The Drive for Superiority

The Drive for Superiority

Andrii Bilousov
With the assistance of Alexey Kuchko



INTRODUCTION

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
(Proverbs 19:21)

Human beings have always sought to rise above themselves. Long before the emergence of science, philosophy, and complex social institutions, people were already asking questions about their purpose, their place among others, and what makes one person stronger than another. The desire for superiority has accompanied human history from its very beginning. It manifests itself in the struggle for power and wealth, in the pursuit of knowledge, in the desire to be first, recognized, heard, and respected. But are all forms of superiority equally valuable?
This question becomes the starting point of Andrii Bilousov’s book “The Drive for Superiority.”
At first glance, superiority seems to be a simple and obvious category. One person is stronger, more educated, wealthier, more influential, or more successful than another — therefore, he or she is superior. However, on closer examination, it becomes clear that human superiority cannot be measured on a single scale. Physical strength can make a person powerful, but not necessarily wise. Wealth can provide independence, but does not guarantee dignity. Power allows one to give orders, but does not imply inner superiority. Intelligence opens vast opportunities, yet without moral guidance it can be used for both good and evil.
Therefore, the drive for superiority has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is precisely what drives a person to develop, learn, create, discover new things, and overcome their own limitations. Thanks to the desire to be better, scientific discoveries, works of art, technological achievements, and social transformations emerge. On the other hand, the same drive can turn into a thirst for domination, subjugation, and the destruction of another human being.
The boundary between these two directions is extremely thin.
Human history provides us with many examples of people who sought greatness. Some achieved it through knowledge and creation, others through power and violence. Some left behind ideas that changed the consciousness of millions, others left fear, destruction, and suffering. Therefore, the question is not only whether a person strives for superiority, but also over what exactly they seek to prevail.
Perhaps the greatest victory of a human being is not victory over another person, but victory over oneself.
Overcoming one’s own weakness, ignorance, fear, envy, aggression, and dependence on others’ opinions is sometimes far more difficult than subjugating another. External superiority may be visible to others, while internal superiority often remains invisible. A person may appear weak, possessing neither wealth nor power, and at the same time possess immense inner strength.
That is why the phenomenon of superiority deserves not only social or psychological, but also philosophical reflection.
A human being exists among other people. Their desires, beliefs, and actions constantly collide with the desires, beliefs, and interests of those around them. Society creates rules, norms, and restrictions that both protect a person and limit their freedom. A paradox arises: a person strives to be free, yet is forced to live among other free people. They want to determine their own destiny, yet constantly encounter circumstances beyond their control.
It is in this contradiction that much of human struggle is born.
We want to be independent, yet we depend on society. We strive for recognition, yet recognition depends on others. We desire power, yet power itself requires recognition from those over whom it is exercised. We seek truth, yet our understanding of truth is limited by knowledge, experience, and the nature of our own consciousness.
Thus, the pursuit of superiority cannot be considered separately from human nature.
This book invites us to look at a human being not only as a biological organism, but also as a personality constantly in the process of becoming. A person is never fully formed. They change under the influence of upbringing, education, culture, society, life experience, and their own decisions. Over the course of life, one may become better or worse, stronger or weaker, freer or more dependent.
Consciousness plays a particularly important role here. It is what allows a person not merely to exist, but to comprehend their own existence. An animal struggles for survival, whereas a human being is capable of asking themselves why they live. A person can renounce immediate benefit for the sake of principle, sacrifice personal well-being for another, dedicate their life to an idea or cause whose results will belong to future generations.
In this lies a special kind of human superiority — a superiority that cannot be acquired solely through money, power, or social status.
The author does not treat the problem of superiority as a simple question of who is stronger, smarter, or richer. Far more important is understanding the mechanism that drives a person to constantly compare themselves with others. Why do we need recognition? Why does another’s success sometimes evoke admiration and sometimes envy? Why is a person capable of sacrificing their own dignity for social status? And why do some people, despite possessing immense power, continue to feel the need to prove their superiority?
These questions lead us from the external world to the internal one.
Perhaps a person who constantly strives to prove their superiority over others is, in fact, trying to compensate for inner insecurity. Conversely, a person who truly possesses inner strength may not feel a constant need to demonstrate it to others.
Therefore, true superiority may be paradoxical: the more a person needs to prove their superiority, the less obvious it becomes.
True strength is revealed not only when a person is able to win, but also when they are able not to use their opportunity to humiliate another. Not only when they can force, but also when they are able to persuade. Not only when they obtain power, but also when they are capable of using it responsibly.
In this sense, superiority becomes a moral category.
However, the book does not aim to provide the reader with a final formula for human superiority. On the contrary, its purpose is to provoke reflection. The author invites us to view familiar phenomena from a different angle, to question established ideas, and to search for answers independently.
Therefore, the reader is not obliged to agree with all the ideas expressed here. Disagreement can be no less productive than agreement. Moreover, it is often the clash of opposing views that becomes the source of intellectual development.
Truth is rarely born in the silence of complete agreement.
It arises where there is a question that has no final answer yet; where a person is able to say, “I may be wrong.” The ability to doubt one’s own correctness is not a sign of weakness, but one of the most complex forms of intellectual maturity.
“The Drive for Superiority” should therefore be seen not as an attempt to establish a universal hierarchy of people, but as an exploration of one of the fundamental human drives. What makes us rise higher? What makes us compare ourselves with others? Where does a healthy desire for development end and the desire for domination begin? And finally, is superiority possible without humiliating another?
Each reader will have to seek the answers to these questions on their own.
Ultimately, a person constantly stands before a choice: to strive to be above others or to become above oneself.
The first path may lead to power. The second — to personality.
And perhaps this is the main idea of the book: true human superiority begins not where a person gains the ability to rise above others, but where they acquire the ability to rise above their own limitations.
This book is an invitation to such a search.
Not a search for someone else’s truth to be accepted, but for one’s own — a truth that must be endured, tested by reason, life experience, and conscience.
And if, after reading this book, you find yourself with new questions and some of your previous beliefs are shaken, then its main purpose will have been fulfilled.
For a person does not develop when they receive all the answers.
They develop when they begin to ask deeper questions.



TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. THE POWER OF SUPERIORITY ...........................
2. WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? ................................
3. GHOSTS: REALITY OR ILLUSION?...............................
4. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN SHOW BUSINESS .............
5. WHO IS DESTINED TO BECOME RICH? ....................
6. THE DEPENDENCE OF DESTINY ON CIRCUMSTANCES .........
7. ROME REBORN ........................................
8. THE “CALIGULA” PHENOMENON, OR THE LIBERATED CONSCIOUSNESS ...
9. THE FOUNDATION OF THE POLITICAL ICEBERG ...........
10. CONCLUSION ..........................................




THE POWER OF SUPERIORITY


“Then I said, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.” — Ecclesiastes 9:16

STRENGTH IS NOT SUPERIORITY
If a person possesses great physical strength and a well-developed body but lacks the ability to reason logically, many people will regard him as grotesque, unpleasant, and unintelligent. Strength alone is not a sign of superiority. It merely gives a person the ability to influence the world around him. If he does not know how to use that ability properly, strength may prove useless or even become the cause of his defeat. A person may be able to lift enormous weights, endure exhausting physical work, run quickly, and possess excellent reflexes. Yet none of these qualities will help when the situation requires an accurate assessment of circumstances, anticipation of consequences, and the selection of the most reasonable course of action. Physical strength enables a person to act directly. Reason determines what action should be taken in the first place. The same applies to wealth. A person may possess enormous amounts of money but lack the ability to reason logically. Money provides opportunities, but it does not automatically provide the ability to use them wisely. A wealthy person can buy the best education, medical treatment, equipment, travel, and professional assistance, but he cannot simply purchase the ability to distinguish truth from error. Material prosperity can even create an illusion of superiority. Someone accustomed to obtaining whatever he wants through money may begin to believe that his opinion is automatically more valuable than the opinions of others. Yet economic superiority and intellectual superiority are entirely different things.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT THINKING
The same distinction applies to education. A scientist may know every detail of his field, remember formulas, definitions, dates, names, and the results of countless studies, yet still be incapable of independent reasoning. One can know an answer without understanding why it is correct. One can repeat another person's idea without being able to defend it. One can even reach the correct conclusion by accident without knowing how one arrived at it. In all these cases, a person possesses information but does not necessarily possess genuine thinking. Logical reasoning, in the intellectual sense, is the ability to form concepts completely, establish relationships between them, detect contradictions, and carry an idea to its natural conclusion. A person who merely repeats other people's words may appear educated, but his education remains external. Genuine thinking begins when a person can independently examine knowledge and understand why it should be true.

REALITY AND HUMAN DESCRIPTIONS
Many people fail to distinguish between reality and imagination, or between knowledge that can be tested through experience and ideas that exist only within the mind. This is understandable. We are born into an already ordered world and gradually construct similarly ordered schemes in our minds. Yet those schemes do not necessarily correspond to the underlying reality. Before a person begins to reason independently, he is told what is good and bad, right and wrong, normal and abnormal. He receives a language, a value system, religious or secular beliefs, political opinions, historical interpretations, and countless ready-made answers. Eventually, he may begin to perceive these answers as reality itself. But every description of the world differs from the world. A map is not the territory, and a human concept is not the object it describes. Therefore, genuine thinking requires us constantly to compare our ideas with reality.

THE ARTIFICIAL WORLD OF CIVILIZATION
Modern culture has profoundly changed human life. We have created an enormous artificial environment and become so accustomed to it that we often forget how different it is from natural conditions. Imagine a modern person spending hours at a computer, immersed in interactive websites and computer games. He may have completed the most difficult games, know their rules and characters, and have an opinion about almost everything. Yet virtual experience is not the same as practical experience. Such a person may confidently speak about God, culture, politics, history, and society. His confidence may be limitless. But confidence is not evidence. A person can be absolutely certain that he is right and simultaneously be absolutely wrong. Imagine sending such an expert to Ancient Athens.

INTELLECT AGAINST BRUTE FORCE
Sparta gave the world no great philosophers. It placed its faith in military discipline, physical strength, and unquestioning obedience to the state. But strength based solely on weapons and physical superiority cannot guarantee a civilization an eternal life. Athens chose a different path. It was there that philosophy, literature, art, and political thought flourished, while the ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle survived for thousands of years. Athens still exists today, whereas Sparta has become little more than a page in the history books. This reveals one of the greatest lessons of civilization: brute force can conquer territory, but only intellect can conquer time. Military power can subjugate a person, but it cannot make that person think. A weapon can destroy a city, yet an idea once born in the human mind can outlive entire empires. Ultimately, it was intellect that surpassed physical force. History has preserved not the greatness of Spartan weapons, but the ideas created by those who placed the power of the human mind above brute strength. One society may value strength, discipline, and courage. Another may value reasoning, debate, and creativity. A third may value wealth, entrepreneurship, and practical success. Therefore, human superiority cannot be measured by a single criterion. Yet in the intellectual sphere there is one quality that allows information to be transformed into new knowledge: the ability to reason.

TECHNOLOGY AND THE WEAKENING OF HUMAN ABILITIES
Technology has made life easier, but this convenience may have a price. We no longer need to memorize enormous amounts of information because search engines can provide almost any answer instantly. We do not need enormous physical strength because machines perform much of our physical work. We require less endurance and agility for most everyday tasks. We no longer have to struggle for food in the way our ancestors did. Life has become considerably easier. But if a person completely surrenders his natural abilities to technological progress, the consequences may be serious. Technology should be an extension of human ability, not its replacement. A calculator is useful. But if using one causes a person to lose the ability to understand elementary mathematical relationships, he has become dependent on the instrument. A search engine is an extraordinary achievement. But if a person stops evaluating the information he finds, access to more knowledge does not make him wiser. A computer can provide an answer. It cannot always tell us which question should be asked. Often, formulating the right question is more difficult than finding the answer.

DEVELOPMENT REQUIRES RESISTANCE
 If we do not reclaim our natural abilities from civilization, we risk serious degradation. Nature has given us a physical body to interact with the world and a mind to understand it. Everything around us is constantly changing. A passive person is therefore out of harmony with the nature of existence. Development requires tension. A muscle develops when it works. An intellect develops when it encounters difficulty. Character develops when a person must overcome resistance. An excessively easy life, if a person creates no voluntary challenges for himself, can gradually deprive him of the ability to overcome real obstacles.

GREAT THINKERS AND HISTORICAL NECESSITY
In the history of European civilization, we may identify two extraordinary figures: Jesus Christ, the Messiah sent by God, and Immanuel Kant, whom we might metaphorically call a Messiah sent by Science. Two Messiahs, two different visions of the world, helped shape modern spiritual and scientific thought. Great figures do not appear in isolation. They are born from their historical moment. A great thinker does not become great merely because he decides to be great. Behind him stands a historical necessity. Before a new idea can appear, countless previous ideas, contradictions, unanswered questions, and attempts at solutions must accumulate. Every major thinker stands on top of an enormous intellectual structure built before him. An educated person knows what has already been created. A great thinker can see what others have not yet seen. This is why the greatest achievements of human thought are not simply additions of information. They are changes in the structure through which humanity understands reality. Newton did not create nature. Darwin did not create evolution. Einstein did not create space and time. They created new ways of understanding what already existed independently of them.

PHILOSOPHERS AND THINKERS
We would distinguish two broad categories of intellectuals: Philosophers — those who reinterpret existing ideas without fundamentally advancing human thought. Thinkers — those who move human thought to a qualitatively new level. Among the latter we may place Aristotle, Epicurus, Spinoza, Kant, Adam Smith, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and others. Of course, the boundary is not absolute. A person may interpret old ideas while simultaneously creating new ones. The essential distinction is that a thinker does not merely repeat existing knowledge; he changes the structure of understanding itself. A discovery does not necessarily mean discovering a new object. Sometimes it means discovering an entirely new way of looking at something already known.

SOCIAL SUCCESS AND INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS
 In modern society, people best adapted to social conditions often occupy positions of political or administrative power. They may possess confidence, persuasive ability, leadership qualities, and the ability to achieve socially important goals. But an important contradiction arises here. A person may be extremely useful to society without being a great thinker. Conversely, someone may make important discoveries and understand profound truths while receiving little recognition because society does not yet understand the practical value of his achievements. Society cannot always recognize a new idea immediately. History contains many examples of thinkers who were misunderstood by their contemporaries. Therefore, social recognition is not an absolute criterion of truth. Nevertheless, every person lives within society. We must communicate, defend our interests, explain our actions, and persuade others to accept our proposals. The ability to persuade is therefore an important part of social existence.

THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
 Modern education largely prepares people to function within an existing culture. It provides knowledge necessary for participation in an established system. But a person who seeks knowledge for its own sake can go further, attempting to understand the laws of nature and humanity's place within the world. Understanding gives a person a sense of control. Unknown things frighten us. Contradictions irritate us. Uncertainty creates anxiety. Therefore, the human mind attempts to organize reality into a coherent system. Yet this creates a danger: a person may begin defending not truth, but his own system of beliefs. Logic then ceases to be an instrument for discovering truth and becomes a weapon for defending a predetermined position. True logical thinking must be prepared to change its conclusion when an error is discovered. Therefore, thinking must include not only the ability to win an argument but also the ability to discover one's own mistakes.

PERSUASION AS A FORM OF POWER
The ability to defend one's position is vital in modern society. We encounter advertising, political promises, stereotypes, social pressure, and countless attempts to influence our behavior. Which promise is realistic and which is merely attractive rhetoric? The ability to expose false reasoning is an important element of survival. But disproving another person's argument does not automatically prove our own argument correct. We may show that one position is false without establishing the truth of its opposite. Here lies the boundary between genuine reasoning and ordinary argument. In an argument, people often want to win. In reasoning, they should want to understand. True persuasion differs from manipulation. A manipulator wants another person to accept a desired position regardless of whether it is true. A thinker should demonstrate why a particular conclusion follows from particular premises. If a person can defend his position logically, he gains an intellectual advantage. If he can simultaneously identify weaknesses in his own position, he gains an even greater advantage — superiority over himself.

