N0CNSR · People

You're defending it because you've already spent five years on it

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

“I've already spent five years on this.”

So you've decided to spend a sixth. Excellent plan. If the first five were a mistake, you urgently need to make it more convincing.

You say this about a job you hate, a relationship that's been empty for years, a project kept alive by transfers from your savings account. Asked why you should continue, you tell the story of how much you've already invested.

I asked about tomorrow. You're showing me yesterday's receipts again.

It's convenient to cast the past as a creditor. There it sits, demanding: give me back my youth, my money, my sleepless nights. Prove it wasn't all for nothing.

And you pay. Another year, another loan, another attempt to revive something you're keeping alive purely out of respect for your own stubbornness.

But the previous years won't come back if you stay. They're already spent. The question is how many more you'll put beside them to avoid saying something unpleasant.

“I chose the wrong thing.”

Sometimes continuing really does make sense. Difficult stages exist. Long timelines exist. Some work takes time to produce visible results. Not every disappointment means you should abandon everything.

Then explain what will change. Why will the next attempt be different? What have you learned? Which conditions are new? What result will let you distinguish patience from repeating the same shit?

If the only new argument is “now I've invested even more,” the situation hasn't improved. Leaving has just become psychologically more expensive.

Try taking your biography out of the conversation. Imagine being offered this exact job, this exact relationship, this exact project today. On the current terms. With the current people. Knowing everything you know now.

Would you say yes?

If not, it helps to identify what's keeping you there. Obligations? Money? People who depend on you? Those are real issues that need a plan. Or are you staying because you need to look like someone who got everything right five years ago?

You can bury a lot of your actual life trying to protect that appearance.

Then there are the spectators. You told everyone what a wonderful choice it was. Defended it over dinner, argued with friends, explained why they didn't understand. Now leaving feels like publicly admitting they were right.

Maybe someone really will say, “I told you so.” They'll experience this extraordinary high point of their life and go eat dinner.

You'll still be living with the consequences of your decision. Personally, I wouldn't trade several more years just to deny some asshole fifteen pleasant seconds.

Leaving costs money and effort too. Sometimes you first need to settle obligations, find income, reach an agreement, prepare a handover. You can leave gradually. Keep what works and drop what's been dragging you down.

You don't have to spectacularly burn everything to prove you're free now. But it helps to stop calling the wait for a miracle that vindicates your old choice a plan.

Five years can leave you with skills, connections, experience, and an unpleasant understanding of your own limits. That's already something. You don't need to pay for a sixth year just to give the previous five a nicer name.

They're over. The next one doesn't have to go with them.

You didn't change your mind. You got scared

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday you wanted it. You could explain exactly why. You'd thought about it on the train, in the shower, during another meeting you didn't need to attend. For months, you kept saying that something had to change.

Then an actual opportunity appeared. Someone replied. An interview became available. A date had to be chosen. You reached the part where another person might watch you try.

And suddenly you became very fucking sensible.

“It's not the right time.” “I've been reconsidering my priorities.” “You have to be realistic.”

Maybe. People do change their minds. New information exists. You can look closely at something you wanted and discover that the actual version isn't worth the price. Walking away can be a perfectly good decision.

But what did you learn between yesterday and today?

Did the terms change? Did you discover a cost you hadn't considered? Or did somebody finally say, “Okay. Let's do it,” and your stomach dropped?

I'd like to know why your new philosophy arrived at exactly the same time as the possibility of being judged.

Fear of failure doesn't have to announce itself as fear. You don't need to sit there whispering that you're terrified. You can build an excellent argument, deliver it calmly, and get three friends to agree that you're making the mature choice.

They might even be right. But their agreement doesn't answer the question you keep avoiding: if the embarrassment were removed, would you still want to do it?

If nobody could laugh at the first attempt, see the rejection, or remember your confident announcement, would the timing suddenly improve?

It's remarkable how many supposedly practical obstacles depend on having witnesses.

Then you start collecting evidence. Someone tried it and failed. Someone moved abroad and came back. Someone changed careers and earned less. Someone opened a business and discovered that customers don't give a shit about a founder's enthusiasm.

