The First Quarter Of My Century

From a metaphysical perspective, both action and inaction are forms of presence. Neither disappears from reality. Even silence produces consequences. The world is not divided into those who «influence» and those who «step aside.» Everything that has form acts.

Refusal to participate is also participation. It produces a field in which the actions of others intensify. Non-intervention alters the structure of a situation: it either liberates or weakens resistance. A person who steps into the shadows becomes a background for another’s will.

Thus, the philosophical formulation of the question «which is worse» loses its meaning. What matters is something else: what level of responsibility a person is capable of holding – in action or outside it. If they refuse to act, do they recognize that refusal reshapes the field? If they act, do they accept that they intervene in another’s possibility?

Inaction can be an honest form of ethical position. But it cannot be empty. Just as action cannot be mechanical. In each case, a person must answer not what they did, but why they considered it permissible in that situation.

Freedom in the political sense is not a choice between activity and passivity. It is the capacity to relate oneself to the consequences of what one has produced – or allowed.

Where Does Strength Reside?

In this essay, I examine strength as a derivative of the structure of one’s immediate connections. My central thesis is that a person realizes their potential not autonomously, but within the limits of what is permitted by their environment. In this context, the environment is not a social backdrop but a functional framework that determines which efforts are perceived as appropriate, feasible, and sustainable. Without an environment capable of sustaining a high intensity of action, even a strong will is either suppressed or dissipated. I proceed from the assumption that strength is not an internal resource, but a form of normalization of effort within a given configuration of relationships. The essay is written as an attempt to extract this condition from habitual notions of individuality and self-sufficiency.

The concept of strength is applicable to a person insofar as they are embedded in a structure that allows effort to be realized. Outside such a structure, strength remains a formless possibility. The conditions under which will acquires an operative range are determined not only by internal potential, but also by the external composition of the environment.

The environment delineates the contour of permissible decisions. It defines the framework of what is considered realizable, justified, acceptable in terms of effort and outcome. An individual cannot sustain a high level of actional tension without an external configuration that permits or reflects this level.

A figure deprived of an environment does not disappear, but loses scale. Its will remains theoretical. Resistance from the environment either dampens intensity or turns it into an isolated anomaly. Only at the point where subjective intention coincides with external acceptability does a functional structure of strength emerge.

If a person regularly interacts with four participants for whom cruelty is an acceptable mode of behavior, their involvement in such practices ceases to be an exception. If they are embedded in a group where material and intellectual discipline is high, their own standard is adjusted automatically.

The environment does not explain, does not shape views, does not persuade. It normalizes behavior through the everyday configuration of what is permitted. The structure of the norm is reproduced silently, through a rhythm of decisions and reactions that do not require articulation.

Psychology is secondary to these mechanisms. A person adapts perception and will to the prevailing system of constraints and allowances. The ethical parameters of the environment are translated into bodily and behavioral economy.

From this follows the conclusion: strength is not a characteristic of an isolated subject. It is a function of one’s position within a network in which tension is not only bearable, but required. An environment that does not allow supra-normative effort nullifies subjective initiative. An environment oriented toward sustaining intensity structures the personality, rendering it operational.

Under such conditions, a person acts not in spite of, but in accordance with permission. Their effort is not a heroic exception, because those around them do not obstruct its manifestation. On the contrary, they presuppose it as a necessary component of the overall form.

Thus, the environment is not a sum of contacts, but an infrastructure of permissibility. Within this infrastructure, the scale a person can reach is formed – a scale that does not destroy the self and does not exceed the limits of one’s own reproducibility.

Finding Yourself Face to Face…

In this essay, I address a practical and disciplinary problem: how to speak with a person you do not know, on a topic in which you are not confident. I analyze the structure of the first question as a tool that determines the course of the conversation. I explain how to maintain one’s position when one does not command the material, and why the key lies not in the content of the question, but in how it is aligned with the scale of the interlocutor. The essay is addressed to journalists, analysts, students – to anyone who works in live situations where there is no time for preparation, yet precision and dignity must be preserved.

In any live situation, the first word decides more than everything that follows. It determines whether a conversation will take place at all – especially when you do not know who stands before you, or which topic you are about to touch upon.

When you do not possess the material, your task is not to conceal this, but to relate correctly to your own position. You must not demonstrate competence you do not have. But you can maintain a form in which lack of knowledge does not turn into weakness.