DARWIN AND THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF EVOLUTION
The popular claim that “humans descended from monkeys” has often obscured the real meaning of Darwin's theory. Evolution concerns all living organisms, including humans and other animals. Human beings and modern apes do not stand in a simple parent-and-child relationship. They share common ancestors, just as humans share more distant common ancestors with many other forms of life. Evolution is not simply the survival of the strongest. It is the survival and reproduction of organisms capable of adapting to their environment. Mammoths possessed enormous physical strength, yet they disappeared. Ants, despite their tiny size, remain extraordinarily successful. Strength is therefore only one instrument of survival, not a universal law. Sometimes development means becoming stronger. Sometimes it means becoming more adaptable.

CIVILIZATION AS A CLOSED CIRCLE
Human intelligence allowed us to create civilization. We developed tools that compensate for physical weakness. We created systems capable of storing information outside the human brain. We established institutions that protect people from many dangers. But we have also become dependent on these systems. Modern humans may be perfectly adapted to the environment they created while being poorly adapted to the natural environment in which their ancestors lived. Is this genuine development, or merely a change in the form of existence? There is no simple answer. One thing is clear: human intelligence created civilization, and civilization now shapes human intelligence.

SOCIETY AND THE POWER OF WORDS
 Society exists because its members recognize certain rules. Laws change, moral standards change, and political systems disappear, but the need for some form of social order remains. Therefore, the ability to persuade is also an ability to survive. Physical force acts directly upon the body. Money acts through material possibilities. Political power acts through social structures. Persuasion acts directly upon consciousness. A person capable of changing another person's opinion through argument possesses a special kind of power. But this power becomes dangerous when separated from truth. Persuasive speech can defend truth or spread lies. Therefore, eloquence is not enough. One must be logical. One must distinguish the persuasiveness of form from the truth of content. Beautiful words do not make a lie true. A confident voice does not make an erroneous conclusion correct. Most people evaluate persuasion through emotional impact, whereas logical thinking requires examination of the structure of an argument. Here lies the true power of superiority. Not in speaking louder, in intimidating others, in possessing more money, in having a stronger body. But in seeing the relationship between cause and effect and being able to explain that relationship to another person.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK
We want this book to serve as a guide to life — a reminder for those prepared to face the powerful and constantly accelerating dynamics of modern society. A person must recognize what is happening in time, understand how to respond, and avoid being deceived by promises that create false expectations and misleading directions. Information now spreads at extraordinary speed. An event occurring on the other side of the planet can become known to millions within minutes. Advertising can reach a person precisely when he is most vulnerable. A political statement can instantly influence public opinion. False information can spread faster than it can be verified. Under such conditions, independent thinking is not a luxury. It is a necessity. A person needs solid knowledge, powerful reasoning, and the ability to persuade. But knowledge must not simply be accumulated. It must continually be tested. Logic must be used not only to prove our own beliefs but also to examine them. Persuasion should be based not on emotional pressure but on demonstrating the reasonableness of a conclusion.

SUPERIORITY OVER ONESELF
This brings us to a deeper meaning of superiority. Superiority is not necessarily power over another person. In a deeper sense, it is the ability to become freer from one's own misconceptions. A person who can recognize his own mistake is, in one respect, stronger than someone who will defend an error at any cost. A person who can change his opinion when new evidence appears is stronger than someone who refuses to change simply because he fears admitting a mistake. A person who can listen to an opponent's arguments is stronger than one who hears only himself. Therefore, intellectual superiority requires inner discipline. One must know how to listen, not merely speak. One must analyze, not merely argue. One must understand, not merely win. True superiority combines several qualities: the ability to think, act, adapt, persuade, and distinguish personal advantage from truth.

THE HIGHEST FORM OF SUPERIORITY
The power of superiority is not simply one person's power over another. It is the power of reason over the chaos of one's own ideas. It is the ability not to remain a passive object of circumstances, but to become an active participant in events. We cannot stop society from changing or technological development from advancing. But we can develop our minds enough not to become lost in this movement. We can use machines without becoming machines, use the Internet without becoming its slaves, and receive knowledge from others without abandoning independent thought. We can pursue success without making success our only value. We can persuade others without deceiving them. We can defend our interests without losing the ability to recognize the interests of others. This is why the highest form of superiority is not the suppression of another person, but the preservation of one's own independence. A physically strong person may force a weaker person to submit. A wealthy person may purchase what a poor person cannot afford. A powerful person may force others to obey. But a person who understands why events occur and can convincingly explain that understanding to others possesses a different and more enduring kind of power. Such power is not always visible. It does not necessarily come with wealth. It is not necessarily connected with high social status. Sometimes its possessor may be almost completely unknown. Yet such power can outlive the human body, wealth, and political authority. Physical strength disappears with the person. Wealth can be lost. A position can be taken away. A state can disappear. But an idea that genuinely changes human thought may survive for centuries. That is why human history is not merely a history of wars, states, and wealth. It is also a history of ideas. Some people built empires. Others destroyed them. Some created weapons. Others created philosophical systems. Some controlled enormous territories. Others possessed nothing but their own minds. And sometimes an idea proved stronger than an army.

WISDOM IS STRONGER THAN POWER
This gives the words of Ecclesiastes — “Wisdom is better than strength” — their deeper meaning. But another question immediately arises: why can the wisdom of a poor person be ignored while the words of a powerful or wealthy person are readily heard? Because society does not always recognize genuine value immediately. People often evaluate the source of information before evaluating the information itself. If a rich person speaks, people tend to believe him. If a famous person speaks, they listen. If a person with a prestigious title speaks, his words are treated more seriously. If an unknown person speaks, he may not even be heard. This is one of the fundamental weaknesses of human society. We often evaluate not the argument, but the person making it. True logical thinking requires the opposite approach. First examine the argument; only then evaluate its author. Truth does not become true merely because a great person said it. And falsehood does not become false merely because an unknown person expressed it. Therefore, intellectual freedom begins when a person can separate the content of an idea from the status of its author.

THE PATH OF CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT
One of the principal aims of this work is to demonstrate the necessity of developing the ability to think. We must learn to recognize contradictions, to ask questions, to distinguish facts from assumptions, to distinguish confidence from proof, and to understand that sometimes the strongest intellectual statement is simply: “I don't know.” A person who knows the limits of his own knowledge has already taken the first step toward expanding it. Someone who believes he knows everything closes the door to further development. Therefore, superiority is not a final state. It is continuous movement. A person does not become permanently wise; he can only become wiser. He does not become permanently strong; he can become stronger. He does not reach ultimate truth in a single step; he can continually move closer to it. If nature is in constant motion, then a person who wishes to remain part of nature must also move — physically, intellectually, and spiritually. Passivity means stopping. And stopping in a world that continues to move is, in effect, moving backward.

THE FINAL MEANING OF SUPERIORITY
The power of superiority lies above all in the ability not to stop: not to stop learning, developing, questioning one's own beliefs, or moving forward when difficulties arise. And, most importantly, not to stop at what has already been achieved. A person may defeat another person and remain unchanged. But a person who has defeated his own ignorance has already transformed himself. That form of superiority is the most enduring because it cannot be taken away by physical force. It cannot simply be bought with money or destroyed by a title or position. It exists within the person himself. Therefore, the greatest human power is not the ability to strike harder, accumulate more money, or occupy a higher position. It is the ability to see, understand, reason, and persuade. When this is combined with the ability to act according to one's understanding, a person can do more than adapt to the surrounding world. He can become a factor in changing it. This is genuine superiority. Not superiority of strength over weakness, of wealth over poverty, or of status over obscurity, but the superiority of understanding over misunderstanding, knowledge over ignorance, logic over contradiction, and independent thought over the blind repetition of other people's words. This is the superiority a person can win over himself. And that is why it is the most difficult — and at the same time the most valuable — form of superiority.


WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?


“Husbands, deal with your wives with understanding, as with the weaker vessel.”
1 Peter 3:7

WOMAN IN THE EYES OF MEN
In many cultures, women have been recognized as extraordinary beings: tender, caring, attractive, graceful, delicate vessels that must be held with the utmost care, for fear of dropping and breaking them. In European culture, in particular, men captivated by passion have traditionally given their hearts to women, voluntarily surrendering themselves to the bondage of love. They wrote poems for them, celebrated their beauty, built temples in their honor, and laid conquered kingdoms at their feet. A woman became for a man not merely a life companion, but a source of inspiration, an object of devotion, and a goal for which he was prepared to perform the most incredible deeds.

ADMIRATION AND CRITICISM
Yet alongside admiration and praise, there has always been criticism. Since ancient times, women have endured attacks from men who accused them of inconsistency, fickleness, excessive talkativeness, and excessive emotionality. Why, then, were poets and writers so unfavorable toward women? Could there be some truth in these accusations? Or were men simply trying to understand women by judging them according to their own qualities and their own way of thinking?

WOMAN THROUGH THE EYES OF ANCIENT POETS
For illustration, let us turn to examples from ancient literature. According to Virgil, woman is an inherently fickle and changeable creature. This image already contains a traditional male conception of female nature: a woman is supposedly capable of quickly changing her mood, attitude, and decisions. But if we look more deeply, another question arises: is such changeability really a weakness, or could it be connected with a different way of perceiving life?
Here are several other well-known sayings:
“Girls’ words are lighter than falling leaves.”
“There is nothing more unbearable than a rich woman.”
“Two women are worse than one,” says Plautus.
“A woman is more changeable than a gust of wind.”
“A woman never keeps silent.”
Let us also remember Plautus’s words about women being talkative. Let us read what Catullus wrote:
“Believe me, what a woman says passionately to a man in love should be written on the wind and on rushing water! A woman often triumphs because pleas and tears are a woman’s weapons.”

MEN LOOK FOR THEMSELVES IN WOMEN
After such statements, one gets the impression that poets were unwilling to recognize the full femininity of women and instead sought their own masculine reflection in them. They compared women with themselves, expected them to behave in ways characteristic of men, and therefore perceived many natural female characteristics as shortcomings. If a woman openly expressed her feelings, this was called emotionality; if she spoke at length about her experiences, it was considered excessive talkativeness; if she changed her mind, this was perceived as inconsistency.
Virgil, for example, celebrated love for a member of the male sex in his poetry, which may have contributed to his being given the nickname Virgil (virgina, Latin — virgin). Regardless of the historical accuracy of such interpretations, however, the example itself demonstrates how easily people project their own ideas about love and human relationships onto others.

WHEN A MAN LOOKS FOR A “MAN” IN A WOMAN
One of our acquaintances was approaching his thirty-second year and still could not find a life partner—or, rather, could not make a choice. After listening carefully to his opinion about what his future wife should be like, we came to the conclusion that he was looking for a man to marry. He was advised: “You should look for a man, not a woman, because the qualities you like are more commonly associated with the male half of humanity.”
Of course, this was not meant literally. The purpose was to draw his attention to the contradiction between his expectations and the actual characteristics of women. Above all, he wanted to see in his future wife qualities traditionally associated with masculinity: consistency, firmness, determination, independence, and the ability to act without hesitation.
When we met him six years later, there could hardly be any doubt about what answer he would give when asked whether he had found his other half. Representatives of one sex who possess character traits traditionally associated with the other are extremely rare. Therefore, a person who looks exclusively for masculine qualities in a woman risks remaining dissatisfied with his choice for the rest of his life. He is trying to find his own reflection.

MALE AND FEMALE QUALITIES
Physiological differences in bodily structure and different social roles—the woman gives birth to and raises children—also shape a different relationship with life, a different view of things, and, consequently, different behavior. Men and women differ not only in appearance. Their differences also manifest themselves in how they perceive the world around them, assess danger, relate to the future, and make decisions.

DIVERSITY AS A CONDITION OF LIFE
Human beings are one form of life. Nature possesses the ability to survive by adapting to harsh environmental conditions through diversity, using us as an instrument and thereby perpetuating itself. One species disappears, and another takes its place. Life on Earth did not cease when the dinosaurs became extinct; their disappearance opened the way for the development of other species. This is possible only because of the diversity of living organisms.
Diversity is one of the fundamental conditions for the existence of life. If all living beings possessed identical properties, identical abilities, and identical ways of responding to external circumstances, life would be far less capable of adapting to change. It is precisely differences that enable nature to preserve life under a wide variety of conditions.

THE NATURAL PURPOSE OF MEN AND WOMEN
A woman, too, has her own purpose in nature, just as a man does. Nature is concerned with only one thing—the preservation of the form of life. A girl who later becomes a mother instinctively worries about her future child. Her choice concerns more than herself. In a certain sense, she also chooses the future father of her children and the qualities that may appear in the next generation.

CHOOSING A PARTNER AND CONTINUING THE SPECIES
A woman faces the difficult choice of a mate: his physical characteristics, health, ability to protect the family, and ability to provide for it materially. When choosing a life partner, preference may be given to appearance, strength, the ability to provide security, and qualities that a woman wishes to see later in her children. Her personal ideals of attractiveness may thus be embodied in her image of a future child.

NATURE AND CULTURE
Human culture, however, has greatly altered and complicated our natural patterns of behavior. Today, people often marry for financial gain, social status, career opportunities, certain advantages, or the prospect of a more comfortable life. Love may become mixed with calculation, while the natural desire to create a family may become intertwined with numerous social circumstances.
Nevertheless, the call of nature cannot be completely erased. Nature ultimately asserts itself, concerned with the continuation and preservation of the species. Even when people consider themselves completely free from natural instincts, those instincts continue to operate deep within them. They may take different cultural forms, but they cannot disappear entirely.

WOMAN AND THE PRESERVATION OF THE SPECIES
The fact that humanity still exists as a species and has not disappeared from the face of the Earth is due in no small measure to the female half of humanity. Through giving birth to and raising the next generation, women participate directly in the continuation of human life. Their care for children becomes one of the most important forms of preserving the species.

THE SURVIVAL INSTINCT AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR
In the wild, the human organism is programmed for instinctive survival. We restrain ourselves only when circumstances constrain us—when society, upbringing, morality, or fear of consequences forces us to control our desires. That is why people sometimes give free rein to their passions, unable to resist temptation.
This becomes particularly apparent when living conditions change dramatically. Qualities that were necessary for survival under previous difficult circumstances can become uncontrolled. What once helped a person survive may, in a different environment, become the cause of their mistakes.

IS EMOTIONALITY A WEAKNESS?
What do we actually mean when we speak of emotionality? External behavior or internal judgment? This is a fundamental question. If a woman cries, speaks emotionally, expresses dissatisfaction, or openly displays joy, does that mean that she makes decisions solely under the influence of emotions?

EXPRESSIVENESS AND RATIONALITY
A woman may be expressive and inclined to release her emotions openly, but that does not necessarily mean that she is guided by them. She instinctively worries about her offspring and makes choices not only for herself but also for her future child. This instinct can guide a woman throughout her life and may manifest itself even when she is unaware of its origins.

MEN AND EMOTIONAL ATTRACTION
A man, like a moth, flies toward a beautiful flower and, when making a choice, is instinctively guided by his emotions. He may have a stronger tendency to pursue an object that evokes admiration, desire, and feeling. He can follow his dream for a long time precisely because emotional attachment becomes a source of energy.
Thus, what appears to be weakness from one perspective may prove to be strength from another. The shortcomings we identify in either sex may be considered shortcomings only from an individual point of view. What seems like a defect to one person may be an essential quality to another.

TWO FORMS OF WISDOM
Women’s wisdom lies in their rationality and their ability to make the optimal choice. Men’s wisdom lies in their consistency, driven by an irresistible emotional attraction to the object of their desire, their dream, or the person who represents the meaning of their existence.
A woman may carefully assess circumstances, compare different possibilities, and consider the consequences of her decision. A man, having once seen his goal, may be capable of moving toward it despite numerous obstacles. Here we see a difference between two forms of wisdom.