All useful information. What interests me is how quickly you stop looking once you've found a reason to stay where you are.

You don't ask what went wrong, which conditions were different, or what a smaller attempt would cost. You've found the corpse you needed. Investigation complete.

Now you can spend another year in the situation you hate, backed by research.

I have no interest in telling someone with no savings to quit their job tomorrow. Or telling a parent to gamble the rent because some loud prick on the internet said comfort was a disease. Some risks are badly priced. Some opportunities are genuinely terrible. Some exits need preparation.

But preparation should change something you can point to. Money set aside. A skill practised. An application sent. A conversation had. A date chosen to look at the decision again.

If your plan is “wait until I feel ready,” what happens if you never feel ready?

You haven't decided to wait three months. You've handed the calendar to the part of you that wants to avoid the conversation altogether.

Staying also has consequences. They're just easier to miss because nobody asks you to sign for them.

The job takes another year. The conversation you won't have becomes another year of pretending. The place you keep meaning to leave starts feeling permanent. You get better at tolerating what you once said was temporary.

Then you compare the worst possible outcome of changing with a strangely generous version of staying. Changing could be humiliating, expensive, exhausting. Staying apparently costs nothing at all.

Really? Nothing? Then why have you been complaining about it every fucking week?

One thing I find useful is making the next decision small enough that it doesn't require a speech about my entire future.

An interview isn't a resignation. Asking about a price isn't signing a contract. Showing someone a first attempt isn't a promise to become brilliant at it. You can gather information by participating instead of endlessly imagining how participation might go.

Sometimes the answer will be no. Good. A specific no, based on something you actually encountered, is more useful than another beautifully argued refusal to find out.

And sometimes you'll discover that the thing you've been treating as a verdict on your worth is an awkward half-hour on a Tuesday. You can survive an awkward half-hour without turning it into a referendum on whether you should ever try anything again.

You can also decide you don't want it anymore. There doesn't have to be a comeback story. You don't owe your younger self a business, a move, a book, or the rest of your life spent proving an old ambition was sensible.

But say that, if it's true. Stop carrying the abandoned plan around as evidence of what you could have been. Stop telling people you're about to begin when you've quietly decided you never will.

And if you still want it, admit the other possibility: you're scared.

That's an uncomfortable sentence. It doesn't make you impressive. It also gives you something more honest to work with than “the timing isn't ideal.”

I'd rather hear “I want this, and I'm afraid I'll fail” than another polished lecture about why doing nothing was the only intelligent option.

At least then we're finally talking about the fucking problem.

What if nobody ever finds out how fucking amazing you are?

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Imagine you can't tell anyone about it. No photograph. No post. No casual mention over dinner. Nobody will know how much it cost, how hard it was, or what an extraordinary experience you're having right now.

Do you still want it?

Funny how quickly some dreams lose their appeal when you take the spectator out of them.

You go somewhere that looks good in photographs. Order something that looks good in photographs. Then spend half an hour finding an angle where you look good against the backdrop of your good-looking day.

That evening, someone asks how it went. You show them.

Can you tell them anything, though? What do you remember besides the light? What did you feel before you started deciding how it would look from the outside?

Sometimes it turns out you were busy maintaining a memory you barely had time to make.

I don't think wanting attention is shameful. You want to share things, be liked, get a response. If you make something for people, an audience is part of the point. Musicians need listeners, writers need readers, businesses need customers.

The question begins when someone else's reaction gets to decide whether your day counted.

You had a good time. Then you posted it. Not many reactions. And now, somehow, it feels as though the time wasn't all that good. Even though absolutely nothing about the day you actually lived has changed.

You just didn't get its value confirmed.

The audience quickly moves into your head, even without a phone. You imagine how the story will sound before it happens. Choose what to do based on the impression it'll make later. Turn down something interesting because it doesn't look impressive enough.

And that's how a stranger who must constantly be made jealous takes up residence in your schedule.

