christian Church in one region in Russia, but I was among the first to embrace Christianity once the doors to churches started to open again with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was twelve years old when I received baptism, and it was a very conscious decision on my part.
My belief into something has helped me a lot in my life until recently. Maybe I am a little bit naive, but I always worked on my dreams with an effort. If I wanted something, I would work on it and usually, get it. I got a PhD bursary twice, I applied for a marvelous job and I got it, I moved countries several times, to try a different life, to learn about a new culture, the language and people. I love our planet earth with determination.
But I don’t know anymore what to make out of our world at this moment. Wars are raging and there is so much hate, hate towards the others, hate towards a nationality, a disability, one’s religious choice, or a different walk in life.
When I left Russia at the age of nineteen, I didn’t leave Russia, I was simply looking forward to study in my favorite language, French. At that time Russia was again friends with Europe, and I could never imagine that I would end up on the other side of the curtain, fearing for my life as the threat of the third world war is looming. I could never imagine that it would come to what we have now: not sure what to believe in any longer, confused with the news we receive, people we talk to, suspecting malice from one’s own neighbor.
Doctors tell me I have a bipolar disorder, but getting a psychosis in our current world, seems to me as the most reasonable choice, a reaction to the world we are living in now, where distancing oneself from the objective reality opens the doors to have a glimpse of a different world, a different reality, and a world where one believes in the best of human nature, and prays that at the end good will outweigh the evil.
The Russian Patient 
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