FEMALE RATIONALITY AND MALE CONSISTENCY
A woman strives to choose what is most appropriate, while a man strives to achieve what he has desired. One side thinks more about the correctness of the choice; the other thinks more about persistently moving toward the chosen goal. Therefore, male and female wisdom need not contradict one another; they can complement each other.

THE CAUSES OF MALE AND FEMALE INFIDELITY
Emotionality can also be a cause of infidelity. A man may encounter a woman who is more beautiful, tender, or desirable. His attention may shift toward another person who has made a stronger emotional impression on him. In such a case, the cause is the attractiveness of the new person and the emotional attraction he feels toward her.
Women, on the other hand, may become unfaithful when their husbands are unable to create even minimal material conditions, fail to give them sufficient attention, or humiliate them. Imagine the following situation: the husband stays at home while his wife works herself to exhaustion, and he makes no attempt to change anything. In such circumstances, a woman may gradually lose her sense of security and confidence in the future.

WOMAN AND THE NEED FOR SECURITY
A woman likes to feel protected by a strong shoulder. For her, a man’s strength may be expressed not only in physical abilities but also in his ability to make decisions, take responsibility, act, and provide stability for the family. When this sense of security disappears, part of her emotional attachment may disappear with it.

BEAUTY AS AN EMOTIONAL SIGNAL
From what has been said above, we can draw the following conclusions.
We say of a woman that she is beautiful; of a man, that he is attractive. Beauty is an emotional evaluation. Charm and tenderness attract a man, awakening desire and love in him. A man perceives female beauty primarily as an emotional signal that creates a desire to approach the woman and possess her.

WHAT DOES A WOMAN WANT FROM A MAN?
If we take the female desire to possess a man completely and absolutely to its extreme, it follows that a woman primarily wants power over him in order to fully satisfy the instinct of continuing the species. This does not mean power in the ordinary social sense, but rather the desire to achieve emotional and physical certainty that the man belongs to her and will remain beside her.

THE PARADOX OF POSSESSION
If she achieves what she desires, however, her striving subsides. Once the maximum has been reached, the stimulus also disappears. A goal that was distant and therefore seemed particularly attractive loses much of its former power once it has been completely achieved.
This is why, according to the logic under consideration, men who surrender themselves completely to women may become uninteresting to them, and in some cases even repulsive. Here lies a peculiar paradox of relationships between men and women: a woman strives to obtain a man, but once she possesses him completely, she may lose interest in him.

STRENGTH THAT YIELDS TO TENDERNESS
Women seek to possess masculine strength, which from time to time escapes control, but upon hearing a tender word or a gentle request, this unruly strength surrenders again into the hands of the enchanting captor. Male strength attracts a woman precisely because it implies protection, confidence, and support.
Thus, a sense of security is created in the presence of a strong hand. It is important for a woman not merely to possess a man, but to feel that the person beside her is capable of being strong when necessary. At the same time, that strength must be capable of yielding to tenderness, love, and affection.

DESIRE AND EXPECTATION
Men who know how to make promises are particularly successful with women—not fantastic promises, but promises that seem almost within reach, with something constantly preventing their fulfillment. Such a promise preserves anticipation and prevents desire from disappearing completely. As long as the goal seems close but has not yet been achieved, emotional tension remains, and with it, interest.

WHY DOES THE UNATTAINABLE ATTRACT US?
Thus, relationships between men and women constantly contain a peculiar movement between desire and its fulfillment. A goal that is too distant may seem unattainable, while a goal that has been completely achieved may lose its attractiveness. Therefore, the strongest state may be the one in which the desired object is close, but has not yet been fully obtained.

THE PARADOX OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
This is where the paradox of human relationships appears: people may desire most strongly precisely what does not yet fully belong to them. Desire is sustained by anticipation, hope, and the sense of a future achievement. Once everything becomes completely certain, however, emotional tension gradually weakens.

MUTUAL ATTRACTION OF OPPOSITES
This is precisely why male and female nature, despite all their differences, are continually drawn toward one another. A man seeks beauty, tenderness, and emotional inspiration in a woman, while a woman seeks strength, consistency, and a sense of security in a man. Each seeks in the other what is lacking in themselves.

MAN AND WOMAN AS COMPLEMENTS
Thus, the differences between men and women become not only a source of contradictions but also the foundation of their mutual attraction. What one person perceives as weakness may be perceived by another as a necessary complement. And if we do not demand that a woman be a man, or that a man be a woman, we can begin to see in each a distinct form of wisdom corresponding to their nature.

THE STRENGTH OF DIFFERENCE
A woman remains a woman precisely through her tenderness, her ability to care, to feel, and to choose with an eye toward the future. A man remains a man through his ability to desire, strive, achieve, and move consistently toward a chosen goal. In the union of these contrasting qualities arises the attraction that, throughout human history, has compelled men and women to seek one another.


GHOSTS: REALITY OR ILLUSION?


“You think that you are moving, but it is you who are being moved!” — Goethe

FAIRY TALES, MYTHS, AND THE HUMAN DESIRE FOR THE UNKNOWN
Since ancient times, humanity has raised children through fairy tales, legends, traditions, and myths. By listening to fascinating fictional stories in which extraordinary events intertwine with human relationships, a child receives his or her first moral lessons. Through fairy-tale characters, children learn to distinguish between good and evil, understand the consequences of their actions, empathize with others, and place themselves in different circumstances. A fairy tale allows a child to enter mentally into a world different from familiar reality and thereby expands the boundaries of his or her understanding.
Fairy tales are not lies or a deliberate attempt to present another reality to people as something that actually exists. Above all, they are a tool of education, allowing serious matters to be discussed in figurative form. At the same time, however, fairy tales vividly demonstrate one important feature of human nature—our attraction to fiction, to everything strange, inexplicable, magnificent, and mysterious. Human beings have always been fascinated by what lies beyond their immediate experience.

CURIOSITY AS A DRIVING FORCE OF CIVILIZATION
This desire to discover the unknown greatly contributes to human curiosity. The wish to learn what lies beyond the visible world encourages us to explore our surroundings, ask questions, formulate hypotheses, and search for answers. In this respect, even the most ancient fantastic ideas played a certain role in the development of human culture. They stimulated the imagination, and imagination, in turn, became one of the sources of scientific inquiry.
When a person looks at the starry sky, he can imagine the enormous expanse of space that still remains to be explored. Behind every star there is something unknown; behind every cosmic phenomenon lies another mystery. Thus, the Universe itself seems constantly to remind humanity of the infinite number of possible discoveries. It is precisely the desire to penetrate the unknown that drives our civilization forward.

MYTHOLOGY AND THE ORIGINS OF THE FANTASTIC
An element of mythology is present in virtually every culture. Fairy tales emerged largely from mythology, while myths were among the earliest forms through which human beings attempted to explain what they did not understand. One need only recall Odysseus's journeys to the land of the Cyclopes, his encounters with goddesses, his visit to the realm of the dead, the Sirens with their deadly hypnotic voices, and the other strange monsters he encountered. All these images demonstrate how deeply the desire for the extraordinary is rooted in the human mind.
Yet fantastic ideas constantly come into conflict with everyday experience. Every day we live in a world of things governed by certain laws of nature. We wake up, work, eat, communicate, observe the movement of objects and phenomena, and gradually become accustomed to the stable order of events. Nevertheless, even such experience is unable to completely eliminate belief in the extraordinary.

WHEN THE SUPERNATURAL ENTERS EVERYDAY LIFE
Fantastic ideas continue to exist in the minds of people who tell stories about encounters with extraterrestrials, ghosts, deceased relatives, and other supernatural beings. And here a difficult question arises: how can we convince someone who has encountered a dead person that the experience was not real when, for that person, the encounter was absolutely real and genuinely occurred in his or her personal life?
We cannot simply tell such a person, “You didn't see anything.” The experience was real for that individual. The person saw an image, heard a voice, and experienced fear, surprise, or the sensation that another being was present.
Therefore, we need to distinguish between two things: the reality of the experience and the objective reality of the object that caused the experience.

A STORY ABOUT MAGIC, GRIEF, AND FEAR
A story told to us by an acquaintance demonstrates how genuine and convincing such experiences can be.
“Many years have passed since I rented a room in the apartment of a certain family. A terrible tragedy had occurred in their lives: they had lost their only child, in whom they had placed so many hopes. The parents had made enormous efforts for his future, invested all their resources in him, and, one might say, a significant part of the meaning of their existence. But one day everything came to an end. They lost the precious gift that, as they believed, fate had bestowed upon them.
The family suffered an irreparable loss, and this gradually affected their former prosperity. In order to ease his grief, the father began drinking. Alcohol temporarily allowed him to distance himself from his painful emotions, but at the same time it deprived him of the ability to evaluate the situation rationally.
After some time, he acquired a strange mistress who had long wanted this man and now saw a favorable opportunity to take advantage of the family's tragedy. Passion, love, and tears—what man can resist feminine temptation? Constant alcohol consumption, which kept him from soberly assessing his situation, only intensified his amorous adventures.
But that was not the end of the matter. The mistress decided to resort to magic. Love spells and the advice of fortune-tellers, in her opinion, were supposed to help her gain complete possession of the man. Before long, this led the family to divorce.

THE “LOVE WITCH”
The newly proclaimed ‘love witch’ tried every possible trick. She scattered salt in front of the apartment door, performed strange gestures, and made crosses that were supposedly meant to be placed upon the victim from a distance. Everything gradually turned into a real performance in which every new action was explained by magical reasons.
At that time, a young man lived in the apartment. I moved in later. The mistress managed to make her daughter friends with this young man. Taking advantage of the moments when the family was at work, the daughter of this woman, who had become obsessed with passion, visited the apartment, met the young man, and left needles, tied bones, and other strange objects there, carefully hiding them among ordinary belongings.
Meanwhile, the mother of the deceased child was also going through severe emotional difficulties. She was under tremendous stress and spent a great deal of time talking with friends and acquaintances. When she learned what was happening in her home, she was astonished by the rival's persistent attempts to interfere in her family and began fighting for the last hope that still kept her connected to her former married life.

SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE OF A CURSE
Everything became clear after a thorough inspection of the apartment. Clothes, bedding, and other belongings were examined. Every seam was inspected, every pillow was shaken out, and everything was checked. When strange objects in the form of tied bones and other similar items were discovered, the family no longer had any doubts that the lovesick intruder was deliberately carrying out some kind of scheme in the apartment.
The wife asked her friends to persuade her husband to visit a clairvoyant and have the supposed curse removed. After much pleading, their efforts succeeded. The ‘bewitched’ man gradually began to recover. He stopped drinking, reconciled with his wife, and their family relationship slowly began to improve.
That was the state in which I found their marriage. The previous tenant was thrown out. Later, he married the mistress's daughter and lived with them.
It seemed that everything was over. The husband became himself again, the family settled down, and I listened to their stories as an entertaining tale. But in reality, things were not so smooth.

THE RETURN OF OLD PROBLEMS
A year later, the head of the family resumed his amorous adventures. They were accompanied by constant drinking and quarrels. To be honest, it was unpleasant to watch.
The family's friends began convincing the ‘scoundrel’ that he had been bewitched again and advised him to visit a fortune-teller and have the curse removed once more. But this time he refused to listen. He spoke contemptuously about such ideas and openly said that there was no witchcraft. He simply did not want to continue living with his wife and wanted a divorce.
I watched as alcohol, constant tension, and stress caused by endless arguments began to damage his health. His wife asked me to take her side and confirm that he had been cursed, so that she could bring her husband back to a normal life.
Eventually, he agreed to visit the fortune-teller.

WHEN FEAR BECOMES CONTAGIOUS
As a witness to what was happening, I myself experienced severe stress. This was compounded by constant stories about witchcraft, curses, love spells, and supernatural forces. Gradually, all of this began to affect my own mind.
One day I was left alone in the apartment. The family had gone to the countryside for the weekend. Since my room was being renovated, I moved into the owners' bedroom and made myself a bed on the floor.
In the middle of the night, I heard footsteps.
I raised my head and opened my eyes—and almost died of fright. Standing at the head of my bed was the woman who had caused the family drama.
I froze. My arms and legs seemed to stop working, my brain was pounding violently, and the hair on my head stood on end. She tilted her head and looked at me carefully, as though she had encountered an unexpected obstacle in the course of her schemes.
My first impulse was to do something to resist the ‘ghost’: turn on the light, scream, run away. But I was completely paralyzed by fear.
Finally, somehow, I struck the ghost's legs, and it disappeared, melting into the darkness of the bedroom.
After that, I realized that something strange was happening to me. Most likely, it was the result of the psychological tension that had accumulated after all the frightening stories and events. I had spent too long in an atmosphere where conversations about witchcraft and ghosts had become almost a permanent part of life.
At such moments, we always remember God, even if we do not normally believe in Him. I recited the Lord's Prayer, crossed myself, pulled the blanket over my head, and soon fell asleep.
After my encounter with the ghost, I never again spent the night in the owners' bedroom.

THE END OF THE FAMILY DRAMA
Of course, you are probably interested in knowing what happened next in this love story.
The owner of the apartment was taken to fortune-tellers several times, and they partly managed to convince him that a curse had been placed upon him. My frightening story also added fuel to the fire. In addition, his constant drinking finally undermined the health of the ‘bewitched’ man. Hospitals, medication, expenses, and new problems followed. All of this seriously discouraged the persistent ‘suitor.’
Then came a heart attack, heart surgery, and permanent dependence on medication. His health made it impossible for him to continue his previous lifestyle. Gradually, the family returned to its former way of life.
During yet another quarrel, I moved to another apartment.”

THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND THE “GHOST”
This story is interesting not because it proves the existence of ghosts, but because it demonstrates the power of the human psyche. The man had been immersed in an atmosphere of constant tension, alcohol, family conflict, stories about witchcraft, and expectations of supernatural intervention. As a result, even ordinary nighttime perceptions could acquire a completely different meaning.
When a person expects to encounter something frightening, the mind begins interpreting ambiguous sensations according to that expectation. A shadow becomes a figure, a sound becomes footsteps, and accidental movement becomes a deliberate action.
The fear itself is not imaginary. It is real. The heartbeat, paralysis, muscle tension, and sensation of danger are real. But the reality of these sensations does not prove the existence of an external supernatural being.

AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE DEAD
Let us consider another interesting case that happened to an acquaintance of ours.
The mother of a young woman, being single, brought a man into the house. The family began a new life. The new partner brought variety, liveliness, and probably a certain amount of dissatisfaction among some members of the family, but over time their relationships improved.
After a very short period, the family received news of the tragic death of this new member of the household. The deceased had previously been energetic, sociable, and a vivid personality. The terrible news was a shock to his acquaintances and colleagues, but the family grieved especially deeply.
As was customary, he was buried in the local cemetery.
On the second day after the funeral, there was a knock at the door. Our acquaintance went to open it and froze in terror.
The deceased was standing before her.
He looked completely normal, with his familiar expression, as though nothing had happened.
He asked where the girl's mother was. When he was told that she was at work, the deceased asked her to tell his mother that he had come. Then he turned around and left.
The girl could not recover from the experience for a long time. She tried to explain what had happened and thought: “Perhaps it was his soul coming to visit them? Maybe he had failed to do something important or say something while he was alive, and therefore returned? After all, there is a belief that the soul of a deceased person remains near the living for some time, so perhaps there was nothing strange about his appearance.”