They don't pay for the trip. They don't work your overtime. They don't lie beside you when you feel like shit. But somehow their presumed taste gets a say in almost every decision.

The fucker has quite a setup.

Then there are the people you're going to prove something to. An ex. A boss. Someone who laughed at you once. You can spend years building an impressive life in the hope that one day they'll feel a little sting inside.

Maybe they will. Maybe they'll never see it. Maybe they forgot the conversation that grew into your entire life strategy a long time ago.

Then what? Will you need to find a new spectator, or finally figure out which parts of what you've built you actually like?

It's a shame to put in all that effort and discover that revenge requires someone else's participation, which nobody ever promised you.

There's another trap, too. You've already created an image, and now it won't let you change. The successful one can't admit they're tired. The eternally free one can't want a quiet life. The uncompromising one can't say “I was wrong.”

People signed up for a particular character. Now you're afraid to disappoint them with an ordinary human life.

It's a strange job: you invented your own boss, wrote your own requirements, and now spend every waking hour trying to meet them. Your salary arrives as notifications. Days off aren't included.

I like the idea of sometimes keeping something for myself. Not to be mysterious, and not as a new way to demonstrate how far above social media I am. A good evening can simply end as a good evening.

You can learn something without turning it into a new identity. You can help someone without turning their problem into evidence of your own decency. You can quit something you no longer enjoy, even if it looked great in your profile bio.

Not every event needs a report to count as real.

I'm not suggesting you disappear and never post anything again. I have things to say myself, and I want people to read them. But I want to tell the difference between wanting to share my life and needing someone else's approval before I can live it.

So the question remains. If nobody finds out, will you still go there? Still do it? Spend the evening with that particular person?

If yes, great. You have something that keeps existing after you close the app.

And if everything suddenly loses its meaning without spectators, maybe it's time to check who's actually living your fucking amazing life.

Self-improvement as a way to do nothing

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

You've got everything ready for your new life. A task app. A separate habit app. A book about focus. A course on how to learn properly. A video explaining why your previous systems didn't work.

All that's left is to actually do something. But first, you need to organize your notes properly.

Can't possibly skip that, for fuck's sake.

Preparation is a wonderful place. You haven't failed there yet. Your future book can still be brilliant, your business profitable, your new career perfect. Reality hasn't been given anything it can argue with.

You read about other people's success and gradually borrow the feeling of making progress. Watched a lesson: almost like working. Bought access: almost like making a serious decision. Filled in a beautiful spreadsheet: practically changed your destiny.

A pleasant evening. Not a single actual rejection. Not a single piece of bad work you had to look at and admit was yours.

The best part is that you can repeat this forever. There's always another tool. Another book recommended by someone with a more expensive microphone. Another foundation you supposedly need before it's safe to move on to practice.

The foundation is already the size of an airport. Still no house.

You can spend hours explaining why beginners get things wrong. You just haven't let yourself become a beginner yet. After all those months of intellectual investment, being an ordinary person who's bad at something feels far too unpleasant.

I'm not suggesting you stop learning. If you're going to do something where a mistake could endanger other people, bravado isn't a substitute for competence. And good knowledge can save you a lot of pointless work anyway.

But learning usually has a specific purpose. A particular task, a particular gap. I don't know how to do this, so I figure it out and try to apply it.

With endless preparation, that purpose gets blurry. You can no longer say exactly what you're missing. You're just not ready enough yet. As though one day a letter will arrive: congratulations, you may now begin, embarrassing yourself is no longer possible.

Productivity is especially funny. You spent the weekend building a system that's supposed to save you twenty minutes a day. Now you also have to maintain it: color-code, sort, move things around, watch reviews of new features.

Everything fits beautifully inside it except the work itself. Work is messy, unpredictable, and keeps ruining the beautiful plan.

So the plan gets another revision. At least it rewards your effort: the more time you put in, the more tabs you have to show for it.

There's an uncomfortable way to check what's going on. Close all the educational stuff and name the last thing you finished thanks to what you learned.

Not took notes on. Not saved. Not discussed. Made, so that the result exists independently of your intention.

