Back in the USSR, there was always a shortage of everything. Finding clothes to wear, just any clothes, was always an adventure. The city of Donetsk where my aunts used to live once somehow got a batch of imported lingerie. The concept of lingerie was, of course, not familiar to Soviet people. Beautiful red, pink, and white lacy babydolls and matching chemises were something that poor Soviet women from the mining region had never seen. It could not have possibly occurred to them that such stunning, sexy pieces of clothing were to be worn inside. As a result, they decided these were regular outfits.

It became the height of fashion in Donetsk to don your babydoll and your chemise, get into stiletto heels, do your makeup and hair, and go downtown to parade your new outfit where everybody could see you.

My aunt decided to share the joy with her sister and got her a coveted babydoll.

“I’m sending you this beautiful imported gown,” she told my mother over the phone. “They are almost impossible to get because everybody wants one but I got one just for you.”

When the package arrived, my mother was perplexed. 

“I thought your aunt was sending me a gown,” she said. “But this is sleepwear. The gown must have been stolen by the postal workers.” (Soviet postal workers always went through packages and took whatever they fancied.)

A similar thing happened with Soviet women and imported bathrobes. Poor women couldn’t conceive of such wonderful, beautiful things being worn inside. So they wore the bathrobes as coats. Imagine crowds of women prancing around in babydolls and bathrobes, convinced these are regular outside clothes.

I bought Klara this Adidas sports outfit as a joke but unless you are from my country (or, apparently, Argentina), you won’t get why it’s hilarious.

N concealed from me for years that he used to wear one of these to go outside  (not to work out but just to go about). It’s only when he was very secure in our relationship that he confessed this dark secret.

I wrote this in August of 2015 and it’s as relevant as ever. More so, if anything.

Several years ago, Putin tried to abolish welfare assistance for about 1,2 million people in the Greater Moscow area (where cost of living is higher than wherever it is that you live). People got angry, took to the streets, protested, and Putin had to cave. The welfare assistance was left in place.

Two weeks ago, Putin once again abolished the same welfare measures. Not a single person protested.

Moral of the story: if you fire up people’s diseased patriotism and allow them to feel no shame for hating their neighbors, you can easily take away all of their welfare protections.

And what it is that Trump is doing right now? Exactly.

Keep this in mind in the next couple of years.

People keep saying that the greatest danger comes from those who are left behind by fluidity. The fear is that they will get too desperate and turn to fascism, violence, etc. What we are forgetting, however, is that the price paid for fluidity by those who aim to be part of exterritorial elites is much higher than the price paid by those who refuse.

An embrace of fluidity leads to loneliness, fear, confusion and a sense of meaninglessness. What is the goal of a person who chases fluidity? He abandons every attachment, changes himself over and over again, dissolves every stable marker of identity, picks up and leaves and then leaves and leaves and leaves again, adapts to every new circumstance, empties himself of all content – and all for what? To be able to buy more stuff? 

Since there is nothing that fluidity can offer people, it positions itself as being the actual reward in itself. You are not supposed to ask what the goal of all this dissolution of self is. The “freedom” to dissolve is supposed to be your most cherished entitlement. Plus, of course, the expanded list of shit one should buy in order to manifest this crucial entitlement to the world.

But not even the most shallow of human beings can truly feel fulfilled by such a life. The phenomenon is new but just wait until the poor fluid freaks catch on to the enormous joke that has been played on them. Once they figure out that all they get in return for swallowing the bitter pill of fluidity is the right to swallow a lot more of it, that’s when we will see some really unhappy and confused people.

Both in the US and in Europe, the part of the nation-state that people seem interested in preserving is not the one that has to do with economic security provided by the state. Probably the reason is that the price for it is perceived as being too high.

Instead, people are very clearly and even aggressively signaling that the remnant of the nation-state they want to preserve is the one that offers an opportunity to imagine a shared national identity, morality and culture. The nation-state used to force its subjects into shared identity and Co but now people are choosing that on their own and placing it above all.

The political and administrative units that are going to matter from now on are small. Cities, towns, residential neighborhoods. Local politics matters more than anything. And by local I mean the tinier the better. Global politics is crucial, too. “National” politics is valuable only in terms of its symbolism. People who are comfortable with globalization and fluidity and who aim to belong to exterritorial (or not linked to any territory) elites and people who want to live in pockets of (mainly artificial) solidity will stop communicating at all. Until now, they’ve been trying to open each other’s eyes to the “correct” way of perceiving reality but I’m not seeing many opportunities even for this kind of a stilted dialogue.

People keep asking what’s next after the nation-state. The most recent election in the US, as well as Brexit and the European elections, have demonstrated that even if most of us don’t use the words “the erosion of the nation-state model” to refer to what’s happening, that erosion is the central preoccupation of voters everywhere. 

The important thing to remember is that nothing is set in stone. We are undergoing an enormous transformation in the structure of our societal model, and it’s up to us where the changes will take us. 

The way things are shaping up right now is that the welfare state is pretty much doomed. Voters are showing very little interest in preserving it. This means that people are ready to embrace the loneliness and heightened risk (in return for a chance at greater rewards) of seeking out economic solutions on their own. Before you argue with me about this, ask yourself why Bernie Sanders is not making his cabinet picks right now. He was the candidate of the welfare state model here in the US. 

[More on this later.]

I ordered a skinny peppermint mocha. The contrast between my 208 lbs of weight and a skinny anything is very funny, and I’m in the mood for some hilarity.

And hey, it’s not half bad, even if it tastes like toothpaste.

I decided to be cool and stop at the campus Starbucks for a fancy coffee. It turns out, though, that you get to wait for 20 minutes for the fancy beverage, together with a crowd of other seekers. And that doesn’t feel very cool.

The semester has entered into the final stretch, and I’m looking for ways to keep things fun and enjoyable.