THE GRAVE WAS UNDISTURBED
After the daughter told her mother the story, they decided to go to the cemetery the next day and see whether the grave had been disturbed.
“Maybe he rose from the dead?” our acquaintance remarked.
However, the burial site was completely untouched.
After that, they went to church, prayed, and lit a candle for the repose of his soul.
No one in the family ever saw him again.
Our acquaintance is still convinced that she encountered the soul of the man who had lived with them for about a year. Nothing can persuade her otherwise.
Here we encounter the same question again: can a subjectively convincing experience be regarded as proof of the objective existence of the object that a person perceived?

SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND OBJECTIVE REALITY
For someone who has experienced such an encounter, doubt can indeed be practically impossible. The person does not experience the event as a fantasy. He or she is convinced that a particular individual was seen.
However, human perception is not a photographic camera that mechanically records the surrounding world. Between an external stimulus and our conscious awareness of that stimulus lies the complex activity of the brain.
The emotional state of a person is particularly important. The death of a loved one, shock, fear, grief, anticipation of an encounter, and religious or mystical beliefs can profoundly alter perception.
Therefore, an unusual experience cannot automatically be transformed into evidence for the existence of a supernatural world.

THE MAN WHO LIVED IN A WORLD OF MYSTICISM
We also heard a rather interesting story from a man who, in our opinion, clearly illustrated the type of person inclined toward mysticism.
His story is presented below:
“At our workplace, there was an employee who was excessively interested in books of a mystical nature and Scandinavian mythology. During one of our heated arguments, he tried to prove the existence of ghosts.
He claimed that some group of scientists studying this phenomenon had concluded that there were certain concentrations of energy, nourished by the driving force of nature, which they called spirits.
Previously, he had often talked about how he sometimes immersed himself in another, imaginary world and, by distracting himself in this way from everyday life, forgot about his problems.
As it turned out, washing the dishes after himself and dealing with other little things that revealed his laziness, as well as life itself as it really was, were also problems for him. His wife and children burdened his existence, while the world of fantasy at least temporarily gave him peace.
All his conversations came down to stories about how well he had relaxed: drinking wine, smoking his pipe, watching a film, or sitting with his brother over a few beers.
Moreover, reality itself seemed to him the greatest ordeal. There were too many problems in it, and therefore he withdrew into some unreal space.
Naturally, he tried to hide this escape into a world of illusion from others, having bitter experience with ridicule and mockery.”

MYSTICISM VERSUS ESCAPE FROM REALITY
Many people are interested in mysticism, read science fiction, watch films, follow television and newspapers, and absorb enormous amounts of information. Such interests in themselves do not indicate a psychological problem. Human beings have always been drawn to the fantastic, and interest in the unknown is one of the natural aspects of human culture.
However, there is a significant difference between an interest in fantasy and complete immersion in an imaginary picture of the world.
Mass culture offers people an enormous number of fantastic images, but they usually remain within the boundaries of an accepted framework. A person understands that he is reading a book, watching a film, or becoming acquainted with a mythological narrative.
Creating one's own fictional world, however, can gradually lead to alienation from the surrounding society. In our hero's fantasies, everything works smoothly for the time being. There he can feel free from household responsibilities, family conflicts, and other difficulties.
But one day he may encounter real problems that can no longer be solved through fantasy.
There will be nowhere to run, because ultimately a person who runs away from reality often runs away from himself.

HOW THE MIND CREATES IMAGES
We intellectually comprehend this world and the things around us through ideas and images. It is impossible, for example, to think about a chair by literally rotating the physical object inside our head. In order to think, we take the outlines of things, their characteristics and properties, and work with them as mental images.
Consequently, a person can initiate the process of thinking voluntarily and independently of the immediate movement of external objects. This is one manifestation of human intellectual freedom.
In nature, however, freedom in this sense does not exist. Everything happens naturally and causally. Every event has a cause, and that cause, in turn, has its own cause, and so on. We may not know all the causes behind what happens, but our lack of knowledge does not mean that causality is absent.

WHEN THE BRAIN CREATES AN EXTERNAL “PRESENCE”
Our brain is also capable of creating images independently of our conscious wishes. This is especially likely under conditions of severe psychological stress, fear, exhaustion, or other unusual states.
An image created by the brain can be perceived by a person as something external and independent.
This is why some people may see ghosts or encounter deceased people in their perception. The image arises without the person's conscious desire to see it. It can be unexpected, frightening, and completely convincing.
At such a moment, a person does not say to himself, “Now I am going to invent a ghost.” On the contrary, he experiences what is happening as an external event.
That is precisely what makes such experiences so powerful.

THE EMOTIONAL INFORMATION OF PLACES AND OBJECTS
Every object, work of art, and architectural structure bears traces of human activity. People are emotional beings. We are not emotionless machines. We are capable of perceiving emotional information associated with the things around us, especially when we know the history of those things.
One can look at a painting and feel emotions that accompanied the artist while creating it. One can move into an old house where everything reminds us of the past, the history of its former inhabitants, and perhaps tragic events.
Things themselves do not necessarily possess any supernatural energy. However, information about them, their appearance, their history, their atmosphere, and our own attitude toward them can exert a powerful influence on the psyche.

THE OLD HOUSE AND THE EXPECTATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Imagine a person who moves into an old house and hears from the neighbors that a tragedy once occurred there.
Under ordinary circumstances, the creaking of floorboards, the sound of the wind, the movement of a curtain, or a change in lighting may go unnoticed.
But if the person already expects something frightening, each such phenomenon acquires a special meaning.
Circumstances of this kind can sometimes exert a powerful influence on the psyche and produce mental visions.
We do not claim that a person consciously invents such images. On the contrary, ghosts often appear without the person's desire to see them. The individual does not choose the moment when they appear and cannot control his or her own reaction.
However, this still does not mean that the ghost exists as an independent entity of nature.

ARE GHOSTS REAL?
We believe that such phenomena should primarily be connected with the functioning of the human brain under the influence of intense emotional tension, fear, expectation, and accumulated information.
In this sense, a ghost is not a part of the natural order of things. Rather, it belongs to a particular mode of human perception and is characteristic of human beings as creatures capable of creating complex mental images.




THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN SHOW BUSINESS


"Everything we consider to be accidental actually happens according to a hidden pattern."
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger

For many years, we have tried to understand what lies behind the extraordinary success of the group Laskovyi Mai. This phenomenon has been repeatedly discussed by journalists, music critics, fans, and commentators. At first glance, it might seem that if we simply brought together all the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the group, the mystery would be solved. Yet every time we attempt to reduce this success to a single cause, a new mystery appears before us.
In the former Soviet Union, there were countless popular musical groups and performers. Some possessed magnificent voices; others distinguished themselves by a high level of professional skill; some had the support of influential people, while others benefited from the opportunities provided by the state concert system. But almost no one experienced the kind of mass, almost spontaneous enthusiasm that Laskovyi Mai inspired.
The sheer number of concerts is revealing. Everything that singers performing under the auspices of Alla Pugacheva were able to achieve was thirteen consecutive concerts at Luzhniki Stadium. Laskovyi Mai performed seventeen. This comparison alone makes us stop and think: we are dealing with a phenomenon that cannot be explained solely by the quality of the music, the fame of the performers, or conventional advertising.
The story of Janet Jackson's appearance as the opening act is particularly symbolic. The audience barely accepted her performance, yet greeted Laskovyi Mai with genuine enthusiasm when the group appeared on stage. For a Western star of such stature, such a reaction must have seemed completely unexpected. This raises a natural question: why did an audience that had the opportunity to see a world-famous star prefer seemingly ordinary Soviet teenagers?
From this we can draw a preliminary conclusion: professional musical quality by itself is not a sufficient condition for mass success. Sometimes something else proves far more important—simplicity, recognizability, emotional accessibility, and the correspondence between a work and the inner state of a large number of people.
One fan of the group told us:
“When I first heard the songs of Laskovyi Mai, I did not pay much attention to their simplicity. By that time, people were already listening to them everywhere: from open windows, in courtyards, in cars, at discos. Young people walked through the streets carrying tape recorders in their hands, spreading those simple melodies to every corner of the former Soviet Union. I did not even notice how, while spending time with friends, watching the pink evening, entering the gray night, and experiencing a gentle May day, I began to derive emotional pleasure from those unremarkable melodies. Eventually, I could no longer stop listening to them. This fascination with the group did not happen only to me. Among my acquaintances, there was no one who had not been infected by ‘White Roses.’ In my experience, nothing similar has happened since the group left the stage.”
What is particularly important in this account is not the description of musical preferences itself, but the gradual development of an attachment to the songs. At first, the person did not consider them anything extraordinary. He simply heard them everywhere. Then the music became part of his everyday environment, and after that it imperceptibly turned into an emotional habit.
It is here, in our view, that the beginning of the answer can be found.
People do not always choose music exclusively through reason. We may critically evaluate a work, consider it simple, primitive, or even professionally weak, while simultaneously experiencing pleasure from it. Moreover, sometimes the very work that the intellect considers insignificant proves extraordinarily powerful from a psychological point of view.
Many explain the phenomenon of Laskovyi Mai by the extremely low price of its tickets. But did free concerts held on Khreshchatyk during public holidays attract the same number of devoted followers? Does the absence of a high ticket price automatically turn people into fans of a performer?
If the secret lay only in low ticket prices, mass musical enthusiasm could have been organized almost at any time. Yet this did not happen.
Another explanation might be that this kind of music simply went out of fashion. But one only had to turn on the television, listen to the radio, or look at the contemporary music scene to see the opposite. The number of performers working in popular musical styles increased many times over.
Therefore, simplicity alone cannot explain the phenomenon either.
Every talent needs someone capable of recognizing it, presenting it properly to the public, and organizing its promotion. For this reason, a substantial part of Laskovyi Mai's fame is traditionally associated with its artistic director, Andrei Razin. And there is undoubtedly a rational basis for this view. But an important qualification must be made: in order to promote a work, one must first have something worth promoting.
Razin possessed precisely this kind of talent—the ability to sense the potential for a mass phenomenon. He managed to notice what many others failed to see. A person may possess enormous organizational abilities and yet fail to recognize promising material. Conversely, someone may create an excellent song but be unable to bring it to an audience.
Success emerges where these two circumstances meet.
The songs that became beloved by millions did not demonstrate extraordinary professional virtuosity compared with many other works in the same popular genre. Some may even have been inferior to their competitors in terms of lyrical complexity, harmony, or melodic structure. Yet they offered the listener something else: a feeling of lightness, familiarity, immediacy, and emotional release.
The author created them under the influence of inspiration, at a particular period of his life, while experiencing a particular psychological state. That is why we believe it is important to consider Kuznetsov's early songs not merely as musical compositions, but also as a kind of reflection of his inner world.
To avoid misunderstanding, we should emphasize that in the analysis that follows, we deliberately focus primarily on the first album and on several songs from the second and third albums. In our opinion, the later work associated with this musical project, as well as Kuznetsov's compositions for other projects, no longer possess the unique infectious quality characteristic of his early compositions. For this reason, they are of considerably less interest to our study.
Take, for example, the lyrics of the song “Rain,” performed by the new group under Kuznetsov's direction, “Bye-Bye,” which was also known as “Mama”:
“How long can I love your eyes
And never touch them even once?”
These words already reveal a completely different emotional state. Here we encounter pain, dissatisfaction, and the inability to approach the desired person. In the subtext, one can also discern a personal grievance connected with Kuznetsov's conflict with Razin and the events that followed.
If we compare this composition with the early songs, it becomes apparent how strongly the author's mood influenced the result. The early compositions seem to have been created in a state of carefree lightness, whereas the later works contain a completely different emotional substance.
For this reason, we should not view the success of the early songs exclusively as the result of a carefully planned commercial strategy. Written according to mood and, probably, without any clear understanding of the future scale of their success, they unexpectedly found an enormous audience.
Of course, every author hopes that his work will succeed. A person invests effort, time, emotions, and a part of his individuality in a creation. But hope for success and actual success are completely different things. Between them lie countless accidents, circumstances, and human decisions.
This is how Kuznetsov himself describes the beginning of the story:
“FEBRUARY 18, 1988. The recording is ready. I have to take it around to the music people. I visited several of these kiosks. None of the owners wanted it…
— ‘Unprofessional…’
Well, never mind. I went to the railway station. There is a ‘point’ there too. Vitek Bakhtin was behind the counter. He listened and listened… He said, actually, some people were asking about a group called LASKOVYI MAI. I myself had never heard of them before. But overall, it was ‘not bad.’ He said, ‘I'll take it, just in case.’”
This episode is particularly interesting precisely because of its ordinariness. No one at that moment was talking about a future phenomenon, millions of listeners, or stadiums. The recording was regarded as an ordinary piece of musical material that could be taken “just in case.”
And only a few months later, the situation changed in an almost unbelievable way.
Kuznetsov continues:
“And, of course, the pleasant things began to happen. Three months had passed since we ‘celebrated’ our deal with Vitek, and the entire country of victorious socialism, already entering perestroika, was enthusiastically listening to ‘White Roses.’ How about that??? And all without any advertising!!!”
He then describes performances by unknown boys singing to Shatunov's backing track and explains how a system of numerous groups operating under the name Laskovyi Mai effectively emerged:
“In the capital? In Gorky Park, a group called ‘Laskovyi Mai’ had already been performing for quite some time!!! Cool, right? Some unfamiliar boys were performing to Shatunov's backing track. What would you have done in my place? Turn around and leave? But they would have continued doing exactly the same thing… So I stayed. At least to exercise some control…
And it was interesting! On the very same day, Laskovyi Mai was performing in stadiums at eight in the evening in Vladivostok, Frunze, Leningrad, and Omsk!!! Can you do that? Razin could! A genius!!! Teleportation…”
As we can see, Razin not only selected promising musical material but also transformed it into a large-scale commercial project. As the popularity of the songs grew, he brought the creators of the group into his orbit and organized Laskovyi Mai as a system capable of functioning not merely as an ordinary musical ensemble, but almost as a mass industry.
And here another important element of our analysis appears: talent may exist separately from the ability to realize it.
Kuznetsov created the songs. Shatunov became their recognizable voice. Razin transformed them into a mass phenomenon. Each of them performed a distinct function. Therefore, reducing the entire phenomenon to a single person would be an oversimplification.
Several decades have now passed since the dissolution of that lineup and the end of Laskovyi Mai as the unique phenomenon of its era. Various explanations for its popularity have periodically appeared in different sources. Many of them were perfectly plausible: the difficult social situation, the beginning of perestroika, affordable tickets, the simplicity of the music, Shatunov's unusual voice, and Razin's entrepreneurial ability.
Yet we constantly felt that something was missing from all these explanations.
Each individual reason was convincing, but even together they still did not create a complete picture.
Everything seemed too simple: difficult times, a popular rhythm, comprehensible lyrics, an enterprising producer, and a charismatic performer. But if everything was really that simple, why did other groups operating under the same conditions not achieve the same result?
It was precisely this question that forced us to look deeper.
As often happens when searching for an answer to a difficult question, there comes a moment when scattered facts suddenly connect into a single picture. One day, we happened to hear a song from the group's first album, “Well, What Can I Do?”, followed by Yuri Shatunov's new song “Forget Him, Forget.”
And suddenly it struck us.
There it was.
So what, exactly, was the reason?
Why had we failed to notice something that had literally been in front of our eyes? Why had we listened to the words, heard the melodies, known the songs almost by heart, and yet failed to notice the common psychological structure?
Our desire to analyze these long-familiar compositions in detail took us to a market. We bought a disc containing all the albums of Laskovyi Mai and began systematically searching for what we had not found in the works of other authors.
Gradually, a picture began to emerge—a picture that had long been concealed behind familiarity, popularity, and numerous superficial explanations.
A song often begins with a problematic situation. Yet the problem is not always perceived as a tragedy. On the contrary, the unpleasant circumstance may become almost desirable: it gives a person an opportunity to free himself from the pressure of circumstances, remove responsibility from himself, and present his own defeat as a voluntary choice.
Consider these words:
“The boys won't laugh at me anymore
Outside your entrance,
I don't need to wander around with you at night;
Better to sleep peacefully instead.”
On the surface, this is a story about a breakup. Psychologically, however, something else is happening.
The hero seems to transform defeat into victory. He does not want to admit that he has been rejected or that the relationship has failed. Instead, he says: I don't need this anymore either. Now I am free. I made this decision myself.
This is an extraordinarily powerful psychological device.
It is difficult for a person to acknowledge his own helplessness. It is much more pleasant to convince oneself that an unpleasant circumstance was voluntarily chosen.
Therefore, the hero does not suffer—he demonstratively liberates himself.
The surrounding circumstances seem to agree with him: the pink sunset, the summer evening, the night sky. He challenges the girl and declares that he will never approach her again. Yet inwardly we understand that this very categorical statement reveals his dependence on the situation.
A similar psychological structure appears in other Kuznetsov songs.
Compare, for example, the ending of “White Roses”:
“And they leave you to die
On the white, cold window.”
And the ending of “Pink Evening”:
“…forget it, don't remember!”
In both cases, there is a conclusion to an emotional conflict. Yet this is not a calm resolution of the problem. It is a kind of emotional gesture that allows a person to draw a line even when, internally, he is not yet ready to do so.
Kuznetsov, working as an artistic director at a boarding school and constantly communicating with teenagers, had an opportunity to understand their psychology very well. The teenage environment was close and familiar to him. And the adolescent psyche is especially sensitive to issues of recognition, rejection, freedom, first love, resentment, demonstrative independence, and the desire to prove one's maturity.
These are precisely the experiences that we repeatedly encounter in his songs.
There is also information about Kuznetsov's serious involvement with alcohol. Without attempting to turn the author's biographical circumstances into proof of his artistic concept, we can nevertheless note an interesting psychological parallel. Excessive alcohol consumption is often associated with the desire to temporarily reduce the pressure of consciousness on the psyche. Under the influence of alcohol, social self-control decreases, the sense of responsibility becomes weaker, and it becomes easier for a person to violate habitual restrictions.
We do not live entirely alone with ourselves. Our behavior is constantly regulated by social norms, expectations, rules, obligations, and the need to take other people's interests into account. Therefore, freedom in human society is always limited.
When these limitations temporarily weaken, a feeling of psychological liberation can emerge.
It is precisely this kind of liberation that we find in Kuznetsov's early songs.
This is not the freedom of a philosophical treatise. It is a small, everyday freedom: not going home, forgetting the rules, stopping the need to justify oneself, ignoring other people's opinions, laughing at one's own misfortune, experiencing love as a game, and pretending that defeat is actually victory.
This is why the songs became understandable to a mass audience.
Virtually everyone working in show business understands that mass popularity requires simple, accessible lyrics and music that is easy to remember. But simplicity alone is not a guarantee of success.
Laskovyi Mai was aimed primarily at a teenage and youth audience—one of the most active categories of music listeners. Young people are more interested in music, attend discos and concerts more frequently, and spread songs they like among their friends more quickly.
But if this alone were enough to guarantee success, there would have been countless similar phenomena.
Perhaps the secret lies precisely in the exact correspondence between the content of the song and the emotional state of its audience.
Consider a later song by Shatunov:
“Forget him, forget him, love will pass like smoke,
Because in his dreams it is not you, not you, not you.”
Here we encounter a completely different form of emotional impact.
A girl who is depressed because of unrequited love hears these words and receives what is almost another emotional blow: “not you.”
It is not enough that the love has ended. The song additionally formulates a painful conclusion: you are not the object of his dreams.
But the paradox is that a person experiencing emotional pain sometimes deliberately chooses precisely this kind of music. Why?
Because it allows the person not merely to suffer, but to recognize his or her own suffering.
Music becomes a mirror of emotion.
The listener hears something that already exists inside them and therefore experiences relief: someone has expressed in words what I myself could not formulate.
This is where one of the most important psychological mechanisms of mass art appears—the recognition of oneself in another person's work.
We must also acknowledge the fact that “White Roses”, with its carefree and easily memorable melody, became one of the most important foundations of the group's success.
The song combines pity and lightness, sadness and an almost festive intonation, the tragic fate of flowers and the carefree quality of the musical accompaniment in a remarkable way.
An emotional paradox emerges.
The content speaks of death and vulnerability, while the melody does not allow the listener to become completely immersed in tragedy. Instead, it seems to distance the listener from the pain and invite them to look at it from a safer distance.
This combination may be particularly attractive to the mass consciousness.
The ability to celebrate an unpleasant situation, to transform sadness into something light, and to push pain to a safe emotional distance was, in our opinion, an important characteristic of Kuznetsov's psychological state during the period when these songs were created.
It is therefore not surprising that such a state could resonate with an enormous audience.

