A Russian proverb I heard growing up translates to something like “Those who recall the past will lose an eye.” Dwelling on bygone events, it suggests, is dangerous. My family of post-Soviet refugees seemed to believe it, and mostly passed down their history in loose, cinematic anecdotes. I’d piece together what their lives were like before we immigrated to Los Angeles from images of barbed-wire obstacle courses, ransacked apartments, and sudden deaths.
A close friend—someone whom I’ve always thought of as an optimist—recently shared his theory that, no matter what time you’re living in, it’s generally a bad one. In each era, he posited, quality of life improves in some ways and depreciates in others; the overall quotient of suffering in the world stays the same.
Whether this is nihilistic or comforting depends on your worldview.
The holidays are a notoriously fraught time for big feelings, loneliness chief among them. In 2017, the surgeon general declared loneliness an American “epidemic,” with “over 40% of adults” in the U.S. suffering from it. Globally, the rates rose even further when the coronavirus pandemic made gathering dangerous.What makes things tricky is that solitude is not the same as loneliness.
Coming up with a short list of books that capture the experience of siblinghood is like trying to determine the perfect names for six horses you’ve never met, or cooking a romantic dinner for a stranger with several undisclosed food allergies—an oddly personal, high-stakes task. Every family is radically different in ways that are opaque to outsiders; the nuances of my relationship with my sibling may shed little light on your relationship with yours.
Friends whom my parents haven’t seen in decades call every year for my birthday. Some have never met me. I was 2 when my family immigrated to Los Angeles from Chișinău, Moldova, in 1993. My whole life, I’ve watched my parents keep in close touch with friends who continued to live in former Soviet republics.