A draft. A small working program. A proposal you actually sent. A conversation in a language where you got every other word wrong. Let it be rough. A rough result at least has qualities you can improve.

Your future perfect result exists only in your imagination. It's very beautiful and completely untested.

Try buying the next course after you've used what the previous one taught you. Introduce the next system to solve a problem you've actually encountered. Choose the next book because the work has raised a question, not because you're scared to get back to it.

And give yourself permission to do it badly. At the beginning, that's not an unfortunate exception. It's a pretty likely outcome. You can know a lot and still not be able to do much. Skill usually requires its own humiliating introduction to practice.

At some point, you'll have to open a blank document and discover that all the books you've read haven't written a single sentence for you.

It'll be less pleasant than another video about unlocking your potential. But the sentence you finally write will already be yours.

Your potential can wait. It's had nothing to do for years anyway.

You're not a good person. You're just afraid of conflict

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

You said yes again. Even though you didn't want to, couldn't fit it in, and already hated the entire evening ahead of you. But someone asked, it got awkward, and your mouth said “of course” out of habit before you had time to think.

Now you're sitting there, angry. At them, at the circumstances, at yourself. Especially at them: they should have realized you were struggling.

Interesting communication system. You say “yes” and expect them to love you enough to hear “no.”

Sometimes people really are using you. Sometimes they know perfectly well you won't refuse, and that's exactly why they keep coming back. But sometimes they just believed what you said.

You said it worked for you. They assumed it worked for you. You said it wasn't a problem. They didn't go looking for a problem underneath your smile.

Then it turns out you've been keeping a ledger of resentments in your head for six months. Every yes recorded as a sacrifice that nobody has properly paid you back for.

But you haven't shown anyone the bill yet.

I think “kind” sometimes makes a very convenient cover for fear. A kind person sounds nice. A person who trembles at the thought of someone being displeased with them sounds a little less noble.

So you explain that you just don't like arguments. That you know how to compromise. That relationships matter more than little things. Except somehow those little things always get paid for with your time, your sleep, and your plans.

At what point do you get to exist in these precious relationships yourself?

Saying no can put someone in a bad mood. That's uncomfortable. They might be disappointed, argue, tell you you've changed. And this is where a lot of people surrender before the conversation even starts.

They need to find a way of phrasing the refusal that everyone will like. So nobody feels inconvenienced, nobody gets upset, nobody thinks anything bad about them.

That wording might not exist. Someone wanted something from you, and they didn't get it. They're allowed to be unhappy about that. You're allowed not to fix it immediately by surrendering.

And no, you don't need to turn into a rude bastard to do this. Some people discover personal boundaries and start behaving as though they've bought a license to be an asshole.

You can calmly say you can't. You don't want to. You're not willing to discuss it. You're not going to lend them money. You don't have to humiliate the person asking or lecture them about your new personality.

If you've already made a promise, you have to acknowledge it and deal with the consequences. If your plans have changed, let them know. Self-respect doesn't cancel out consideration for other people.

There are also situations where a direct refusal really is dangerous. If someone is threatening you, controlling your money, or might become violent, “just say no” is useless advice. First you need a way to protect yourself and get support, not an impressive argument on principle.

But if it's an ordinary friend who wants to take up your only day off again, check: are you actually in danger, or do you just not know how to sit with someone looking displeased?

Those are different circumstances. It helps not to call every awkward moment a catastrophe.

The worst part starts after the first refusal. You might feel ashamed. You'll want to send five more messages explaining yourself, offer to make it up to them, and eventually say yes after all.

You can do none of that. Let the conversation end. See whether the relationship actually falls apart or whether, for the first time, you've simply stopped performing your usual function.

Some people will take your “no” perfectly calmly. Some might even start understanding you better. And some really will disappear, because their interest ended the moment the free service did.

That's a shame. But at least now you know who you were actually dealing with.

Kindness you choose freely doesn't require you to hate someone afterward for what you did for them. Try helping someone that way for once.

Do you really want a child?

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

“It's about time.”