A STEADY, MODERATE RHYTHM
The compositions contain a moderate, sufficiently even rhythm that allows the listener to enjoy the movement for an extended period. It does not tire the listener as quickly as an excessively fast rhythm, nor does it seem as boring as an excessively slow one.
This is particularly important for a mass audience. Such music does not require complete concentration. It can be listened to while talking, walking, traveling, or dancing. It easily becomes part of everyday life.
The music does not force the listener to stop and contemplate a complex structure. On the contrary, it allows the listener to keep moving.

A ROLLING, CAREFREE MELODY
The melody seems to make the listener move from side to side. It contains a certain cyclic quality, reminiscent of the movement of a pendulum.
Everyone is familiar with the hypnotic effect of a pendulum.
The repetition of movement gradually relaxes attention. It requires no effort; instead, it reduces the need to control what is happening.
A repeating melodic structure can work in a similar way. The listener gradually stops analyzing the music and simply exists within it.

THE PROBLEM AND ITS EMOTIONAL RESOLUTION
Another characteristic feature is the emergence of a problem followed by its resolution, often associated with significant losses.
This produces empathy.
In “White Roses,” warmth initially appears behind the glass while cold exists outside:
“A little warmer behind the glass, but in the bitter frost
I enter these doors as though entering a garden of July flowers.”
Then comes the desire to protect the flowers:
“I want so much to warm them with my affection,
In front of everyone I am ready to kiss and caress them.”
But soon their vulnerability is revealed:
“White roses, white roses—their thorns are defenseless.
What have the snow and frost done to you,
The blue ice of the shop windows?”

TARGET AUDIENCE AND THE ROLE OF THE MEDIATOR
The songs of Kuznetsov are full of similar examples. This is precisely why they achieved such enormous popularity during a difficult period in Soviet history: their content was accessible and understandable to a broad range of listeners, while the feelings and experiences embedded in them were familiar to almost everyone.
These songs appealed to ordinary human emotions—love, jealousy, loneliness, hope, disappointment, and the desire for happiness. Ultimately, their uniqueness lay not so much in the complexity of their musical or poetic form as in their ability to identify and accurately sense their target audience.
The creators of valuable works, genuine masterpieces, and even ordinary things that become popular with the public do not always receive the recognition they deserve during their lifetime. Their talent is often recognized and utilized by others—people capable of seeing the potential of what has been created, presenting it properly, popularizing it, and bringing it to the wider public.
Between the emergence of a work and its mass success, there is often a kind of mediator capable of transforming an inconspicuous talent into a social phenomenon.
A song with a certain potential may be written by an unknown or otherwise ordinary author and nevertheless remain almost completely unnoticed. It may lie on a shelf for years without finding its audience. But once a person with greater intuition, entrepreneurial ability, or simply a capacity to sense the public demand discovers it and recognizes its potential, the situation can change dramatically.
A new performance, a different stage image, a well-designed promotional strategy, or a fortunate combination of circumstances can give a work an entirely different scale.
As a result, a paradoxical situation sometimes arises: a work brings enormous fame and substantial financial rewards not so much to its immediate creator as to those who succeeded in transforming that talent into a popular mass product. The author may remain in the shadows even though his original idea became the foundation of the eventual success.
Thus, in the mass-culture industry, an author's talent and the ability to make that talent visible are by no means the same thing.
One person may possess the ability to create, while another possesses the ability to recognize what has been created and transform it into a phenomenon of mass culture.
It is often at the intersection of these two abilities that genuine commercial success emerges.
In Razin's case, we can see precisely this kind of natural talent. He was one of those people who do not merely look at the stars but know how to recognize the brightest ones. Where others might have seen only a multitude of young performers and songs, he was able to recognize the potential, sense the prospective audience, and understand what kind of image could generate an emotional response from the public.
This ability—to notice what others have not yet noticed—became one of the most important factors in the subsequent success.
Razin was not so much the creator of the musical material as the person who managed to recognize its potential, bring together the talents of the performers, the songs, and the stage image into a single whole, and offer all of this to the audience in a form that proved comprehensible and emotionally close to them.
And this is one of the central paradoxes of mass culture: sometimes great success requires not only the talent of the creator, but also a person capable of seeing that talent, using it effectively, and bringing it to a broad audience.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MASS SUCCESS AND THE FIVE IDEAS OF THE MIND
Rock music and classical music, especially in their most complex and virtuoso forms, require a certain degree of intellectual concentration and emotional engagement from the listener. To truly perceive a complex musical composition, it is not enough simply to hear a sequence of sounds; one must follow its development, distinguish musical themes, sense changes in rhythm and harmony, and experience shifts in emotional tension. For a prepared listener, such music can indeed be a form of intellectual recreation, because it redirects consciousness away from everyday problems toward another level of perception. However, such recreation should not be completely equated with relaxation. Rather, it resembles a kind of nourishment for a curious and intellectually active mind. A person derives pleasure not only from the emotional impact of the music but also from the need to perceive, comprehend, and internally experience it. Therefore, this type of music is particularly attractive to a relatively narrow circle of people who are prepared for such a level of concentration.
We observe an entirely different mechanism of influence in Kuznetsov's songs.
Their charm lies primarily in the psychological correspondence between the lyrics and melody and the level of perception of a particular category of listeners. There is no need to listen for a long time, analyze a complex musical structure, or intellectually decipher the meaning. The melody is easy to remember, the words are quickly recognized, and the emotional state created by the song allows a person, for a while, to free themselves from internal tension.
It is precisely this simplicity that creates a special kind of emotional pleasure. A person is given the opportunity to distract themselves from unpleasant thoughts, everyday responsibilities, and inner anxiety. Music seems to remove psychological pressure, liberate consciousness, and restore a sense of carefree freedom.
That is why songs of this kind are capable of finding their listeners again and again. Generations change, social conditions change, fashions change, and the technological means of distributing music change, but the human need for emotional release remains. This is precisely why such songs always have the potential to return. A time will come when they will come alive again — either in their original forms or in new works created by poets and composers who possess a similar natural gift for sensing the emotional state of the masses.

THE BEATLES: FROM PSYCHOLOGY TO IDEA
An entirely different mechanism of success can be seen in the example of the British group The Beatles. At one point, they achieved astonishing worldwide success, which did not disappear even after the group ceased to exist. Their songs continue to be listened to not only by people who remember the era of their original fame but also by younger generations.
Unlike the success of Laskovyi Mai, we associate the cause of The Beatles' global popularity primarily not with psychological relaxation but with the ideological content of their creative work.
Of course, the psychological component is also extremely important here. We derive pleasure from the melodies, the voices of the performers, the rhythm, and the overall emotional atmosphere. But behind all of this lies a deeper level — an idea capable of extending beyond a specific historical period.
One of the central ideas is love.
The lyrics of The Beatles' songs are often simple, understandable, and accessible. This simplicity became one of the conditions for their international spread. For English-speaking listeners, the content was immediately understandable, while for people learning English, the songs also became an emotional means of learning the language.
The Beatles sang about love not so much as a tragic passion for which a person must die in suffering, but rather as a natural human feeling associated with closeness, tenderness, and the desire to be near another person.
Formulas such as “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”  — are extremely simple. Yet this very simplicity makes them universal. To understand such a phrase, a person needs neither special education nor profound knowledge of English.
The same can be seen in songs devoted to separation. The person in love does not necessarily blame the other person for their unhappiness. They simply experience sadness, feel a sense of loss, and long for the past.
Thus, the theme of love becomes not a source of destruction but a means of expressing the human need for closeness.

“ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE”
This tendency is particularly evident in the song “All You Need Is Love.”
The phrase itself is extremely simple. It is repeated many times and, through repetition, acquires the character of a formula, almost a mantra. Repetition gradually fixes it in the listener's consciousness.
From the point of view of influencing a mass audience, this is an extremely effective technique. A complex philosophical concept cannot be conveyed equally easily to millions of people. But a simple formula expressing a fundamental human need can be understood by almost everyone.
“All you need is love” is therefore no longer merely a line from a song. It can be perceived as a statement, almost a worldview formula.
It is precisely here that music begins to move into the realm of ideas.

FROM LOVE TO A UTOPIAN IDEAL
The ideological content becomes even more apparent in the song “Imagine,” associated with John Lennon.
The song proposes imagining a world free from traditional divisions — without the opposition of countries, without familiar religious boundaries, without war and hostility, a world in which people are capable of living in peace.
The author himself acknowledges the utopian nature of such a vision. The dreamlike quality is not concealed; on the contrary, it becomes part of the idea itself: a person can dream of a world that does not yet exist, but that dream can become part of the collective consciousness.
This is why the popularity of The Beatles cannot be explained solely by successful melodies.
Their work became connected with a certain transformation of social consciousness. Musical form became a means of disseminating ideas that were already emerging within society.
This raises a fundamental question: did the authors of these works consciously foresee trends that would later become widespread in European and global society, or did they simply intuitively find the right words and melodies?
The very concept of “chance” requires careful consideration here. We may call an event accidental if we do not see its causes, but the absence of a visible cause does not necessarily mean the absence of a pattern.

CHRISTIANITY AND NEW FORMS OF IDEAS
To understand this process, we must turn to a deeper level of human thought.
Lennon expressed extremely sharp views concerning Christianity and its historical role. These statements should be considered in the context of the social and cultural atmosphere of his time, because they reflected not only the musician's personal position but also a broader process of re-evaluating religious values in Western society.
Yet an interesting pattern emerges here.
If we analyze major historical successes, political movements, social projects, and even certain phenomena of mass culture, we often discover that the ideas employed by successful people echo fundamental ideas that have long existed within religious and philosophical traditions.
From our point of view, this does not necessarily happen because successful people consciously borrow ancient ideas. Perhaps the reason lies deeper: the human mind itself arrives at certain fundamental concepts.
That is why different cultures, historical periods, and social movements can independently reproduce similar ideas.
In our opinion, these ideas received their most consistent and rationally organized form in Christian teaching.

THE IDEA OF GOD AS A SPIRITUAL FATHER
A question arises: why is a person not always capable of becoming as clearly aware of these ideas as they are formulated in the Gospel?
The reason may be that human nature is imperfect. Many ideas exist within consciousness in an undeveloped, fragmented state. A person may feel a particular moral need but may be unable to formulate it with maximum clarity.
This is precisely why a clearly formulated idea can exert such a powerful influence.
For example, the idea of God as the Father in heaven can be understood not only as a religious assertion but also as an image of a spiritual Father who unites people into a single family.
In this interpretation, the idea of God simultaneously acquires a moral and social dimension.
Ceremonial and speculative worship of God, when separated from moral content, can lead to superstition or fanaticism. Therefore, for us it is fundamentally important to distinguish external religious form from inner moral content.
The formula “God is love, love is God,” although not negative in itself, may be insufficient for a philosophical understanding of the idea of God. It can simplify the concept to such an extent that its moral demands disappear.
The idea of God, in this case, should function not simply as a source of pleasant emotional states but as a moral maxim governing human behavior.