The point of entry is not a topical question, but a correct clarification of context. If you do not understand what is being discussed, ask: «From which perspective are you looking at what is happening right now?» This allows the other person to speak within their own coordinates, without adjusting to yours.

In conversation with an unfamiliar interlocutor, it is important not to rush toward the essence. Begin with what creates a condition of trust: a formulation that is fixed, neutral, yet open. For example: «You often work in conditions that are difficult to grasp from the outside. What should one pay attention to first in order to avoid distortion?» Such a question is neither superficial nor provocative, but immediately invites the interlocutor to speak precisely.

If you find yourself in a situation where you must ask a question without mastering the subject, do not look for something «sharp» – look for something fundamental. The best question in such a case is: «What do you consider an oversimplification when your field is discussed from the outside?» This relieves tension and returns initiative to the one who knows.

The main rule is not to intervene in the subject until you understand the level at which your interlocutor is accustomed to conducting the conversation. People rarely refuse to answer when they feel respect for the scale of their thinking. And they almost always close off when they sense that someone merely wants to «extract material» from them.

Do not ask for explanations. Ask for clarifications. This minimal difference makes dialogue workable. The question «What do you think?» is often useless. Better are questions like: «How would you sharpen the main risk of what is happening now?» or «Which point of view, in your opinion, is currently underrepresented?»

Conversation is not about mutual openness. It is about a precise distance at which one person can be understood, and the other does not lose self-respect. This distance is set by the first question. If it is imprecise, the conversation disintegrates into remarks. If it is posed correctly, it saves dozens of minutes.

When you find yourself face to face with someone, it is better to be cautious than informed. Better to clarify than to make an inaccurate entry. Better to let the other speak than to try to shorten the exchange. This is not a matter of «good manners.» It is an effective strategy in any environment where you do not set the rules.

You’ll Live Long Enough – You’ll Understand

In this essay, I examine the widespread notion of maturity as a consequence of age. I am interested in why life experience does not always lead to inner depth, and in the difference between outwardly mature behavior and genuine stability.

The idea of maturity as a direct result of age is a cultural convention. The phrase «you’ll live long enough – you’ll understand» implies that experience automatically produces clarity. This is false. Time in itself does not create maturity. It only creates conditions in which a person may either build an inner structure or reproduce a defensive mechanism.

Maturity is not the result of a long life, but the consequence of an ability to endure complexity without simplifying it away. A person becomes mature not when they stop making mistakes, but when they accept their limitations without fleeing into justification. This is not a position of strength. It is the discipline of seeing what one does not wish to acknowledge – and not collapsing under that vision.

Maturity is not guaranteed by outward behavior. Calmness, restraint, consistency can be signs of maturity, but they can just as easily be symptoms of psychological closure. Silence may indicate composure, but it may also conceal fear. Acceptance may arise from understanding, or it may be a manifestation of learned helplessness. Behavior is an incomplete marker. It does not answer the question of the depth of one’s position.

A person may appear immature – emotional, impulsive, vulnerable – and yet possess a more stable and more responsible inner structure than someone who maintains composure by avoiding confrontation with themselves. Maturity lies not in control, but in the ability to live with uncertainty without replacing it with a schematic substitute.

A mature person is capable of acknowledging guilt without performance, making choices without external support, abandoning illusions without an immediate turn toward cynicism. They do not search for culprits and do not rely on borrowed righteousness. They correlate actions with consequences, without shifting responsibility onto circumstances or onto others.

Age provides an opportunity – but no guarantee. To live long is not the same as to develop. One may repeat the same explanatory pattern for decades. One may accumulate biography without advancing in the understanding of one’s own logic. Experience without analysis turns into confirmation of prior beliefs rather than work on oneself.

Psychological maturity is neither the accumulation of knowledge nor the control of emotions. It is the ability to act within complexity without reducing it to a convenient model. It is precision in assessing oneself and others. It is the capacity not to destroy the surrounding environment even when inner balance is absent.

For this reason, maturity is determined not by words, not by intonation, and not by social status. It is determined by a person’s position in relation to themselves. Either one is capable of not simplifying – or one will reproduce simplified explanations. Either one can bear responsibility – or one will search for a language in which responsibility can be avoided.

In this sense, maturity is not a universal trait, but a mode of existence that may arise, disappear, and be restored. It is not granted once and for all. It must be sustained. And the one who is capable of recognizing it is not the one who looks at behavior, but the one who looks at the structure of decisions.

