You Can't Tread Sleaze Forever

Right now I am asking myself what I am doing here. I am here ostensibly to learn Russian, but what do I want to do that for? I suppose partly to tread sleaze for a couple years, and partly because the languages I learned before- French and German- are if anything waning in importance, leaving me with skills that will be of virtually no use by the time I get to middle age. So in the name of prudence I have chosen Russian, which, alas is anything but a safe bet. Everything in Russia is a bit of a wild card, and the language is no exception. Will this prove to be useful? Who knows. Am I learning quickly? Yes, but not quickly enough, because at this pace I could stay for a decade and still not speak at the level I'd like to reach.
The only way to get to that level would be to live like a Russian: swap my job of English for that of entry-level sales guy in a multinational company and consequently cut my pay in half; move outside of city limits and see my commute time triple; double my work hours. I just can't sustain the level of masochism that requires for the amount of time needed.
Before, I could assuage my doubts with the thought that I was treading sleaze to find out what it was like, but now I feel relatively safe, and while I am savoring the respite, few things are as uncomfortable for me as comfort is. I want to do something dangerous, something where I wake up in the morning and sincerely wonder if I'll end up in a Russian slammer for a couple days.
Nothing puts me ill at ease more than comfort, and I am definitely comfortable now. Nothing really interesting has happened in quite awhile, hence the largely retroseptic quality of this blog. Next time I will delev back into some revolting moments I have experiences here. Some people have complained that I have got nothing good to say about this place, but please Russians, understand that that's just because I am much better at writing about ugly moments than beautiful ones. I guess that's the mark of a hack.