How the book "Loneliness on the Net" helped a physicist become a writer and dramatically change his life: Janusz Wisniewski

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The first book written by Janusz Wisniewski is Loneliness on the Net. It was sold all over the world in millions of copies, instantly becoming a bestseller and making the author famous all over the world. But before that, he was enthusiastically engaged in science, seeing it as his calling. Janusz Wisniewski has a master's degree in physics and economics, he defended his Ph. D. thesis in computer science and his doctoral degree in chemistry. What made the scientist start writing a book, and how did it change his whole life?

Nothing boded

As Janusz Wisniewski himself admits, in childhood no one would have dared to suspect him of any outstanding abilities. He was born in August 1954 and went down in the history of his hometown of Torun as the largest baby, weighing as much as 6 kilograms at the time of birth. Grandmother, seeing little Janush, immediately said that she had never had such ugly grandchildren.

And after that, the relatives had a reason to doubt the mental abilities of both himself and his older brother. The fact is that Janusz's brother suffered from meningitis, and the future writer at the age of six months fell out of his bed upside down, receiving not only a concussion, but also a fracture of the base of the skull. But everything worked out, and the brothers grew up quite normal, both became scientists.

They had a happy childhood, and the cult of knowledge always reigned in the house. My father always said: "To know is to live without fear." At the same time, Janusz Vishnevsky's parents were ordinary people, dad worked as an ambulance driver, and mom worked as a shop assistant. The family did not live too richly, but the mother and father believed that knowledge is the only way to improve well-being.

After leaving school, Janusz Wisniewski entered the naval school in Kolobrzeg and became a long-distance sailor. But the sea romance never attracted him, and he went on to study. He became a student of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Torun, in the third year he also began to study economics. Later he became interested in computer science and chemistry.

In 1987 he moved from Poland to Germany, lived in Frankfurt am Main, worked for an international IT corporation that creates software for chemists. He became a co-author of the world's first computer program AutoNom, which is engaged in the automatic construction of systematic names of organic chemical compounds.

He was happily married, always worked hard, trying to ensure that his wife and their two daughters did not need anything. But at one point everything collapsed. He only defended his doctoral dissertation in chemistry, but his family could not stand the test of the eternal absence of the head of the family at home. Janusz Wisniewski admits: he devoted too little time to his wife, putting his career first in his life.

Loneliness on the Net

Then he felt the need to start writing something that was not at all like computer programs. He didn't think about fame at all, much less about becoming a writer. “Loneliness on the Net” became a kind of psychotherapy for Janusz Vishnevsky, with the help of which, telling the story of his heroes who met on the net, he described his emotions, feelings and experiences.

And then the manuscript fell into the right hands, then - to the publishing house, where the editor immediately appreciated the prospects of a rather unusual and very emotional work, and the novel began its triumphant march around the world. And literary creativity so captured Janusz Vishnevsky that he could no longer stop. He successfully combined the work of a programmer with writing, held creative meetings with readers, and one of them changed everything in his life.

Ten years ago, in one of the libraries, he met with his fans, and a woman came to the evening who was not at all his fan. She just wanted to see the computer chemist who wrote the book that made her cry. Evelina, a teacher of Polish language and literature, simply could not imagine a programmer who could convey the emotions and feelings of people so accurately. She wondered what he looked like, what he was talking about.

At the meeting, the writer signed a book for Evelina, after which they began to correspond on the network, and then feelings arose between them. Evelina has been waiting for Janusz for eight years. And he continued to live in Frankfurt am Main, and on the weekend he was in a hurry to meet his beloved woman. He wanted her to move to Germany, but Evelina invariably refused. She did not understand what a Polish language teacher could do in a foreign country.

In 2018, Janusz Wisniewski decided to end his loneliness and return to Poland. His daughters had already grown up and did not need the constant presence of their father, the eldest had already married and gave him a grandson, the younger had moved to another city and was doing what she loved.

And he did not want to repeat the mistake made in his first marriage and be away from the woman who is important to him. Janusz Wisniewski is quite categorical in his definitions: "A real relationship begins when a man buys vegetables for a woman's house instead of flowers."

For the sake of Janusz Vishnevsky, Evelina moved from her native Konin to Gdansk with her two teenage sons, and once she brought into the house the very book through which they met.

Continuation

Then Janusz Wisniewski began to read his own work for the first time in 17 years. And even, unexpectedly for myself, I found it interesting. He again experienced the feelings and emotions that accompanied him while writing the book, and when he turned the last page, he realized: the book can and should be continued. But before that, he invariably refused all requests from publishers to write a sequel.

In 2019, Loneliness on the Web was released in Poland. Returning to the Beginning . Only this time, the focus is on the son of the main character, who has already grown up and became a student, and the stories of all the characters are continued and developed.

The most important thing that the writer would like to show with his new book is the constant desire of people to love and be loved, regardless of time, distance and degree of technical progress. And at the same time, love should not only be virtual.

Janusz Wisniewski himself does not hide: he is done with his own loneliness. His beloved Evelina is delightfully smart, she became his muse and a happy guiding star.

“Remember: the moment when you feel your loneliness most acutely is the moment when it is most necessary to be alone,” wrote Douglas Copeland. You can only add to this - "Be alone and read a good book about loneliness."