PUT COZY PAST BEHIND
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn explains the total abandonment of all the superficials of one’s self in order to stand firm under the worst torture: “From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you. At the very threshold, you must say to yourself; ‘My life is over, a little early to be sure, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die – now or later.’ But later on, in truth, it will be even harder, and so the sooner the better. I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me, those I love have died, and for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.” From The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, pg. 130
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