EN
This article proposes to consider Olga Tokarczuk’s short story Profesor Andrews w Warszawie [Professor Andrews Goes to Warsaw] from the volume Gra na wielu bębenkach [Playing on Many Drums] as a tale of a journey to what could be called the starting point of the culture of moderation. It is a record of a process where the protagonist gets lost in a foreign city (and language) and is forced to limit the needs that make up the classic pyramid developed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, with his physiological needs taking over and emerging as the involuntary ultimate goal of his journey. In the context of the culture of moderation, Professor Andrews arises as a peculiar example of an individual who applies reduction strategies and eventually arrives at the conclusion that if something does not condition the existence as such it is essentially redundant. While not devoid of a Cathartic element, the drama presents a character stripped off of all attributes of his previous status, juxtaposing them with the deficit of consumer goods in Poland during the martial law as a still valid perspective for questions about possession and (well-)being. Although the current slogans calling for a reduction of human needs tend to focus on nature, which finds it increasingly more difficult to endure our consumerist debauchery, the direction set by the culture of moderation remains unchanged.