Reading, for me, is neither a hobby nor a habit. It is a way of existing in a parallel reality, where time flows by its own laws, and an entire universe fits between my two palms. My love begins with the ritual of touch. I adore choosing a book not just with my mind, but with my fingers—assessing the heft of a volume, the roughness or gloss of a cover, the whisper of pages. New books smell of printer's ink and possibility; old ones, of mystery and other people's stories. An e-reader is practical, but a paper book is tactile magic, where every turned page becomes physical proof of a journey.

One is earthy, powerful, raw. It speaks the language of muscles and rhythm. Its home is the cool latex of a yoga mat at dawn, the sharp clang of a barbell meeting the rack, the springy asphalt under my running shoes in an autumn park. It loves what is measurable: two seconds longer, two kilograms more, one kilometer farther. Its joy is the sweet, aching fatigue in my body in the evening, the feeling that every cell has worked and now glows from within. The other is airy, fluid, colorful. It lives in the smell of watercolors and new paper, in the tactile joy of soft pastels, in the endless scroll of imagination. Its metrics are not centimeters, but hues. Not repetitions, but emotions caught on the fly. Its power is in silence, in focus, when the whole world narrows down to the tip of a pencil and the whiteness of a page. And it is precisely after physical fatigue, when the earthly essence has been nourished by movement, that the celestial one awakens with particular brilliance.

My sport begins in the morning, with the first deep breath by an open window. I don't struggle to get myself onto the mat—I almost float towards it, as if to a meeting. The cold latex of the yoga mat under my bare feet, the silence broken only by my breath. This is my meditative space. Every pose is a conversation with myself. Where is the tightness today? Where is the hidden tension? I stretch into a downward dog, feeling every ligament lengthen, and I think: "Thank you, my body, for being able to do this."

For me, photography is not about capturing what I see. It's about learning to see. It's a quiet, perpetual state of awareness, a love affair with light and the fleeting moments it sculpts. My love begins with the weight of anticipation. The cool metal of the camera in my hands, the tactile click of the dials, the subtle resistance of the focus ring—it's a ceremony that grounds me in the present. Loading a film roll feels like loading a chamber with potential, each frame a promise. Even the silent readiness of a digital camera is a pact: I am here, and I am paying attention.