QWERTY

I wrote this text to fix a simple but important mechanism: how accidental technical decisions turn into norms that no one revisits. QWERTY is a particular example. It shows how a decision once made continues to operate simply because it is difficult to undo. What interests me is not the history of the keyboard, but the way everyday life places a person inside standards they did not choose, yet are compelled to reproduce. This is a question of how order becomes fixed – not through reflection, but through repetition.

The QWERTY layout is a standard that emerged by chance. It was designed in the nineteenth century for mechanical typewriters in order to prevent keys from jamming. The solution addressed a specific device and a specific technical problem. The problem eventually disappeared, but the solution remained. The reason is inertia. Once technology, training, and production adapted to QWERTY, changing it became economically and practically disadvantageous. People grew accustomed to it. Systems solidified. The resistance to change proved stronger than the need for reconsideration.

QWERTY demonstrates how irrational solutions become norms. Not because they are optimal, but because they were institutionalized first. Repetition turns the temporary into the permanent.

This is not an exception. It is the rule. Most of the standards a person encounters daily were formed outside any personal choice. No one chose the keyboard layout, the format of reports, the school curriculum, or the structure of a browser window. These decisions were made earlier. Later, it simply became inconvenient to change them.

QWERTY is not about keys. It is about how we live inside decisions none of us made. They function not because they are better, but because they are stable enough to avoid being questioned.

This is how modernity operates: not through choice, but through repetition; not through argument, but through habit. And the most resilient system is the one no one feels the need to discuss.

Untimely Departures

Dedicated to Diogo Jota, Mark Snow, and Julian McMahon

This essay is a philosophical reflection on three nearly simultaneous deaths – those of Diogo Jota, Mark Snow, and Julian McMahon. I did not know them personally, yet each became significant for me – not because of their cultural stature, but as figures connected to key episodes in my own experience. The text does not evaluate their work; it examines how private memory is shaped from fragments of the external cultural field, and how the death of a person with whom one had no direct contact can nonetheless produce a structural impact. I am noting not loss, but a shift: the disappearance of those who served as stable reference points. This is not an emotional reaction or a commemorative gesture, but a work with what persists after disappearance.

Within two days, news came of the deaths of three public figures: Diogo Jota, Mark Snow, and Julian McMahon. These events were unrelated biographically, professionally, or culturally. Yet their near-simultaneous departure prompted a reflection: certain human figures continue to participate in personal memory regardless of the formal scale of their achievements.

Each of these individuals entered my field of attention at different times. Contact was one-sided: through a screen, sound, or broadcast. Yet it left a durable imprint on the structure of my experience. Not because they were culturally significant, but because they became linked to moments of my own formation.

At the age of five, I first saw a «Fantastic Four» disc on a store shelf. My parents refused to buy it. A few years later, I watched the film at a friend’s place. Of the entire content, I remembered only one actor – Julian McMahon. His behavior on screen differed from typical acting choices. He did not display inner states or rely on expressive accents. His role was organized around a consistent line of behavior. This became an example of how to act consistently within a given frame without resorting to external markers of expression.

Mark Snow became known to me through the musical theme for The X-Files. I heard it repeatedly over time. I did not analyze it as a musical structure. Yet it formed a stable auditory perception in which the content did not require interpretation. This theme became for me a model of concise musical expression, free from excess.

Diogo Jota entered my observation later. I was not among his supporters, but his model of behavior impressed me. He participated in the game without episodic flourishes. His actions did not seek attention. He did not display initiative unnecessarily. Yet he never fell out of the game’s process. This allowed me to regard him as an example of a disciplined, consistent, and reliable professional.

None of these three figures were models in a direct sense. Yet each became part of my private experience as a point of orientation – not in morality or culture, but in the domain of everyday precision. Their actions registered for me as permissible models of behavior in specific contexts. This is their significance.

For this reason, the news of their deaths did not elicit an emotional reaction but became a matter of deliberate attention. They departed not because they exhausted their potential, but because they found themselves in circumstances that did not allow continuation. Each departure became for me an example of how memory structures itself independently of public significance.

This essay is not an expression of gratitude or a symbolic act of respect. Its purpose is to record that, in a brief span of time, three people left life, each of whom at some point became a source of orientation for me. Their work, within their respective domains, continues to operate within my memory. For this reason, their departure feels untimely – not in terms of their biographies, but in terms of how they continued to participate in the structure of my perception.

Thank you.

