Chapter III

From a poor student to a rich businessman

Arthur did relatively well at school. Mainly thanks to his parents, who had hired tutors for him since February. They dreamed of him attending a good institute. He learned a lot and, thanks to his father's support, he entered a renowned institute in Moscow. The first year of study was very stressful for him, but in the second year he had more free time. He started attending various parties with his friends, but he wasn't interested and didn't have much fun.

The main idea of these parties was to have senseless fun, get drunk, make crude jokes and spend a night with some girl who had no moral standards. In the morning, when you wake up next to someone you don't love, you feel good physically, you think you're a hero, but there's no inner satisfaction. You feel the emptiness and the dullness in your head. He wondered whether this was the meaning of life.

He preferred to go to the theater and meet interesting people. His fellow students grinned, but that didn't bother him. His professors at the institute also helped him to think about the meaning of life.

The lecturers at the institute received a good salary, had various benefits and it was fairly easy for them to obtain a scientific degree. That is why many university lecturers who had previously graduated from this institutetried to work here even after they had finished their studies. After working somewhere for 10-30 years, they came back to their university to get a job and teach here. Arthur observed them and saw that they were not particularly happy.

To get a chair, some of them used not particularly nice methods: They said bad things about each other, schemed against their own colleagues, tried by all means to stay here and played their relationships. Some of them had become alcoholics, especially those who received a maximum salary, had a good apartment, had defended a doctoral thesis and expected a good pension in the future ...

One of the university teachers astonished him. He gave lectures on"Scientific Communism" and talked a lot about morality. But right at the beginning of perestroika, he left the institute and opened a pub next to it. That's how he earned his money, selling alcohol to the students and getting involved in naughty things! Arthur often thought about all this and asked the institute teachers questions about the meaning of life. He was told that the meaning of life was to be successful in social life."We have to achieve success in the social sphere, get a good job, for example, join the military or become an engineer, doctor or manager of some kind of business."

Such an attitude was not new to him. He had been taught this at school."Well then," he thought,"I'm dedicating 20-30 years of my life to becoming a respected professor. And that's the meaning of life?"

He once attended a meeting with a well-known actor who had achieved everything he could dream of in his career: Fame, money, admirers .