Preface

When one is old, crippled or handicapped, one has plenty of time and does not know what to do with it. Friends and family are a great help, so is talking on the phone, plus a bit of work around the house and reading. However it is not the same as a normal day full of activities. There are many subjects for reading which are highly interesting, especially in science where so much is happening, but I am unable to read constantly. I think I have a fairly well balanced supply of books (physics, astro-physics, biology etc. plus Science Fiction and Whodunnits). I think that only retired people start writing their memoirs even if they have not much to say, simply for the fun of writing. I intend to do the same, just to fill in the long evenings and nights. Perhaps I have not much to say, but I do have a lot to remember.

I was lucky, as I had a very varied life; sometimes very easy, sometimes very hard, but never boring. Even years of routine I found intermingled with something exciting and highly interesting. Life was, and to some extent still is, full of the unknown, still holds challenges and beauty, but also hardship and loneliness. Times of loneliness are part of life for everyone, I think. Solitude is beautiful, but loneliness one has to get used to and accept as a fact of life.

Today, 28th February 1978, I decided to write about my life, my thoughts, my dreams and desires. I intend to keep myself occupied and to have a look at myself.

I was born on the 18th April, 1916 under the sign of Aries, influenced by Mars. I was born in Petrograd, now called Leningrad, during the First World War and at the beginning of the Russian revolution.

During my childhood and early youth, I was told by my mother and her friends that everyone is born in a state of a tabula rasa (blank board). Later, the environment, different influences and education will form the child to the desired requirements of the parents, IF the parents are able to do the job of forming the child accordingly. However, from the time I could think, I did not agree with this concept.  I always thought, and still do, that we are like pebbles on the beach – smoothed down by the elements, but each pebble, each shell is different from the others on the beach, like one grain is different from its neighbour. There must be a difference right in the beginning, or even before – the genetic code. Therefore, whilst we are what we are to a great degree, what we inherited is the influence of a still unknown past from our ancestors.

It seems only fair to start back as far as one can. Usually one does not have to go very far, as memory fades, and the parents have a tendency to present their youth and their parents in a coloured light. Not only the parents do it, but even history books are changed to suit the accepted present social trend. If you don’t believe me, just read Russia’s history books before the revolution, read the Lithuanian history as I was taught at school and the Polish one for the same period, which I learned only after matriculation; in both histories, given as gospel truth to the students, many things are either omitted or misrepresented – to adjust to the current need of the politicians.