The First Quarter Of My Century

Between Universes and Effort

This essay is an attempt to explain, for myself, the connection between action and result through the idea of parallel universes. I reflect on the notion that any effort made here and now initiates a wave of alternative scenarios, in which different outcomes are possible, yet all of them represent a continuation of a single choice: to begin. If one lies still and does nothing, then in other versions of oneself the maximum change is merely turning over to the other side. But if, in this reality, one moves, acts, tries – then somewhere else one is already obtaining a first result. And perhaps it is precisely that result which, at some point, influences the primary trajectory as well. This is not science in the strict sense, but neither is it fantasy. Rather, it is my attempt to logically substantiate a belief that movement always works.

Can the existence of parallel universes be admitted? Theoretical physics does not rule out such a possibility. The multiverse hypothesis – derived from interpretations of quantum mechanics (in particular, the so-called many-worlds interpretation proposed by Everett) – suggests that every quantum choice may give rise to a new reality. In one, you turn your head to the right; in another, to the left. In a third, you do not wake up at all. But if this assumption is taken seriously, a question arises: does a bridge exist between these realities, and can it be constructed through effort?

I often reflect on what happens in other branches of reality when I make a choice in this one. If I wake up at six in the morning and write, read, move my project forward, what happens in the parallel versions of myself? Perhaps one of them does the same, but a bit faster. Another moves more slowly, but with an unexpected idea. A third takes a risk that I avoid here. The totality of these variants forms a kind of probability wave within which my own trajectory takes shape.

There exists the concept of quantum superposition: prior to measurement, a particle can exist in multiple states simultaneously. Our choice as observers «collapses» the superposition into a single reality. If this idea is extended to the human level, it follows that each of our actions is an act of choice that collapses the world. Action, therefore, is not merely behavior, but an intervention in the fabric of probabilities.

When we remain inactive – lying down, procrastinating, refusing to move – we allow reality to collapse into its least productive branch. In one parallel version, we simply lie on the other side. In another, we pick up a phone. The multiplicity of such realities creates a quasi-stable zone in which nothing significant occurs. But if, in the base universe, I begin to act – systematically, rhythmically, deliberately – I activate branches with a wide range of outcomes: successful and unexpected, radical and quiet, yet meaningful. This is not metaphysics; it is probabilistic mechanics.

I assume that action generates a chain of alternatives in which each choice resonates with other versions of myself. The more I do, the more parallel versions of myself I activate. And if some form of informational interaction between realities exists – for example, through unconscious patterns, intuition, or synchronicity (as cautiously suggested, for instance, by David Bohm in his idea of the implicate order) – then I may be able to «sense» the influence of another self. The one who decided. The one who succeeded.

This is, of course, a hypothesis. But within contemporary scientific thinking, it is permissible to construct models that do not claim absolute verification if they are heuristically productive. And this model is as follows: the more active you are in this reality, the more probabilities are activated in others. You become a network of versions of yourself. And this network is not merely a background, but a structure of support. It returns energy to you in the form of coincidences, intuitive decisions, small «lucky accidents» which, in fact, are probabilistic responses to your own efforts in other versions.

Thus, belief emerges. Not as an irrational attitude, but as a logical consequence of action. I act – and therefore I believe. I move – and therefore I sense that others are moving as well. And if this is the nature of the universe, then the only way to «establish contact» with all versions of oneself is to act. Inaction is self-isolation within a closed cell. Effort is an act of expansion across time and space.

And so I continue. I write, think, work. Not because I know it will succeed. But because I know that if I do not do it, no one else will – neither here, nor in another universe.

A Soft Form of Decay

I wrote this essay as a personal attempt to capture how the betting industry – formally restricted yet effectively ubiquitous – has become part of the cultural norm. This is not a text about morality, but a reflection on how destructive phenomena enter society not through scandal, but through rhythm and repetition. Betting no longer looks dangerous – and that is precisely where its danger lies. I draw parallels with historical examples in which the normalization of harm began with the phrase «there’s nothing wrong with it.» I conclude with a sense of unease: if we do not see how it works, it means it is already working.