FIVE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS OF THE MIND
We believe that significant social success can arise when a person or cultural movement expresses one of the five fundamental ideas of the human mind in a form corresponding to the level at which society is capable of understanding it.
These five ideas can be formulated as follows:
I — the idea of the strong individual.
WE — the idea of caring for others and belonging to a community.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE — the idea that a person can independently determine the direction of their life.
HAPPINESS — the striving to realize one's personal ideal of life.
THE MEANING OF LIFE — the striving to realize the ultimate purpose of one's existence.
These ideas, in our view, exist in one form or another within every human being. What differs is the degree to which they are consciously recognized and integrated.
In addition to the individual level, there is also a social level. During a particular historical period, one idea may become more important to the majority of people, while other ideas temporarily recede into the background.
Moreover, the intensity of these ideas is constantly changing.
For example, strengthening the idea of “I” — that is, the desire for self-assertion and individual strength — may simultaneously weaken the idea of “We,” associated with caring for others. Conversely, strengthening the collective principle may temporarily restrict the individual's desire for personal superiority.
Thus, social consciousness is constantly moving between these poles.

THE COLLECTIVE MIND AND HISTORICAL IDEAS
Our world is largely guided by the ideas of collective consciousness.
The greatest events in human history can be viewed as manifestations of one or more fundamental ideas.
For greater clarity, let us consider them separately.

WE — GOD
According to our concept, Jesus Christ most consistently integrated the idea of God as the spiritual Father of humanity.
In this understanding, human beings form a single spiritual family, while the idea of God becomes the highest principle organizing human relationships.
The other ideas are thereby subordinated to a moral principle.

I — THE SUPERMAN
Friedrich Nietzsche, by contrast, expressed the idea of “I” to its greatest extent — the idea of a strong individual striving to overcome existing limitations.
The concept of the Superman became one of the most striking expressions of the individualistic principle in European philosophy.
At the same time, the idea of individual superiority enters into tension with the traditional idea of God. This opposition had a significant influence on the subsequent development of European culture.
Modern mass culture constantly reproduces the image of the strong individual. One need only recall the numerous superheroes — from Superman to Spider-Man. Their popularity demonstrates how persistent society's need is for the image of a person capable of surpassing ordinary limitations.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE
The next fundamental idea is freedom.
In political history, its radical forms have been particularly evident in revolutionary movements. One example is Vladimir Lenin and the slogans of social freedom, equality, and the transfer of power to the people that he promoted.
In its most radicalized form, the idea of freedom can go beyond ordinary reasonable limitations and become an absolute principle.

HAPPINESS
The idea of personal happiness is particularly evident in certain modern religious and spiritual movements.
In this case, the other ideas become subordinated to the individual's pursuit of personal well-being:
“God loves me and helps me.”
“God blesses me.”
“After death, I will live in a better world.”
Here, the religious idea can become primarily an instrument for achieving personal happiness.

THE MEANING OF LIFE
The fifth idea is the meaning of life.
It is especially clearly expressed in religious systems in which human existence is viewed as a test with a final purpose.
Within Judaism, for example, a person is expected to obey God's commandments and follow established moral norms. Earthly life acquires meaning through one's relationship with God, responsibility, and the fulfillment of duty.
Thus, the meaning of existence extends beyond momentary pleasure and becomes connected with the ultimate purpose of human life.

LOVE AS AN ACCESSIBLE FORM OF THE IDEA OF GOD
In the case of The Beatles, the idea of God, according to our concept, is presented at a level more accessible to mass consciousness — through the idea of love.
This is fundamentally important for understanding the mechanism of success in show business.
Mass culture does not have to present an idea at the highest possible philosophical level. On the contrary, its task is to express a particular idea in a form corresponding to the level of collective consciousness.
This is precisely why the idea of love proved so effective.
It is simultaneously simple, emotional, and universal.

WHY LOVE?
To understand the success of a particular idea, we must take two essential factors into account: place and time.
The Second World War had an enormous impact on the moral consciousness of Europe. The scale of violence, destruction, and human suffering called many previous ideas about the world, society, and morality into question.
There emerged a feeling that abandoning traditional religious morality could lead to a loss of moral reference points altogether.
Yet the human need for a moral foundation did not disappear.
This is where, according to our hypothesis, the idea of love could partially occupy the place previously occupied by the idea of God.
If traditional religious morality was built primarily around duty, responsibility, and the relationship between human beings and God, then the new mass culture increasingly expressed moral needs through an emotionally simpler formula: love for all people, peace, mutual understanding, and the absence of hostility.
Thus, the idea of love became a kind of secular language for expressing certain moral needs of society.

SUCCESS AS THE ABILITY TO IDENTIFY THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS OF AN IDEA
People who are able to determine which of the five fundamental ideas is in the state of greatest “disintegration” at a particular historical moment — that is, which idea is insufficiently understood by society — gain the opportunity to offer the audience precisely the form of culture that corresponds to its inner need.
If such an idea can be expressed through music, cinema, literature, or other forms of mass culture, the possibility of lasting success emerges.
This is what distinguishes long-term success from short-term psychological influence.
A person who merely guesses the public's immediate mood may achieve rapid success but lose it just as quickly. By contrast, someone who expresses a deep social idea that has not yet been fully recognized can create a cultural phenomenon that outlives its own era.

WHICH IDEA IS THE MOST “DISINTEGRATED” TODAY?
This leads us to the next question: which of the five ideas of the human mind is currently in the most unstable state?
If we look at contemporary social life, it is impossible not to notice the enormous number of protests, social conflicts, political confrontations, and revolutionary movements.
This allows us to suggest that the idea of freedom of choice is currently one of the most contradictory and unstable.
The problem lies not in freedom itself but in determining its boundaries.
Freedom understood as the ability to make any choice without any moral restrictions can lead to an internal contradiction. A person receives freedom of choice but must simultaneously determine what the correct choice actually is.
Within our concept, the most rational development of the idea of freedom lies not in the complete absence of restrictions but in the ability to consciously choose between serving good and serving sin. In both cases, a person makes a choice, but the choice itself acquires moral meaning.
This is why the contemporary theme of freedom may possess enormous potential for mass culture.
If it is presented at a level accessible to mass consciousness — through music, cinema, literature, or other forms of art — it may provoke an extremely powerful social response.
And here we return once again to the central principle of our analysis: success belongs to the person who is capable of sensing not only the mood of society but also the idea that has not yet received its final expression in the collective consciousness.
In this respect, Kuznetsov's talent and the phenomenon of Laskovyi Mai represent one type of success — psychological success, based on emotional accessibility and the ability to free a person from everyday tension.
The phenomenon of The Beatles represents another type — ideological success. Their music not only entertained and emotionally affected listeners but also expressed ideas corresponding to profound changes in social consciousness.
Therefore, mass success can have different origins. It may be based on the ability to provide a person with emotional release, or it may be based on the ability to express an idea that already exists within the collective consciousness but has not yet acquired a sufficiently simple and attractive form.
It is precisely at the intersection of psychology, idea, historical moment, and the ability to express all of this in an accessible language of mass culture that the phenomenon of truly great success emerges.


WHO IS DESTINED TO BECOME RICH?

Almighty Fortune and Inexorable Fate.
Virgil

Nowadays, money has become an inseparable part of human existence, and there is no escaping this fact. Whatever attitude a person may have toward material wealth — whether negative, indifferent, or openly desirous — money continues to play an essential role in modern life. It is necessary for purchasing food, housing, education, medical care, transportation, information, and practically everything that constitutes the material side of human existence.
Therefore, earning money for one's existence is nothing more than a necessity. But the necessity of earning a living and the desire to become rich are by no means the same thing. The former is determined by a person's natural needs; the latter is often connected with ambition, the desire for independence, power, security, prestige, or the wish to change one's position in society.
Many people constantly ask themselves:
“How can I become rich?”
We can formulate the question differently:
Is it actually possible to become rich? If so, who succeeds, and why?
In this form, the question becomes considerably more interesting. If wealth is exclusively the result of personal strife, then every person who makes sufficient effort should have the opportunity to achieve the same result. Yet reality demonstrates something entirely different.
Some people work all their lives and remain poor. Others gradually build wealth. Some unexpectedly receive a large inheritance. Others win the lottery. Someone becomes wealthy because of talent, someone because of a favorable combination of circumstances, while another person gains access to opportunities that are completely unavailable to the majority.
Why does such a difference arise?
We will try to answer this question on the basis of our own experience, observations, and analysis of the cause-and-effect relationships underlying human life.
People often say:
“Everyone has their own destiny, and if someone is destined to become rich, they will become rich.”
Let us admit that those who say this, although their words may sound like superstition, are nevertheless right in a certain sense.
But another question immediately arises:
Why is one person destined to become rich while another is not?
The answer, as it seems to us, lies in the circumstances that compel a person to act in one way rather than another. And we are speaking not only about external circumstances. A person's background, upbringing, education, abilities, health, character, place of birth, historical period, social environment, accidental encounters, available opportunities, and countless other factors play an enormous role.
In the course of our analysis, we will see that a person does not make decisions in a vacuum. They always act within an already existing system of circumstances.
Human life is based on cause and effect, which is a condition of the existence of both nature and humanity.
When we do something, it seems to us that we are exercising our own will and that the choice depends entirely on ourselves.
Indeed, if we take an isolated action, such as dropping a coin onto the floor, we can say:
“I decided to drop it.”
But if we connect this isolated event with a longer period of time, the picture changes. We can then see how a sequence of previous events led to this particular result.
For a person to find themselves in a particular place at a particular time, an enormous number of other events must previously have occurred. They had to be born into that particular family, receive a particular upbringing, meet particular people, acquire certain knowledge, make countless decisions, and find themselves in particular circumstances.
We usually notice the final action but fail to see the entire chain of causes that led to it.

THE LINE OF DESTINY
Every person has their own destiny, their own life path, different from that of others, and their own calling.
We walk along a road, with high cliffs standing on both sides, preventing us from changing direction indefinitely. They allow us to move only within a certain space of possibilities.
A person can choose the direction of movement within this space, but this choice is predetermined  by inner psychological experience. Moreover, they cannot create an entirely new reality for themselves that is independent of the laws of nature and society.
This raises the question:
Is it possible to predict the future?
The answer is:
“It can be guessed, but it cannot be stated with certainty.”
Why?
Because the circumstances surrounding our lives are so diverse that calculations of this kind become practically impossible.
Literally a few decades ago, it might have seemed to a person that destiny was considerably more predictable. It was enough to analyze the ten years of life preceding a particular moment, and one could assume that the following ten years, with certain adjustments, would develop according to approximately the same scenario.
But this was probably only an apparent sense of stability.
The modern world is so interconnected that an event occurring in one place can almost instantly change the situation of millions of people somewhere else.
A technological discovery made thousands of kilometers away, in another country or on another continent, can change the economy, professions, lifestyles, and even the value systems of people who have never heard of the person who made that discovery.
Likewise, a crisis, catastrophe, war, epidemic, natural disaster, or financial collapse can change the destinies of enormous numbers of people within a very short period of time.
The financial and economic crisis of 2008, which began in the United States, had consequences for economies throughout practically the entire world. People who only yesterday considered their financial position secure suddenly faced unemployment, declining property values, reduced incomes, and changed life plans.
Thus, a person may make plans for decades, but reality itself can change the direction of movement within months or even days.

TWO LINES OF EXISTENCE
A person constantly connects the intellectual cause-and-effect relationship of their thoughts with the line of destiny — that is, with reality — except in cases of mental disorders.
Let us consider a simple example.
A person goes to a store to do some shopping and finds a large banknote on the way.
From an intellectual point of view, they found it by chance.
They did not plan to find it, did not know that the money was lying there, and could not have calculated this event in advance.
But from the perspective of the natural sequence of events, we can say something else: they were in that particular place because they went shopping; the owner of the money was there for another reason; the money fell from their pocket; and the person arrived at that particular place at that particular moment.
Every event had its own preceding cause.
In nature, chance exists for our consciousness as an absence of knowledge about the complete chain of causes.
Therefore, the intellectual line of cause and effect in the flow of our thoughts is constantly interrupted by what we call chance.
In our lives, we can therefore conditionally distinguish two lines of existence:
the line of destiny and the intellectual line.
The intellectual line is the sequence of our thoughts, intentions, plans, and decisions.
The line of destiny is the objective sequence of events occurring independently of how completely we are aware of them.
We constantly perceive and correct primarily our own flow of thought. Therefore, an illusion arises that we directly control our destiny.
In reality, we constantly compare our thoughts with reality.
We planned one thing — reality introduced a correction.
We changed our plan — a new circumstance arose.
We corrected our actions again — and once more encountered something unexpected.
Thus, we constantly attempt to bring the two lines of existence into greater or lesser synchronization.
If we hypothetically assume that we completely control our destiny, we would have to eliminate the element of chance.
But this is impossible.
We cannot break the material line of destiny — that is, reality — and completely adapt it to our desires.

CAN DESTINY BE PREDICTED?
Predicting destiny does not at all mean that there is no way out or that we are doomed to the inevitable.
On the contrary, people constantly attempt to foresee the future. This is a necessary condition of existence.
We plan, calculate, compare, make forecasts, acquire knowledge, and use experience precisely because we want to reduce uncertainty.
However, our assessment of what is happening may not correspond to the actual course of events.
For example, you look at a person who lies endlessly on a sofa and think:
“Nothing is ever going to happen for you, my friend.”
Some time later, you receive astonishing news:
that lazy person has won a large amount of money in the lottery.
Some people are simply lucky!
But even here, we must consider the person's character. Perhaps the person who won the money by chance has a tendency toward risk, a gambling temperament, and courage. Yet these same qualities can lead to the opposite result.
They may win a million and lose it several years later.
Therefore, a single event does not yet determine a person's destiny.
We must consider not only the result but also the tendency.
You are reading this book now. The very fact that you are interested in information of this kind demonstrates curiosity and shows a tendency to expand your life experience.
Over time, a person may make fewer mistakes because it is only through experience that we are capable of expanding our knowledge.
But experience does not guarantee complete control over the future.
It merely allows us to navigate the space of possibilities more effectively.
If someone believes they are capable of calculating everything and achieving the desired result, only applying their calculations in practice can convince them that they are right.
When confronted with harsh reality, a person often says:
“I did not think everything through carefully enough. I was wrong. I failed to calculate everything to the end.”
But perhaps the problem was not a lack of intellectual ability.
They simply lacked sufficient life experience.
Mathematical calculations are perfect within given conditions, while the laws of nature and human behavior cannot be reduced to a single mathematical model.
And this is why an experienced person, in certain life situations, may prove considerably wiser than someone possessing excellent abilities for abstract calculation.

WEALTH AND THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL
Once, while talking with a certain “expert” on the subject of “how to become rich,” we discovered that approximately ten years earlier he had read the book Think and Grow Rich and had since become fascinated with literature of this kind, continuing to study such books persistently.
According to him, it was very important to repeat the words:
“I will become rich”
like a magic spell every morning several times and sincerely believe in them.
A dreamer!
Let him add to his faith the results obtained through this method.
Over the course of ten years, he had not increased his wealth at all, but he had significantly developed his ability to fantasize.
He could list numerous books about wealth, success, thinking, and motivation, but he could not demonstrate a corresponding change in his own material life.
This is where a fundamental problem arises.
Reading a book about wealth is not the same as creating wealth.
Believing in success is not the same as achieving success.
Wanting to earn money is not the same as earning money.
Formulating a goal is not the same as accomplishing it.
Between thought and material result lies an enormous field of reality filled with actions, competition, risk, circumstances, and chance.
“I recently read a book called You Don't Have to Go to School to Become Rich. There are many interesting ideas in it,” he said.
We failed to notice the logic in the title of this book.
Are we taught at school how to become rich?
The school curriculum is primarily designed to develop socially acceptable consciousness, enabling a person to meet the challenges of society and respond to them adequately.
School is not obliged to turn every student into a millionaire.
Its task is considerably broader: to give a person basic knowledge, teach them to interact with other people, understand the surrounding world, use information, develop the ability to reason, and make decisions.
Creative thinking and calculation can bring considerably greater practical benefits in terms of increasing one's capital: investing money in a promising business, real estate, valuable objects, developing professional skills, creating a new product or service.
But even correct calculation provides no absolute guarantee.
An investment may prove unsuccessful.
A promising business may go bankrupt.
Real estate may lose value.
A new product may fail to find buyers.
That is why wealth cannot be viewed exclusively as the result of correct thinking.