What an incredible reason to create a human being. The clock hit the right hour, your friends started posting strollers, and your mother stopped being subtle about it. So it's time.

You spent longer choosing your phone. Asked around, compared options, thought about whether it suited you. But here we're talking about someone else's entire life, and your main argument is that everyone else has already done it.

I'm not going to argue that having children is bad. I have no interest in that stupid war where one side calls parents a mindless herd and the other treats childless people as unfinished human beings.

With all the pressure to have children, I'm interested in a question that somehow strikes a lot of people as offensive: why do you, personally, want a child?

Do you want to raise a separate human being? Or do you want their arrival to finally fix something inside you and around you?

Because sometimes the list of responsibilities looks like you should be hiring an entire team of specialists.

Save the marriage. Give life meaning. Reconcile the family. Make Grandma happy. Provide love. Guarantee company in old age.

The baby can't even hold its head up yet, and you've already handed it a fucking business plan.

The idea of saving a relationship with a person who will initially depend on you for absolutely everything is especially brilliant. The two of you can't agree on who's taking out the trash. But somehow you're certain that sleep deprivation, expenses, and new responsibilities will improve the negotiation process.

What exactly is that calculation based on? The hope that leaving will be harder now?

I'm also fond of “at least you'll have someone who loves you.” Of course. At first, they barely have any other options. You're their world, their food, their safety, their access to everything they need.

But then they'll grow up. They'll have their own people, their own opinions, and the right to be angry with you. They might not want a hug whenever it suits you. They might move away. They might turn out to be nothing like the person you imagined.

Are you ready to love them then, too? Or did the agreement imply a grateful replica of your expectations?

Your child doesn't owe you a second chance at the career you never had. They don't have to choose a profession that's convenient for you to brag about. They don't have to deliver achievements in exchange for the cost of extracurricular activities.

You can give them opportunities. But if every opportunity comes with a bill marked “after everything we did for you,” that's a pretty strange gift.

Imagine they turn out to be ordinary. No medals. No extraordinary talent. A personality that sometimes pisses you off. Difficulties of their own that won't make a pretty photo caption.

Do you still want to be there? I find that answer more interesting than your reaction to a cute baby video.

Perfectly prepared parents don't exist. Having a child doesn't require you to finish living, earn all the money in the world, and stop making mistakes. But discussing reality before it's screaming in the next room is a reasonable idea.

Who will do the caring? How will you share the workload? What happens to work? Is there help? What will you do if it's harder than you expected? Can either of you honestly say “I don't want this yet” without being met with emotional blackmail?

It's an uncomfortable conversation. But the person you're planning to create deserves at least that much discomfort in advance.

Sometimes the most adult decision sounds like “not now.” Sometimes it's “I don't want this at all.” Neither requires a dissertation in your defense or a formal announcement to every relative.

And if you do want it, let that desire leave room for a living person. With a separate life that doesn't exist to fill your emptiness.

It's easier to give birth to your purpose than to admit, years later, that your purpose has grown up and wants a life of its own.

And has every fucking right to one.

Nobody owes you applause for trying

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

“I put so much into this.”

I can see that. Time, money, nerves. You lost sleep, canceled plans, fought with the people you love. Now you're standing in front of the result, waiting for the world to take your circumstances into account.

But for some reason, the world finds your app awkward to use. Or your book uninteresting. Or it simply doesn't need the thing you spent so long making.

What an ungrateful fucking reality.

Exhaustion is convincing from the inside. You remember every evening, every revision, every moment you wanted to quit. For you, the result is packed to the brim with that history.

The person on the outside never saw it. They opened the page, understood nothing, and closed it. They have a life too, problems of their own, and not much time. They didn't sign up to reconstruct your biography before deciding whether they need what you're offering.

You brought them a thing. And along with it, you're quietly trying to hand them a moral debt for its creation.

I know that resentment. Especially when someone does something simpler, faster, seemingly without even trying, and gets more attention. You really want to explain that yours goes deeper. It's more honest. You actually worked your fucking ass off.