Sometimes culture decays not to the sound of gunfire, but to a jingle: «claim your free bet.» This is not an exaggeration. I increasingly notice that betting advertisements no longer provoke even irritation. They are embedded – in games, in sports, in media, in language, in visual design. They do not break resistance; they bypass it. They penetrate softly, delicately, daily. Betting has become the visual and linguistic background of everyday life. We fail to notice the moment when it stops being something separate and becomes part of the norm.

I grew up in a country where casinos were associated with something marginal: semi-darkness, crime, foreignness, suspicious money. There were laws, there was a moral consensus – and, ultimately, there was aversion. A decade passes, and the same industry returns, but now through a mobile application, in polished packaging, with the faces of popular bloggers and the typography of major sports leagues. Betting is now «part of the show,» «gaming,» a «segment of the entertainment economy.» It is everywhere. And formally – outside the law. But in essence – already within the law of habit.

This creates a strange duality. On the one hand: fine print, age limits, «play responsibly,» «we oppose addiction.» On the other: YouTube integrations, sponsor logos on players’ jerseys, branded caps awarded to the man of the match. Even in spaces associated with school age, I hear: «I wouldn’t bet on that.» This is no longer an exception – it is the language of the environment. And language, as we know, shapes thinking.

Of course, someone will say: «No one is forcing anyone.» Formally – yes. But reality does not operate through commands; it operates through conventions. If from the age of fourteen you live in a media environment where betting exists somewhere between excitement, sport, and a financial instrument, you grow up with the sense that it is permissible. Normal. Acceptable. Then a simple formula begins to work: if it is everywhere, it must be safe. If it is safe, then it can be tried.

We barely notice how a new mode of thinking establishes itself in the public consciousness: «take a risk – maybe you’ll get lucky.» This is no longer just a bet; it is a life orientation. Fast money, a short path, virtual confidence. And at its core lies the illusion of control. You choose the event yourself, build the accumulator yourself, and if you lose, it is your own fault. Total freedom. And total responsibility – before numbers that govern you.

I am not a moralist. I do not write this in the name of morality. I write in the name of intuition. It tells me that when a society becomes mass-conditioned to a behavioral model in which winning matters more than working, that society weakens. Not immediately. Not loudly. Not in the form of catastrophe. But as a soft, muted shift of priorities. Gradually, the idea of effort disappears. It becomes laughable. Boring. Inefficient. Someone builds – someone bets. Someone creates – someone guesses. And guessing wins.

History has seen this before. In nineteenth-century China, opium began as fashion, then became routine, then turned into catastrophe. In twentieth-century America, the cigarette was an attribute of masculinity, then an attribute of oncology. In late Rome, described by Suetonius and Tacitus, mass games were first a compromise with the populace, then a substitute for civic responsibility, and finally a symptom of decline.

We live in a digital society with analog instincts. We can still be drawn into something simple, bright, and instantaneous. But now – not by shouting, but by a promo code. Not by threat, but by gamification. The primitive trigger is repackaged – and that is enough. And this is the core problem. Because destructive forces that do not provoke rejection are far more dangerous than shock. They become habit. And habit is a form of education.

I do not think we are sliding into an abyss. But I know that the normalization of betting is not a cultural triviality. It is a sign. A turn. A marker of a shift in which play displaces labor, chance replaces meaning, and superficial confidence becomes an alternative to effort. And if we do not notice how this happens, it means it has already happened.

And while we smile at the phrase «claim your free bet,» we are not losing money. We are losing resistance.

Legality ≠ Legitimacy

This is a reflection on the distinction between what is formally permitted and what is internally perceived as just. I attempt to understand why some laws elicit consent while others command mere compliance, and what happens to society when form separates from meaning, and procedure ceases to resonate as truth.

At times, we notice that between what is allowed and what is just, there lies not an obvious, but an increasingly perceptible boundary. Formally, the rule is observed, the article applied, the procedure executed. Yet internally, a sense remains: not everything is right. It is as if the law has been pronounced – but has not convinced. It has not resonated.

