Reflection

Reflection

Editor's letter Lara Lychagina
Lara Lychagina Editor's letter

In today’s social media era, we are constantly reading each other, participating in a kind of monologic communication, without actually interacting with each other. Evaluating an endless stream of foreign objects, we sometimes forget about our own reflections. Always in a hurry, we clutch our gadgets, as if without them, we’d be left unarmed, vulnerable. The digital world of modernity has left us lonely as never before. How can we break from this vicious cycle, and engage with one another in vibrant dialogue? We must listen to each other and come to understand ourselves.

While first conceiving of this magazine in 2011, I realized that our team would be embarking on a special endeavour — that we hoped to develop not only an international, intellectual magazine, but also a multimedia project about eternal values in the modern world. We envisioned a media community whose mission would be to establish a platform for dialogue across nations, cultures, and worldviews. We would do this by illuminating the unique experiences of those who, today, play important roles in business, politics, culture, and science. The English have a remarkable epithet to describe such a concept — bridge people. Well, in your hands you now hold a bridge magazine.

The World, as a bridge magazine, will unite creatives from across the globe in print, digital, and online platforms. Turning the page, you will find yourself in a labyrinth of mirrors, reflections glinting from the stories of our contributors. I hope that in these you see not only the columnists of The World, but also yourselves.

It is my belief that reflection is a deliberate choice of ours. Whether to surrender or fight, negotiate or struggle, be silent or protest, hate or love, celebrate a holiday or stay in the editorial office and work.
In Sufism, the heart is considered a mirror — everything that appears therein becomes a creative force. A mirror in the heart is life itself. Where we aim and steer ourselves may, at times, reflect our origins. This might be reflections at battle, or in synergy with one another. Ultimately, everything depends on what we want to see. The heart can contain many different worlds — vivid, unsettling, peaceful, ecstatic, fathomless — all modulations of our humanity. Each of our lives is a reflection, an echo of what we hear in it. One who understands the secret of reflection, grasps the mystery of life.

We’ll leave it to the voices gathered here to tell you of their lives; it’s up to you to decipher the secret.

Lara Lychagina Editor-in-chief