“I WANT TO BECOME RICH SO THAT I CAN HELP OTHERS”
“I want to become rich so that I can help others,” he continued.
“Were Jesus and his disciples rich? Of course, one of them became rich through thirty pieces of silver — Judas — but that is a completely different story.”
“The possibility of becoming rich depends on the individual. Everyone can become rich if favorable circumstances come together for them.”
Having presented his hypothesis, the man did not even notice the logical inconsistency between the two parts of his statement, because chaotic thinking satisfied the confidence created by his emotions.
“The possibility of becoming rich depends on the individual.”
This statement suggests that the decisive factor is the individual themselves.
But then another part appears:
“Everyone can become rich if favorable circumstances come together for them.”
Here, dependence on circumstances is already acknowledged.
This creates a contradiction.
If wealth depends exclusively on the individual, then external circumstances should not have fundamental importance.
If, however, favorable circumstances are necessary for wealth, then the possibility of achieving the result depends not only on the individual.
“If favorable circumstances come together for them” is a hypothetical statement concerning a particular condition.
“The possibility of becoming rich depends on the individual. Everyone can become rich” is a general categorical statement.
Experience demonstrates unequivocally that favorable circumstances cannot come together for everyone.
For example, a person may be born into a poor family, in a country with a low level of economic development, receive inadequate education, have physical limitations, or face other circumstances that significantly narrow the range of opportunities available to them.
Another person may be born into a wealthy family, receive an excellent education, inherit capital, and have access from childhood to information and people unavailable to the majority.
Can we say that the starting opportunities of these two people are identical?
Obviously not.
Therefore, the logical statement should be formulated as follows:
Only those people can become rich for whom favorable circumstances come together.
In the example above, there is logical equivalence between the two parts of the statement.
The categorical statement made by our interlocutor can only be presented hypothetically:
“Everyone could become rich if favorable circumstances came together for them.”
By formulating the idea in this way, we make the two parts of the statement logically equivalent.
The hypothesis, in this case, has a logical connection, but it does not correspond to reality.
Everyone cannot become rich because favorable circumstances cannot come together for everyone.
Moreover, if everyone were simultaneously rich, the very concept of wealth would lose part of its relative meaning.
Wealth exists not only as an amount of money but also as a person's position relative to other people and to the resources available to society.

WILLPOWER AND THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM
“I believe that nothing is unconditional and that everything has its own cause. But we are capable of controlling these causes. Through willpower, we can change destiny, directing it according to our wishes along the necessary path leading to the realization of our intentions. A person has the freedom to choose the paths along which they walk,” our interlocutor insisted.
Yes, if these paths demonstrate a particular tendency, perhaps he guessed correctly in making his choice.
But choice itself is not yet a guarantee of the result.
A person chooses a profession but does not know how the labor market will change.
A person creates a business but does not know whether a competitor will appear.
A person buys real estate but does not know how the economy will change.
A person invests money but does not know how the market will behave in the future.
A person enters into a relationship but cannot determine all future circumstances in advance.
Thus, freedom of choice exists within certain boundaries, but our inner psychological experience is the only guide that shows us which choice to make.
The lottery winner who wins a million may, by nature, be a person inclined toward gambling and unafraid of risk.
But this same character trait can lead to rapid impoverishment.
A person inclined to take risks may win a large amount of money once and then decide that luck has become a permanent feature of their life.
They begin repeating risky actions.
The first success strengthens their confidence.
The second success creates the illusion of a pattern.
The third may convince the person even more strongly of their own infallibility.
And then comes the loss.
The person discovers that random success had been mistaken for proof of personal control over destiny.
For some reason, they attributed the cause-and-effect relationship solely to their own personality, forgetting about the multitude of people like themselves pursuing exactly the same goal.
They all crowd onto the same narrow path, and at the finish line only those best adapted to the challenge remain — those possessing a natural predisposition for such trials.
When many people simultaneously strive toward the same goal, the success of one person does not automatically mean the success of everyone else.
On the contrary, competition makes the situation even more difficult.
When encountering others who are also making their way through life, a person is pushed onto the path along which they can proceed only by suppressing those weaker than themselves — physically, financially, intellectually, or otherwise — and yielding to those who are stronger.
This is destiny.

“THOUGHT IS MATERIAL”
“Thought is material, and therefore dreams of wealth also become materialized.”
Yes, we agree that as a physiological process occurring in the brain, thought indeed has a material basis.
The brain is a material organ, and the thinking process is connected with physical and biochemical processes.
On the other hand, the content of thought is ideological — that is, immaterial.
We may have a material carrier of thought, but the idea itself is not a material object in the same sense that money, a stone, or a car is material.
This mistake is made not only by modern psychologists but also by representatives of certain Eastern religious traditions.
If a person says that thought materializes, we must clarify what exactly they mean by materialization.
If they are referring to the physiological influence of thought on behavior, then a certain connection exists.
A person thinks about a goal, begins to act, changes their behavior, acquires skills, searches for opportunities — and as a result, the probability of a particular outcome may increase.
But this does not mean that the thought itself somehow magically transforms into a material object.
What, then, does the concept of “matter” include?
Does some kind of “immaterial matter” really exist?
If we mix the material and the ideal, we risk losing logical clarity.
Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between:
thought as a physiological process and the content of thought as an idea.

MONEY AND POWER
“Money is freedom,” he concluded his argument with a final phrase, apparently borrowed from everyday wisdom.
According to Thomas Hobbes, money combined with freedom constitutes a great power.
Indeed, money can expand the space of possibilities available to a person.
It allows one to obtain education, purchase housing, travel, engage in entrepreneurship, acquire goods and services, and buy time and the labor of other people.
But money is not absolute freedom.
A person possessing enormous capital nevertheless remains dependent on the laws of nature, the state, society, their own body, and other people.
Money can expand the field of action, but it does not eliminate the boundaries of existence.
Deep within every person lies the drive for superiority.
It seeks the possibility of satisfying many instincts whose expression is restricted by the social boundaries of what is permissible.
In some people, this desire is strongly expressed through ambition; in others, it remains dormant.
Money is, in a certain sense, a substitute for power.
It provides an opportunity for some instincts to expand the field in which they can operate.
The greater a person's material resources, the greater their opportunities to influence the surrounding environment.
But at the same time, responsibility increases as well.
Therefore, money in itself does not make a person free, happy, or moral.
It merely increases their possibilities.
How a person uses those possibilities depends on their character.

CONQUERORS AND FIGHTERS
We can distinguish two basic psychological types of people according to their attitude toward life.
The first are conquerors, accustomed to winning.
The second are fighters, struggling for survival.
Conquerors set a goal and direct all their strength toward achieving it.
The means they employ become the key to their victories.
It has long been said: “The end justifies the means.”
But this statement itself must be treated with caution.
If a person sets a material goal, they may be prepared to make considerable sacrifices in order to achieve it.
Fighters, by contrast, are satisfied with the struggle itself, and the means become an end in themselves.
Such people often stop halfway, becoming fascinated by one thing, then another, and ultimately being unable to complete what they originally set out to accomplish.
They are satisfied with the process of “survival” itself rather than with triumph over the summit they have chosen to conquer.
For one person, struggle is a means of achieving a result.
For another, struggle itself becomes the content of life.
One constantly asks: “What have I achieved?”
The other: “Am I still fighting?”
The difference between them may appear insignificant, but it can determine a person's long-term life trajectory.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TENDENCIES AND WEALTH
Here are the principal psychological tendencies that reveal certain patterns in life:
The dreamer — dreams of becoming rich but makes no material or intellectual progress toward that goal. They replace action with fantasy and gradually begin to perceive the dream itself as an achievement.
The gambler, inclined to take risks — has a possibility of becoming rich quickly and becoming poor just as quickly. Risk can lead to a major gain, but the same mechanism can destroy accumulated wealth.
The hardworking, thrifty person, gradually and steadily increasing their savings — a tendency toward future prosperity. Such a path rarely produces instant wealth, but it creates the foundation for stable financial security.
The ambitious person, prepared to go to great lengths, persistent, patient, and capable of achieving their goals — a tendency toward power and money. Such a person is capable of maintaining their direction long after others have already given up.
The person living beyond their means, spending more than they have, a “perpetual debtor,” a squanderer — a tendency toward future impoverishment. Even a high income cannot save a person if expenses constantly exceed their means.
The kind, generous, responsive, gentle person who readily goes out of their way to help others — the love and respect of relatives and acquaintances. Such a person may not become rich, but they acquire another form of capital — human trust and respect.
All of the tendencies listed above can be reinforced by the wisdom contained in the popular saying:
“You reap what you sow.”
However, this proverb should not be understood mechanically either.
Sometimes a person sows hard work and receives failure.
Sometimes a person does almost nothing and unexpectedly receives enormous benefit.
Therefore, we are speaking not about a guarantee but about a tendency.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
An individual thinks of themselves only within the context of society, and this makes them completely dependent on social laws.
A person does not exist separately from their environment.
They are born in a particular country, speak a particular language, receive a particular upbringing, acquire particular habits, and interact with other people.
Even their concept of wealth is formed by society.
For one person, wealth means a large house.
For another, the ability not to work.
For a third, power.
For a fourth, the freedom to travel.
For a fifth, the ability to help others.
Therefore, the endless statements that everyone is the absolute master of their own destiny are nothing more than pure fiction and illusion.
A person does indeed possess a certain degree of freedom.
But that freedom always exists within a system of limitations, and his choice is predetermined by the psychological experience.
We can choose between several roads, but we cannot choose all roads simultaneously.
We can change our profession, but we cannot change the years that have already been lived.
We can earn money, but we cannot guarantee that circumstances will not destroy the result.
We can make plans, but we cannot order the future to fulfill them.

LITERATURE ABOUT WEALTH
Books such as I Attract Money, How to Become Rich, Think and Grow Rich, and You Don't Have to Go to School to Become Rich are attractive primarily because of their enticing titles.
When you buy them, the opposite process takes place: those who are so skillful at fantasizing become richer, while you become poorer.
Statements such as:
“If you're so smart, show me your money.”
Or:
“If you want to become rich, be rich.”
And other similar pieces of sophistry sound rather amusing.
Books of this kind are filled with various pieces of advice that correspond fully to the supposed rules of achieving success.
They are interesting, entertaining, and even captivating.
They paint pictures of future prosperity in our imagination, fill us with hopes and expectations, and make us believe in the possibility of change.
But here the principal question arises:
Where does useful motivation end and self-deception begin?
Let us repeat once again that such books are merely theory.
When we apply their instructions in practice, we obtain a result corresponding only to our own capabilities within the circumstances that constrain our lives — and nothing more.
A book can provide an idea. It can offer a method. It can change a person's way of thinking. But it cannot provide someone with another person's abilities, inheritance, health, place of birth, connections, or favorable historical moment.
Therefore, a book can increase the probability of success, but it cannot guarantee it.

UTOPIAS OF PROSPERITY
Books of this kind were written as far back as antiquity.
They claim to offer practical instruction, but in reality they generally reflect human hopes and aspirations dictated by the particular historical period in which they were written.
For example, during the time of Plato (428–347 BC), powerful states had emerged around the Mediterranean: the Persian Empire and Carthage, while Rome and Greece were developing into major powers.
Motivated by the idea of creating an ideal state, Plato wrote his famous work The Republic.
As history has demonstrated, over more than two thousand years, an ideal state has never appeared on the map of the world.
This does not mean that Plato's ideas were useless.
On the contrary, they exerted enormous influence on the development of political philosophy.
But an ideal and reality are two different things.
An idea can be perfect on paper and practically unattainable in reality.
With the advent of Christianity, Augustine of Hippo wrote The City of God, reflecting the hopes of another historical period.
One of the most prominent representatives of the Renaissance was Thomas More, with his Utopia.
Every historical period creates its own image of an ideal society.
People dream not only of wealth but also of justice, equality, happiness, freedom, security, and harmony.
Modern expectations gave rise to the humanist movement in literature.
Such works are full of instructive recommendations, but unfortunately they portray reality from an idealized perspective. Rather than explaining reality, they can sometimes confuse our thinking if we approach this type of literature without critical judgment.
Humanists claim that smiling, kindness, and politeness guarantee success in life.
But it is enough to look at the world around us to understand that a kind person is not necessarily rich, a polite person is not necessarily successful, and a smile by itself does not create capital.
Kindness can contribute to the formation of trust.
Politeness can facilitate communication.
The ability to cooperate can expand one's social connections.
But none of these qualities constitutes an absolute guarantee of material success.
In time, new tendencies will emerge, and these books will remain in the past as products of a particular form of human imagination.
In the future, people may speak of them approximately as follows:
“In those days, people believed that you could become rich only if you became kind and smiled at everyone.”
Such books have existed and will continue to exist.
For historians, they are certainly of great interest.
They allow us to understand what people of a particular era wanted, what they feared, what they hoped for, and how they imagined the ideal future.
But modern people must distinguish between a description of the desired world and a description of the real world.
Modern books offering such “utopian lessons” are often accepted unquestioningly, without critical examination.
This is where the danger arises.
A person begins to perceive a beautiful formula as a law of nature.
They begin to believe that if they simply want something strongly enough, their desire must inevitably come true.
But between desire and result lies an enormous territory of reality.
That territory contains effort, abilities, competition, circumstances, chance, time, social restrictions, and human nature.
Therefore, the question “Who is destined to become rich?” cannot be solved by a single formula.
Wealth is not exclusively the result of a dream.
Nor is it exclusively the result of hard work.
It is not merely the consequence of luck.
And it is not exclusively the result of willpower.
It arises at the intersection of many causes, some of which a person can control while others remain beyond their abilities.
A person can prepare for an opportunity but cannot guarantee that the opportunity will appear.
They can use a favorable moment but cannot create all the circumstances that produced that moment.
They can increase the probability of success but cannot turn probability into absolute necessity.
Therefore, the popular expression “Everyone has their own destiny” contains much more meaning than it may initially appear to.
And this is why it is more reasonable not to promise everyone wealth but to study those patterns that increase or decrease the probability of achieving it.
Ultimately, noone is capable of controlling his or her own destiny because the choice is completely predetermined.
They cannot command the world to provide opportunities that do not exist within their reality.
This is the fundamental difference between a rational pursuit of wealth and a utopian belief in its inevitability.
Wealth is possible, but it is not guaranteed.
Success is achievable, but it is not determined exclusively by desire.
A person is free to choose the direction of movement, but they are not free to abolish all the circumstances surrounding their life.
And perhaps this is the most realistic answer to the question with which we began our discussion:
A person becomes rich not simply because they want it more than everyone else, but because their abilities, actions, and favorable circumstances coincide at a particular moment in such a way that the opportunity that arises is actually transformed into a result.