This distinction – between legality and legitimacy – has long existed. Plato, in The Republic, already distinguished between justice as an idea and justice as an institution. Law is a technical instrument. It can be adopted, codified, enforced – and still fail to elicit internal consent. Legality corresponds to form. Legitimacy corresponds to expectation, meaning, trust.

Hannah Arendt wrote that power rests not on force, but on recognition. A law can exist without legitimacy – but it quickly becomes not a support, but merely an external regulation. Procedure without substance. And then a social discomfort arises: everything may appear «by the book,» yet the experience feels alien, dry, mechanical.

History offers numerous examples where what was formally permitted provoked internal protest. There were eras when society sensed that not everything codified was worthy. Conversely, there were acts that were prohibited but commanded respect because they were grounded in moral intuition, in a sense of justice.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau described the social contract not merely as an agreement to obey, but as an agreement to participate. We observe the law when we feel it is our own. When it protects us rather than simply regulates. When it embodies the logic of the common good, rather than merely the mechanics of enforcement. The moment this perception fades, cautious detachment begins. People live by rules without trust. They comply without consent. And this is a gap that, over time, becomes noticeable.

Today, this distinction is particularly important. The world has grown more complex, procedures have become more transparent, yet the perception of justice remains internal, human. If society senses that a given norm is formally permissible but arouses doubt, this is not a cause for escalation, but a reason for discussion. For seeking a form of law that can again be perceived as just.

This is why we increasingly return to the question: what makes a law persuasive? Not merely binding – but respected. Not every «permissible» action becomes right. Not every «forbidden» action is experienced as justified. Between form and meaning, there must always be space for critical reflection – not for conflict, but for deliberation. For aligning law with conscience, norm with trust.

When the law speaks with the voice of meaning, it functions not through fear, but through consent. And in this lies its true power.

Numerologism

This essay is devoted to the phenomenon of numerologism – a cultural transformation in which quantitative indicators acquire the status of the highest legitimation of meaning. Numbers no longer serve as a measure of reality; they replace it. Reach, ratings, views, and metrics displace content, intonation, and substance. I offer a philosophical reflection on how the logic of algorithms and managed numbers shapes a new type of thinking – disciplined, comparative, self-adjusting – and how, in this process, space for non-quantifiable experience disappears.

In a world where every gesture can be recorded, every click counted, and every emotion reduced to a reaction, the number is no longer an instrument. It is an authority. We have entered the age of numerologism, a new cultural formation in which quantitative thinking assumes not a subsidiary but a governing function. What once measured now commands. What once helped navigate now determines what exists and what does not. Visibility becomes a condition of being.

Numerologism is not merely faith in numbers. It is the inability to think outside of numerical frameworks. It is the erosion of content within form, where reality is counted but not lived. What matters is no longer the text, but its views. Not the act, but its reach. Not the speech, but its conversion. We believe we control numbers. In reality, they control our behavior. We write a post not when we have a thought, but when «the algorithm sees activity.» We choose a headline not for meaning, but for clickability. We think of ourselves in terms of statistics: subscriptions, steps, calories, efficiency, reach, focus time, scores, coefficients. Mechanics replace meaning, and productivity replaces conviction.

Foucault formulated power as follows: power is not what presses upon us, but what structures the field of possibility. In this sense, the number is power. It does not forbid, punish, or control directly. It constructs the desired, it guides: this is better, this is more successful, this is more visible. The number does not argue. It declares: «Here is the proof.» You see: fewer likes, fewer views, less engagement – therefore, you erred. And you do not try to understand, you try to align. To adjust. To conform. The number does not require meaning. It requires repeatability. And here lies the distinction between numerologism and any other form of rationality. This is not simply numbers as accounting; this is numbers as a totalitarian language.

Baudrillard wrote that reality disappears not under censorship, but under the excess of its simulacra. We no longer seek truth; we seek the number that substitutes for it. Authenticity now exists only when verified. If you speak – and it does not spread – then it has no weight. An opinion without likes is not a thought, but an error. Beauty without views is not beauty, but invisibility. Even pain, if not formatted as a viral story, loses legitimacy. A thought not confirmed by numbers is perceived as devoid of value. A new form of knowledge emerges: what has received a metric.

