Russia: The Real NeverEnding Story

Where Gen-Xers (and everyone else) go for the last adventure left on the planet

I was musing this morning on how to regain lost hope.

My Russian wife commented this week, ‘When I fell in love with you, I loved your optimism. You had no reason for optimism: you were terribly sick in a country where you barely spoke the language, you were about to lose your job, and you were helping me through some incredibly difficult circumstances. Where did that optimism go?’

This made me sad, but it also made me think: where did my American optimism go? It was one of my best features.

I talked about it with my friends.

(Unlike in America, I actually have a solid roster of guys I can go to and talk to, ones that will give me deeper answers than ‘watch more football’, ‘drink more beer’, or ‘play more video games’. Or at least they will thoughtfully commiserate with me.)

The answers weren’t encouraging. One American friend shared some recent setbacks with honesty, and said that he was losing his optimism as well. And I appreciate his honesty.

What happens when Americans come to Russia and lose all hope?

I only know part of the answer. Some of them give up and just go back home.

The ones who stay…I don’t know.

I hope they don’t lose their faith. It would be an ironic and sad thing to come to the Land of Russian Orthodoxy and lose one’s faith entirely.

As I was musing on this, an episode from The NeverEnding Story came to mind. Most people from my generation remember this moment from the movie. If you watched it when you were too young for the movie, I’m likely digging up some trauma for which you spent years in counseling. If so, I’m sorry, but I do need to include the context. No, no apologies, here it is.

What happened to Atreyu after Artax sank? I couldn’t remember. Something about a giant turtle and the world basically got destroyed, and the lead character and narrator, Bastien, had to shout the Empress’s name out of a window, and…I forgot.

I remember a few poignant moments with a candle, and discussing the fate of the world that was already destroyed.

Not the conversation, just the gist of it.

And that’s where I am right now.

Because my world is basically destroyed, my optimism is basically gone.

I’ve been depressed for months. I’ve whined about it everywhere, through I’m trying to keep the whining to a minimum in public because nobody wants to hear it. You already know the drill: can’t find a job, been underemployed for a year and a half, lost my last part-time job, living off a few remaining students and a little bit of Substack and Patreon money, and that’s it. I can’t afford to go back to the USA, I can’t afford to continue on here, and I haven’t been able to fix the situation no matter how many jobs I apply and interview for.

I don’t know what happens now.

Well, I do: I go to Confession, and I tell the priest that I’ve lost all hope and I’m losing what little faith I had, and he will give me a hug, if it’s the priest I’m thinking about. Most priests don’t hug you, but this one does. It’s why I like him, because lately that’s all I need: not words, not even sage advice, just basic human compassion.

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In the NeverEnding Story, our generation found a drama that stuck with us.

Good stories do that. They don’t teach us to believe in dragons, I think Lewis said, ‘because every child knows that dragons exist. What good stories teach us is that dragons can be slain.’

I hope that’s the case. I hope my dragons can be slain.

But there’s no denying that this makes for a great story.

I’m living a waking dream here in Russia.

Sometimes it’s a dream, sometimes it’s a nightmare.

Sometimes, like most dreams, it’s a strange combination of both.

We looked at some amazing Ivan Shishkin landscape paintings yesterday and prayed in the Zvenigorod monastery dedicated to St. Savva, and while it didn’t revive my spirits much, it did help.

And over the past year and a half, I’ve seen some breathtaking things.

Russia is an amazing place.

Let’s hope the story doesn’t end here.