Perestroika Page #4

Japanese.

It was the age of McCarthyism

Gross did not wish to serve the

imperialist war mongers.

In 1948 he escaped to a "free

country" - the Soviet Union.

The "free country" at that time

had twenty million of its

citizens imprisoned in labor camps.

Gross managed to avoid the labor

camp only because the "free country"

desperately needed those who

knew how to build bombs.

Of course, physicists did not

defect from the Soviet Union.

The borders of the "free

country" were well guarded.

After six months in the Soviet

Union, Gross married his housekeeper -

a virtually illiterate country

woman.

His colleagues were shocked by

the marriage.

But Gross lived with her for

many years

and always seemed perfectly

satisfied with the union.

Good coffee demands precise

preparation.

If, for example, you grind it

electrically instead of manually,

you will never achieve the

proper aroma.

Diogenes lived in a barrel.

Why should one care where one

lives!

I am convinced, however, that in

his life there were certain

elements of perfection.

Perhaps he prepared an ideal

coffee, or drank the best wine.

To attain knowledge, one does

not need to live in a palace.

One should, however,

periodically measure the quality

of one's thought process

against other paradigms of

quality.

Master, I've come to share a

secret.

I have applied for emigration.

Psychologists at Harvard once

conducted an experiment.

They took some rats and placed

them in a labyrinth with tunnels

leading to various rooms.

These rooms contained everything

essential to rat happiness.

There were rooms with food,

rooms for sex.

One of the tunnels led to a

so-called "unexplored space".

The rats had no way of knowing

what lay beyond this opening,

since no rat ever returned from

there.

Still, fifteen percent of the

rats would inevitably go into

the "unexplored space".

They were terrified of it.

They shook with fear.

Their fur would stand on end,

they would experience

uncontrollable urine releases,

they would howl - but, still,

they would go.

As it turns out both you and I

belong to this fifteen percent.

Except that in our case the

Great Experimenter has exercised

his sophisticated sense of humor

and placed two labyrinths side

by side,

calling the door connecting them

"unexplored space"..

It so happens that the presence

of rats from "unexplored space"

does not change the magical

number of fifteen percent

and what we end up with is a

perpetual exchange of

urine-releasing bravadoes...

So,if they let you go, we will

never see each other again?

Who can tell. Maybe you could

visit me there.

Or I could come here.

I think not. Rats do not return

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