A numerologist is not necessarily materialistic. They can be deeply spiritual, ethical, subtle. But they will count. They will check. They will fear being outside the field of visibility. Because outside visibility is out of the game. And out of the game is out. Numerologism is voluntary discipline. We ourselves ask numbers to measure us. We wear trackers, set goals, generate reports. We rejoice when the numbers rise and lose confidence when they fall. We do not notice how we abandon spontaneity because it cannot be forecasted. We do not follow intuition because it is not representable on a chart. We do not trust our sensations – but we trust weekly screen-time statistics.

This is the point at which power ceases to be external. It becomes part of operational consciousness. The power of numbers is not in frightening us. It is in being understandable. Convincing. Rational. We no longer need coercion. We discipline ourselves.

It cannot simply be labeled «bad.» It cannot simply be labeled a tragedy. Like any historical mutation, numerologism does not demand moral judgment. It demands understanding. Numbers are a powerful tool. They can measure pain, track epidemics, optimize logistics, reduce corruption, predict disasters. But when numbers become a way of thinking about everything, they cease to be a tool. They become a framework. And a framework, once accepted as natural, ceases to be noticed.

What do we lose? We lose the sphere of life that cannot be measured. Doubt, trust, internal intonation, inspiration, love, silence, the invisible tension of thought, intellectual risk, moral ambiguity. Everything that resists quantitative verification disappears as a factor, is displaced as noise, ridiculed as «unsubstantiated.» We begin to fear not mistakes – but the unmeasurable. To fear being incomprehensible, unvalued, inefficient. To fear being outside evaluation, because that means being outside significance. And that is almost akin to disappearance.

It is in this fear – subtle, modern – that numerologism lives. It does not shout. It does not impose. It simply proposes counting. Then proposes comparing. Then proposes adjusting. And then it no longer proposes, but demands. And you do not even notice how you stop thinking outside the numbers. Because outside them – nothing exists.

The Wrong Word

This essay is an observation of how meanings are eroding in contemporary Russian speech. Words sound confident, yet fail to signify what they ought to. «Frustration,» «toxicity,» «abuse,» «infantilism» – terms ripped from their contexts have become markers of thoughtless speech. I diagnose a superficial use of language, a symptom of cultural haste and intellectual negligence, and I call for a return to precision in words – as a form of respect toward oneself and one’s interlocutor.

Russian speech today is full of words that sound correct but convey almost nothing. We speak with them, write with them, and create an impression of thought through them. These words are not false – they are emptied. Like an old tea bag, still fragrant but no longer steeping. Words that have lost their tension. Or, more accurately, words that now live not as thought, but as ornamentation.

Meaning is not lost suddenly. It is lost gradually. At first, a word is misused for convenience. Then, by inertia. Then, by habit. And at some point, its original function disappears. The shell remains, the sound remains, the context remains – but what made the word significant vanishes: precision, weight, internal measure.

Take, for example, frustration. Today, this word is applied to almost anything: fatigue, laziness, apathy, bad mood. «I am in frustration,» people say, as if referring to a mild inner hangover. Yet in psychology, it has a precise meaning: an internal tension arising from the impossibility of achieving a goal. It is not caprice. It is not laziness. It is a breakdown at the boundary between desire and obstacle. And if this meaning erodes, the distinction between temporary lapse and deep trauma is erased as well.

Or tolerance. How often is it used ironically: «tolerasts,» «tolerance as decay»? Yet in its proper sense, it is not about capitulation. It is about restraint. About the ability to coexist with another without losing oneself. It is maturity, not weakness. Yet public discourse has shifted the emphasis, and now the word lives as an accusation.

Manipulation. Today, any influence qualifies. If you persuade, you manipulate. If you argue, you are exerting pressure. The absurd arises: a thought, if persuasive, is suspicious; an idea, if effective, is toxic; conversation, if efficient, is cause for alarm. Thought becomes violence. Silence – the only permissible form of civility.