Evil as a Benefit

In this essay, I examine the phenomenon of actions that are judged as evil but later produce outcomes recognized as positive. My focus is not on evaluating specific episodes but on the logic by which consequences come to determine the permissibility of the act itself. I distinguish between action and outcome as a foundational principle for ethical reflection and show that collapsing this distinction leads to substituting responsibility with mere efficiency. The essay is an attempt to hold the boundary between what happened and how it happened.

The fact that some actions initially interpreted as destructive eventually result in outcomes deemed positive is not exceptional. History provides ample examples in which cruelty, coercion, or violence were accompanied by consequences considered purposeful or «necessary.» The question is how such retrospective logic affects ethical judgment and the political structures that allow it.

The expression «evil with positive consequences» violates intuitive ethical boundaries. It suggests that an act condemned at the moment of execution may post facto gain the status of justified. This narrowing of distinction between basis and result is not merely a moral concession – it is a methodological undermining of the principle of differentiation on which politics, as a rational practice, rests.

If the consequences of an action can redefine its nature, then in conditions of uncertainty any act – regardless of means – may be deemed justified. This creates a situation where responsibility is replaced by effectiveness, and decision-making is subordinated to outcome.

The political history of the twentieth century demonstrates how this logic operates on the scale of states. Mass violence, repression, suppression of internal opposition – all were later described as necessary measures to strengthen institutions, maintain cohesion, or navigate crises. Such reasoning replaces evaluation of the act itself with evaluation of its consequences. Meanwhile, the subject of responsibility disappears: the agent is judged no longer by what they did, but only by what resulted.

Ethics, grounded in the distinction between good and evil, does not permit substituting the act with its consequences. It insists that certain forms of action remain impermissible even if they produce desired outcomes. In this sense, the tension between political and moral domains is preserved rather than dissolved. Politics operates on results; ethics on grounds. Attempting to equate them opens space for arbitrariness disguised as necessity.

At the individual level, the distinction retains significance. A person whose action yields positive outcomes is not absolved from moral scrutiny. On the contrary, they must acknowledge that a favorable result does not resolve the question of the act’s permissibility. The simplified logic «if it turned out well, it was right» undermines both ethical foundation and political responsibility.

Anthropologically, humans have learned to use the consequences of evil. Through trauma, they construct experience; through rupture, understanding; through loss, structure. Yet none of these processes eliminates judgment: the act that caused harm remains an act demanding assessment. Experience does not annul the basis; it only shapes the practice of overcoming.

Nations, cultures, and states are capable of justifying events that were terrifying in the moment because memory is functional. It transforms suffering into argument, destruction into prehistory, violence into stage. This allows life to proceed, but at the cost of erasing distinction. Therefore, any civilization wishing to remain lawful must insist on separating what is permissible from what merely proves useful.

When justification of evil relies on outcomes, politics loses stability. It becomes a function of interpretation. Whoever controls interpretation controls the moral status of actions. In a system where consequences outweigh principles, power becomes the sole criterion of rightness – a return to a pre-ethical state.

Thus, the possibility of positive outcomes does not negate the status of the act. Accepting that evil can be justified by results is abandoning the idea of moral grounding. Preserving the distinction between action and consequence maintains politics as a domain of will and responsibility, not merely a mechanism of outcomes.

This essay records the tension not to resolve it, but to remind that in any system where action is justified post facto, the capacity for adequate ethical evaluation disappears. And with it, the possibility of a stable political position vanishes.

Hard to Be a God

This essay examines the tension between knowledge and action, necessity and limitation, understanding and the impossibility of translating it into decision. The position of a knowing subject – possessing information but deprived of authority – is simultaneously tragic and disciplinary. Its structure is paradoxical: the one capable of foreseeing destruction cannot prevent it without violating the very fabric of development. One knows, but cannot act; or acts, and thereby forfeits the legitimacy of their position.

Situations in which knowledge outruns events raise questions not of technical intervention, but of ethical and political permissibility. To «be a god,» in this context, means occupying a stance in which human history is observed in slow motion, while the pace of decay itself cannot be interrupted without abandoning the boundaries of another’s freedom.

Such figures recur within social dynamics: a scholar observing the collapse of an educational system; an engineer seeing a project’s failure yet bound by procedure; an intellectual analyzing the terminal degradation of public language but denied access to the point of correction. In all these cases, reality is composed of elements whose inertia exceeds consciousness.

Knowledge unaccompanied by means of influence becomes a source of inner tension. It generates not power, but the burden of responsibility without the right to act. This is the essence of the «divine» position: clarity exists, but the instrument does not.