Maybe. But the customer didn't order a suffering contest.

If someone solved a problem in an hour, they don't have to apologize to the person who struggled for a week. And if you spent a week solving a problem nobody had, another week of suffering won't create demand on its own.

That doesn't mean all value in the world is measured in sales. You can make something strong and never find an audience. You can lack connections, a budget, and luck. You can arrive at a time when people simply have no attention to spare for you.

Effort does not guarantee success, and a lack of success doesn't prove you're talentless. But your effort doesn't prove the result is good either.

It's possible to live between those two thoughts. Without declaring yourself a misunderstood genius or turning every failure into a death sentence.

The most expensive part starts when your effort stops you from stopping. You've already put so much in that now you have to keep going. Otherwise, you'll have to admit the previous months didn't deliver what you'd hoped for.

So you give it another six months. Then more. The project hasn't been working for a long time, but you can't bear to bury it: there's too much of you inside.

But your future months don't have to go into the same grave. You can still decide what to do with them.

There are a few uncomfortable things more useful than another heroic all-nighter. Show the work before it becomes sacred to you. Ask what the person uses now. See whether they came back after the first time. Listen to the answer without spending twenty minutes explaining why they misunderstood your fucking brilliant idea.

And decide in advance what will actually count as a result. Otherwise, you can justify any outcome with the process forever.

For one project, the result is money. For another, learning. For a third, saying something you've wanted to say for a long time. But then don't retroactively demand a commercial triumph from a learning experience too.

And a separate clarification for sneaky asshole bosses: agreed payment for work doesn't disappear because you start talking about results. If you hired someone on certain terms, pay them on those terms. This text isn't a free license to screw people over.

I'm talking about expecting to earn someone else's interest through the sheer amount of your own pain.

I want to respect my effort enough not to spend it blindly. Look at what came out of it. Fix it. Sometimes throw it away. Sometimes admit: yes, I tried really hard, and it still turned out shit.

That's unpleasant. But afterward, there's a chance to do better.

Your parents don't always want you to live your own life

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

“We only want what's best for you.”

I believe you. You might well mean it. But why does your version of “best” always look suspiciously like the life you've already planned for me?

The right job. The right person beside me. An apartment nearby. Kids on schedule. Preferably no moving away, no risks, and nothing that's difficult to explain to friends over a holiday dinner.

Very convenient. For you.

Your parents can love you and have absolutely no idea who you are. Those two things coexist just fine. They remember when you were afraid of the dark, and somehow think that's enough to decide where you should live at thirty-five.

You changed. They might not have noticed. They've kept a version of you who needed to put on a hat and have his homework checked. Now they're recommending a wife and a mortgage to that version.

And when the real you starts objecting, they treat it like a malfunction. He used to be such a normal kid. What happened to him?

He fucking grew up. It happens sometimes.

Their advice has a history. Maybe they lived through poverty and now see any uncertainty as a catastrophe. Maybe they took a risk once and got burned. Maybe they've spent their entire lives putting up with things, and can't stand watching you prepare to reject what they thought was inevitable.

That explains a lot. But it doesn't make their fear your lifelong obligation.

You can listen to someone, understand where their anxiety comes from, and still choose differently. Sympathy doesn't require handing them control of your life.

“What will people say?” is especially fucking brilliant. Which people? The ones who won't call you once all year? The ones who'll forget where you work within a week? Their comfort gets taken more seriously than the prospect of you spending the next twenty years somewhere you hate.

You'll wake up there every day. They'll hear the news once.

Why does their impression get a vote, but your LIFE doesn't?

Then the invoices arrive. “We raised you.” “We invested so much in you.” “We gave up everything for you.”

You can be grateful for help. You can help the people you love, care for them, be there when things get hard. But having a child doesn't grant power of attorney over every decision they will ever make.

I don't remember a baby signing a contract: food, shelter, and care in exchange for a lifetime of meeting expectations. If love suddenly presents that deal, I'd at least like to see where I agreed to it.

