“The Art of Losing” Many people are very afraid of losses, including me. But, if you think about it, what do losses lead to? They lead to personality development. For example, in order for a girl to become a woman, she needs to go through the “loss” of virginity; if she is ready to accept this, then she moves to a new status - she becomes a woman. In order for a man to become the head of the family, he needs to go through “loss” - to abandon all the women in the world in favor of one, in order to be born in a new status. To become a mother, a pregnant woman has to “lose” the feeling of the closest connection that exists in life, when the child is inside her and she can feel him every moment. She must give up this intimacy in order to see him through this refusal. Even such a terrible and frightening loss as death also leads to progress and development not only of personality, but also of status. At the same time, the deceased himself is also transformed and is born in the status of a family legend or myth, which will be passed on from generation to generation and thus play the role of an object for identification. Now the deceased is endowed with mystical, heroic, and sometimes magical properties. One of my acquaintances, a former athlete, shared with me the story of his “sports death” during his lifetime, when a story was told in his presence, the main character of which was him. At the same time, the story seemed to be not about him, but about some other person. An acquaintance said that at that moment he realized that his sports career was over, as if he was no longer there, and only a myth remained. So after death, what remains from a person is a myth, a story, a story, which often has nothing in common with a real person. A real person dies, and in his place a mythical hero is “born,” sometimes a deity worth worshiping. Often, along with the deceased body, the real idea of ​​the person goes away. What remains are fragments of memories, stories and fiction. As if this man did not participate in an experiment called “life,” but knew exactly what his goal was and what the meaning of life was. Together with the person, his worries and doubts, anxiety, and uncertainty go away. In return, the veil remains in the form of a segment limited by the dates of arrival and departure. Our life consists of an inextricable cycle of “losses/gains”, because at the moment when a person loses something, he immediately gains something, only the focus of our attention is usually concentrated on the loss, and not on the acquisition. But, no matter how terrible and terrible this loss may be, a person always receives something in return, and the “art of losing” consists precisely of the ability to accept both the loss itself and the new things that are acquired as a result. Thus, life is an endless cycle of partings and meetings, losses and gains. After all, without parting there will be no meeting, and without loss there will be no finding!