It seems to me that the most important thing in the world is to be understood. Of course, in this matter, one cannot fall into the lap of superstition and expect that the whole world will understand you. It can be expected first of all from those close to you. I have that happiness both in my small family, among the people I live with, and in my big family in Aravot. I understand them, they understand me – this is my idea of harmony.
It is not possible to make a project like Aravot by force and demands; what we do stems from our fundamental beliefs. Suppose I hold pop-up conferences every day and declare: “You can’t write to hurt, discredit, and insult people. You can’t threaten people, blackmail people with compromising material. You can’t imagine that you have a monopoly on the truth. You can’t assert yourself at the cost of humiliating someone. The meaning of our life is not “likes” and “hearts,”” etc.
Suppose I were to preach all those things every day, but the journalists of Aravot would not believe it. They would consider it idealism detached from life. Then the project would not happen. I would be alone. But in reality, I don’t even talk about those topics because just as I am convinced of it, so is the Aravot family. I mean it by asserting that it is a great happiness to be understood, to understand each other not with half a word, but without words. I thank my big family for that happiness.
We see a Man in everyone. There is a certain duality in everyone, even the worst villains. A person can sneer, be cocky, threaten to strangle, break, and crush everyone, but this is done by their visible, “superficial” half, and the other half, their soul, sits somewhere and cries and waits for reunification. (Remember “The Picture of Dorian Gray”). When we write, we take into account that this “portrait” half exists. And what makes people stumble or go the wrong way? Of course, the systems, the bad traditions, the environment. First of all, they should be discussed.
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Of course, we work for readers whom we love and respect very much. All of them, indiscriminately. Even those who write “you are sell outs” or “we know whose orders you’re carrying out” under our materials. If a person has the desire to write something like this, then deep in their soul there is a desire to understand us, to enter into a dialogue with us. But, of course, most of our readers are people who are willing to think with us, whether they agree or disagree. It is also a great happiness for us.
Aram Abrahamyan