And yes, adulthood works both ways. If you declare yourself independent but hand every consequence of your decisions to your parents to pay for, the conversation gets more complicated. The right to choose doesn't sit well with the belief that someone else must clean up after you forever.

Your life includes your expenses, mistakes, and inconvenient consequences. Sometimes you'll have to turn down help that comes with too many strings attached. Sometimes you'll have to calmly repeat what you've already said without turning every phone call into a trial.

It's hard. But living out someone else's script to avoid uncomfortable conversations isn't cheap either.

You might never hear “we understand now, you were right.” You can build a good life and still be told things would have been better back home. Not every story ends with a family reconciliation and a swelling soundtrack.

At some point, you'll have to decide whether you're going to keep living your life for your parents, waiting for permission until retirement.

You can love your parents without promising to become their favorite version of you. They're already living their lives. Let yourself have that fucking chance too.

Don't try

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Haven’t you read Manson’s _The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck*? At the beginning, he says one simple thing: “Don’t try.”
Just be yourself. Don’t try to appear to be something more or less than you are. You are you.

Normis. Honestly, I don’t fully understand the meaning of this word. Ordinary? Normal? An insult? I don’t see anything wrong with accepting an ordinary life.

In Rashka and the CIS countries, my standard of living is above average, at least in terms of income — more than $10,000 a month. But for someone living in Austria or the US, that’s closer to the lower middle class.

As for health, I’m not dying; I don’t have cancer. Does that make me above average, too? Though my teeth are in terrible shape.

Am I well known and popular? No, if you look at it from the perspective of Anya Taylor-Joy.
Yes, if you look at it through the eyes of Vasya, a mechanic from Saratov, who plays World of Tanks and drinks after work.

I have projects outside of work. Users know that I made them. That means I’m known in certain circles.

But all in all, I’m just an ordinary person. Gray. Nothing special. If I die now, in 10–15 years people will remember me only on the anniversaries of my death. In 40–50 years, even those who ever knew me will be gone.

I am not worthy of remembrance — just like 99.99% of all people who have ever lived. And that’s okay.

Don't be like Durov

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Durov recently gave an interview to Lex Fridman.
Honestly? I didn’t watch it. And I won’t.
Why? Everything I need to know has long been clear without those two hours of verbal gymnastics.

To me, Pavel Durov’s public image is pure 21st-century posing.
A hypocritical, Photoshopped character. A billionaire who pretends to live an “ascetic” lifestyle: walking barefoot and drinking water from a coconut. Yeah, right. The same “monk” who has a Telegram empire, offshore accounts, real estate, and a bunch of schemes where money spins faster than he can come up with new rules for “freedom of speech.”

He says one thing and does another.
Says he’s “against control” and “for privacy,” yet regularly bends to any government when that’s what it takes to protect the business. Remember when Telegram was blocked in Rashka? Loud proclamations that “we will not give in,” and a couple of years later he peacefully negotiates — and everything works again.
No revolution. Just an agreement.
Nothing personal — just business.

So here’s the question: why do people keep believing guys like him?
Because it’s convenient to believe in a “hero.”
It’s convenient to think there’s someone “like us” among the billionaires.
When in reality he’s playing you like kids, selling an image rather than the truth.

Want to be like Durov? Go ahead.
Just be prepared to spend your whole life wearing a mask.
Pretend. Lie beautifully. Act like you’re “special.”
And be miserable while doing it.

Now, pay attention.
If you’re reading this and right now getting offended on Durov’s behalf, it means he’s already bought you with his image, bought you like some whore.
You're his fan, his tool, and part of his success.
You look at his photos and think, "This is how I should be."
And at that moment, he's counting the money he got from you — for your subscription, for your attention, for your illusions.

Now let's remember Manson and his "don't try."
Here’s some honest advice.
Don’t try to be Durov. Don’t try to seem “great.”
Live. Enjoy yourself. Be yourself.

As I write this, I realize I’m writing about myself.
I’m constantly trying. I’m constantly playing roles.
And that’s probably why Durov irritates me:
he’s a mirror of what I’m afraid of in myself.