n the evening when I met the guys at the tram stop I started to share my achievements with them and asked with interest,
“How about your results? Did you think after yesterday’s training?”“There is nothing to think about,” Kostya said arrogantly. “My “I” is me, the whole, one and indivisible… I am not a maniac to divide myself in two parts.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re not a maniac, you’re a genius….from ward six. Does Napoleon bother you too much?” Andrew teased him with a smile.
“Stop it. I don’t have excessive megalomania.” He added, “Great people don’t suffer from it.”
“Of course,” Andrew laughed, “I didn’t expect another answer.”
“Calm down or you’ll start with the same old song and dance. Tell me more about your experiences,” I said impatiently.
“There’s not much to tell,” Andrew answered. “Sensei said a lot of useful things yesterday. There’s enough to think over for many years. That’s what I was doing yesterday, I was reflecting on whether I had correctly formulated my goals for the future or whether I had to adjust them, taking into account the new information.”
“Oho! You really mind your language,” Slava said sarcastically. “Are you going to join the Academy of Science?”
“Oh no, Sensei is quite enough for me.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Did you succeed with meditation?”
“A lot better than yesterday. Thoughts didn’t crawl too much into my head. My concentration improved right away, and all the feelings became clearer.”
“Tatyana, did you manage with it somehow?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t do meditation and even didn’t think to try with it. I was so tired yesterday that I barely reached my bed. In the morning I had to take my younger brother to kindergarten, then I went to buy milk, after that to school. There’s no time for reflection when you have so much to do!”
“Right,” Kostya backed up her excuses. “You should not think but act. Youth is given for action and old age for reflection.”
“Aha,” Andrew teased him, “and when old you will be squeaking with your decrepit voice, thinking with the last remnants of your brain, ‘Ah, if only youth knew, if only old age was able to.’”
The guys laughed again, teasing Kostya.
“And what about you?” I asked Slava.
“All right.”
“In which sense all right?”
“Just the same as all of you.”
“All is clear,” Andrew smiled, hopelessly waving a hand towards him.