SUCCESS, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND THE PREDETERMINATION OF CHOICE
Every successful undertaking is accompanied by certain elements of success. However, it would be a mistake to assume that faith, determination, an overwhelming desire, perseverance, and patience by themselves are capable of turning any undertaking into a successful enterprise. If we attribute all these qualities to a person who has embarked on a venture that has no prospects from the outset, then, despite excessive effort, we may achieve nothing but failure.
This leads to an important conclusion: first and foremost, there must be a viable idea, as well as real means and opportunities for putting it into practice. Faith, persistence, patience, determination, and all other psychological qualities become effective only after an objective possibility of achieving the desired result already exists. They strengthen a promising undertaking, but they cannot create prospects where none objectively exist.
In other words, the possibility of success must exist first, and only then is there room for personal qualities to manifest themselves.
Imagine, for example, that you own a factory producing alcoholic beverages and are trying to earn a large amount of money by exporting your products to the United Arab Emirates. You may be an extremely enterprising person, possess an enormous desire to become wealthy, tell yourself every day that you will certainly succeed, hire the best specialists, and spend substantial sums organizing the export. But if the laws and prevailing social regulations do not allow your idea to be implemented in the form you have envisioned, your psychological qualities will not be able to remove this obstacle.
The Emirates have strict restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and its distribution is regulated by special rules. Such opportunities are available only to certain licensed establishments and duty-free shops at airports. Therefore, everything has its own limit, its own place, and its own time.
We cannot achieve a result simply because we want it very strongly.
In other words, success accompanies a promising undertaking.
If someone wants to sell catapults capable of throwing stones in order to shoot down jet aircraft in African countries, it is unlikely that such an enterprise will succeed. One may believe in the idea as much as one wishes, demonstrate persistence, convince others of its brilliance, and repeatedly tell oneself that success is inevitable. Yet the idea itself does not correspond to real needs or technological reality.
Therefore, ask anyone with sufficient life experience how to achieve success, and they will most likely answer approximately as follows:
“Start a business that is in demand at the present moment or that may become popular in the future if it is genuinely needed, and possess the necessary resources—both material and psychological—that is, the appropriate character, temperament, knowledge, and abilities—to bring it to life. The person who tries, makes an effort, learns from their own and other people's mistakes, falls, gets back up, and continues moving persistently toward the goal is the one who has a chance of succeeding.”
The word “chance” is especially important here.
Even a combination of a promising idea, adequate resources, and appropriate personal qualities does not turn success into an absolute guarantee. It merely significantly increases the probability of success. Between possibility and result there always remains a space occupied by circumstances that a person cannot completely control.
It is precisely this circumstance that we consider fundamental.

THE ART OF PERSUASION
Although one can learn something from unusual books about achieving wealth and success, the first thing one can learn is the art of persuasion.
This is precisely the force of superiority that we mentioned earlier.
The author of a book may possess an outstanding ability to influence the consciousness of the reader. He chooses convincing language, provides individual examples of successful people, tells stories of rapid enrichment, and creates the impression of a pattern where in reality there are numerous unknown factors.
Armed with such persuasive power, authors can convince readers that their advice is genuinely capable of working miracles.
And then something particularly interesting happens: the reader buys the next book, the next course, the next set of recommendations, while the author gains fame and money.
Thus, sometimes the most successful product of such books is not a method of becoming wealthy, but the reader's belief that a universal method of becoming wealthy exists.
A paradoxical situation arises: a person reads a book about how to become rich, while the person who becomes rich first is the one who wrote the book.

HOW PEOPLE BECOME WEALTHY
A person can become wealthy by inheriting money. Luck may come to someone who happens to be in the right place at the right time. Wealth may result from entrepreneurial talent, high professional competence, a successful investment, a political or social situation, family connections, or a combination of circumstances.
A person's ambitions may make them wealthy, as may their willingness to place their health, safety, and well-being—and that of their loved ones—at stake.
Sometimes wealth is achieved through extreme rationality in one's behavior, when a person constantly follows the principle: business is business.
In such a case, friendship and love may be pushed into the background, while mercy and compassion become dulled, and personal benefit becomes the principal criterion.
However, let us clarify: such a person does not necessarily have to appear openly selfish.
On the contrary, manifestations of kindness may prove useful instruments on the road to wealth.
A family can be an important factor in a person's advancement up the career ladder. Charity can also create a positive public image. The ability to be polite, attentive, and responsive can contribute to establishing useful social connections.
Thus, outward friendliness and a person's inner motivation do not always coincide.
Imagine a kind-hearted person who helps others without seeking personal benefit, values friendship and love above business relationships, often makes concessions, is modest, does not display their ego, does not seek to dominate others, and is not prepared to step over other people for the sake of personal advancement.
Tell us: what are the chances that such a person will become genuinely wealthy?
We do not claim that such a person will necessarily remain poor. They may become wealthy through inheritance, a fortunate coincidence, professional talent, or a completely unexpected opportunity.
But this is precisely what confirms our point: personal qualities determine not everything, but only a portion of the probability of a particular outcome.

CIRCUMSTANCES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN DESIRE
Character traits merely indicate certain tendencies in life and are not an absolute determinant of success.
A more important role is played by the circumstances surrounding our lives.
A person may have an enormous desire to become wealthy but be born into conditions where access to education, capital, social connections, and opportunities is limited.
A person may possess a high level of intelligence but find themselves in an environment where intellectual abilities are not valued.
Someone may have excellent physical abilities but lack the opportunity to obtain the necessary athletic training.
A person may be exceptionally entrepreneurial but be born in a country or historical period where entrepreneurial activity is severely restricted.
Consequently, we cannot consider a person separately from the environment in which they exist.
Among the principal circumstances that shape our destiny, three major groups can be identified:
Place of birth, the opportunities associated with it, and the family's prosperity;
Upbringing and education;
Sex and physical condition.
Many other circumstances can be added to these factors: the historical period, the economic condition of society, the political system, the state of the labor market, access to information, social connections, chance encounters, health, and countless other factors.
But even the three groups listed above already demonstrate how limited the idea of complete human control over one's own destiny really is.

FAMILY AND UPBRINGING
It should be noted that having money in a family is not always a guarantee of a child's positive development.
To a great extent, healthy development depends on the character, level of education, and intelligence of the parents themselves, as well as on their attitude toward the child and toward each other.
Some people argue:
“Everything depends on the child himself. Good children can also grow up in dysfunctional families.”
Of course, exceptions exist. But an exception does not invalidate a general pattern.
Imagine the following situation: the mother and father constantly drink, quarrel, humiliate each other, behave aggressively, beat the children, or constantly punish them. What exactly will the child absorb?
If there is no one nearby who can demonstrate a different model of behavior, it will be extremely difficult for the child to form an alternative model independently.
A child is not born with a ready-made system of social ideas.
They observe, imitate, compare. They gradually absorb the surrounding world as a norm.
The basic patterns of behavior are formed during childhood and can remain established for many years: kindergarten, school, the street, friends, hobbies, relationships with parents, first successes, and first defeats.
Even something that seems insignificant to an adult may become a crucial life lesson for a child.

TEMPERAMENT AND DESTINY
Temperament, influenced by genetic inheritance from one's parents, plays an important role in human life, but it is neither the only nor, especially, the principal factor.
Let us take the choleric temperament—the most energetic and impulsive type in the classical typology.
Such a person reacts quickly to life's challenges, is capable of making decisions under pressure, and often succeeds in unstable situations.
They adapt well during crises, in the military, in extreme circumstances, and in situations where authority must be demonstrated.
Yet the same speed of reaction can become their weakness.
A choleric person may lack thoughtfulness, patience, and the ability to analyze the consequences of decisions over a long period. They may win a situation quickly but lose in the long run.
Stability and social order may be particularly unfavorable to them, because in such conditions success is determined not only by personal qualities but also by money, connections, education, reputation, and social position.

THE SANGUINE
The second temperament type is the sanguine.
Representatives of this type are generally pleasant, sociable, emotionally open people who tend to have a gentle character.
They express themselves more externally than internally, which can sometimes lead to insufficient reflection.
Nevertheless, precisely because of their friendliness, ability to establish contact, and maintain relationships, they often receive support from more powerful patrons.
Under certain social conditions, this can become a tremendous advantage.
A person may not be the smartest or hardest-working member of a group, but if they know how to inspire trust and maintain relationships, their social opportunities may be considerably greater.

THE PHLEGMATIC
The third temperament type is the phlegmatic.
The main characteristic of a person with this temperament is the ability to maintain a relative balance between the inner and outer worlds.
Such a person is thoughtful and calculating, and tries to find harmony both in relationships with others and within themselves.
They are not as fast as a choleric or sanguine person and may therefore lose out to them in situations requiring an immediate reaction.
But over the long term, their advantages become more apparent.
The main energy of such a person is directed toward deep reflection, analysis, and planning, which sometimes reduces outward manifestations of activity.
Such a person can succeed where careful allocation of resources, consistency, and endurance are required.
They may become a good politician, manager, or strategist because they know how to seek compromise and find a middle ground.

THE MELANCHOLIC
The melancholic is the fourth temperament type.
Its representative often finds themselves in the exact sciences, analytical work, and activities requiring meticulousness, perseverance, and intense concentration.
They like solitude, are not particularly talkative, and tend to be more focused on their inner world.
A person with such a temperament may become an excellent scientist, financier, programmer, analyst, or researcher.
A weakness in one area may simultaneously be an advantage in another.
As we can see from the above, temperament to a certain extent determines the sphere of activity in which a person can more easily realize their abilities.
Imagine that a gloomy melancholic suddenly becomes a political leader, while a strong-willed choleric devotes themselves entirely to philosophy.
We may immediately notice a certain mismatch between temperament and presumed vocation and say:
“Stop pretending. Be yourself!”
Yet here too we must avoid extremes.
Temperament is not a sentence.
It merely creates certain tendencies that a person can partially compensate for through upbringing, education, experience, and conscious work on themselves.

KNOWLEDGE AS THE FOUNDATION OF POSSIBLE SUCCESS
To acquire the knowledge base necessary for possible success, it is important to read books such as Sociology, Morality and Law, Economic Theory, Finance, Accounting, Marketing, and others.
This is necessary so that a person does not become detached from reality and is capable of assessing a situation soberly and acting appropriately.
Otherwise, how can a person achieve success if they have limited intellectual potential, inadequate physical abilities for professional sports, lack leadership qualities, possess no starting capital, and have no understanding of how the financial system works?
If a person is unfamiliar with the documentation required to conduct business and has no influential acquaintances, relatives, or friends, perhaps they should put aside fantastic books about “how to become rich” and begin working on themselves.
They need to acquire knowledge. Develop their abilities. Understand their real strengths and weaknesses. Determine the sphere in which those strengths can be used. And only after that should they seek opportunities for implementation.
Everything else may, perhaps, follow naturally.

THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM OF CHOICE
Many contemporary authors build their books around the theme of “freedom of choice,” and such books can be found in abundance on bookstore shelves.
Let us take a few examples: How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Become a Personality, The Formula for Success, How to Earn a Large Amount of Money Without Starting Capital, and others.
The authors of such books often base their arguments on situational examples.
They take a particular case in which a certain action led to a certain result and then offer the reader the impression that this case represents a universal pattern.
But an individual example is not yet a law.
A person may achieve success in a particular way, but this does not mean that any other person who repeats their actions will obtain the same result.
Why?
Because the initial conditions are different.
In our opinion, this is where the principal error of such theories arises.

THE MAXIM OF BEHAVIOR
In making choices, a person is guided by maxims of behavior that reason derives from circumstances.
For example, if a person follows the maxim:
“Treat others as you would like them to treat you,” then the intentions underlying their actions, even without possessing special psychological techniques, will first and foremost be fair and correct in their own eyes.
If a person constantly seeks personal benefit at the expense of others, they will eventually encounter resistance from society and from their own conscience.
No psychology of manipulation can completely eliminate this contradiction.
Moreover, books of this kind can sometimes encourage immoral behavior.
Armed with techniques of influence over others, some people begin using psychological methods exclusively to obtain situational advantages, without considering the consequences.
We consider it extremely important that our actions contain echoes of moral maxims and bring benefit both to the individual and to society.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND MORALITY
Freedom of choice is the intellectual ability of a person to alter the character of their intentions—for example, to transform evil intentions into good ones.
The assessment society gives to our actions may not coincide with the nature of the intentions underlying them.
But this does not change the essence of our inner state.
Even if actions initially motivated by evil intentions are interpreted by society as good, deep inside we will feel that only people's attitude toward us has changed, not our essence itself.
For example, the burning of heretics at the stake in the Middle Ages may have been perceived by its perpetrators as an action motivated by good intentions—to protect the Church and people from the influence of those considered heretical and displeasing to God.
The consequences of such actions were also considered necessary and correct by many people.
In today's reality, such actions, regardless of whether they resulted from good intentions or not, are condemned by society as criminal.
Consequently, society evaluates our actions according to the customs, prejudices, and laws of a particular place and historical period.
Therefore, we can independently evaluate primarily our intentions as good or evil, right or wrong.
The final social evaluation of our actions, however, will be given by other people.

SCHEME OF THE PREDETERMINATION OF THE CHOICE OF ACTIONS
Two people find themselves in exactly the same situation.
They face a choice: one commits a crime, while the other refrains from doing so.
Each acts individually, making a choice based on their life experience, upbringing, character, temperament, and inner state.
Thus, each person is predisposed to take precisely the step dictated by their life experience and personal circumstances.
If we assume that a person acts completely arbitrarily, this would mean that their choice does not depend at all on upbringing, character, temperament, or past experience.
The person would then resemble grass bending in different directions under gusts of wind, with their life determined exclusively by external circumstances.
But this is not the case.
Everyone makes their own choices, yet those choices are closely connected with the individual's qualities and position in society.
A person acts according to necessity, and according to our concept, their choice is completely ly predetermined.
Cause and effect govern our entire lives.
We cannot change the past because we are unable to break the chain of preceding actions.
Nor can we directly change the future, which will become a consequence of the present.
We can attempt to influence the present, but even our attempts are already the result of previous experience.
This is precisely why the paradox arises:
A person feels free precisely because they cannot see the entire chain of causes that led them to a particular choice.

THE SCHEME OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
FATHER — SON — GRANDSON
Within the chain of cause and effect, a break is impossible.
In the natural world, unlike the intellectual world, everything has a cause, and nothing exists that is completely arbitrary, independent, and unconditional.
Every event is a continuation of the previous state of a system.
If we see only one moment, it seems to us that it arose by chance.
But if we are able to trace the entire chain of events, chance gradually turns into a pattern that we simply failed to notice before.

HAPPINESS AS A FUNDAMENTAL GOAL
Every human being naturally strives for happiness.
Happiness is not a continuous state of euphoria.
It is rather an intangible idea of a state of peace or joy, wealth, a beautiful life, fame, respect, freedom, love, and much more.
For one person, happiness may consist in wealth; for another, in family; for a third, in scientific discovery; for a fourth, in freedom; and for a fifth, in recognition from others.
Therefore, happiness cannot be measured according to precise and universal criteria.
It is merely an idea embedded in us by nature, to which each person gives their own content in order to materialize it.
All our actions, sometimes appearing absurd or contradictory, ultimately lead toward some goal behind which lies our conception of happiness.
From the earliest age, we absorb social values.
The mind constantly scans the circumstances of our lives, compares people, events, and opportunities, and gradually forms its own picture of the desired future.
In relation to the ideas underlying our existence, the mind often operates intuitively.
It sums up the circumstances available to us and reaches a certain conclusion, which then determines the direction of our future preferences.

A CHILDHOOD DREAM
As strange as it may sound today, during the Soviet era V. I. Lenin was a moral and intellectual authority for many people.
An acquaintance of ours once said:
“When I was still a child, I dreamed of becoming like Lenin. Over time, I abandoned this dream, considering it merely a product of childish fantasy, although the idea of becoming like Lenin unconsciously guided my entire life. It was the beacon that attracted me and gave preference to one choice over another.
In the short term, my actions seemed not only imperfect to me, but in some cases even terrible. At the time, I could not know that my mind was selecting from the available options those that best corresponded to my unconscious goal.
Today, looking back, I understand that if my childhood dream had been different—for example, to become rich like Henry Ford—I might have achieved more materially. Or perhaps I would not have.”
This story demonstrates how deeply an idea formed during childhood can influence a person.
A person may forget their original dream, stop talking about it, and regard it as a childish fantasy, yet the very structure of their aspirations may continue moving in the same direction.

THE EDUCATION OF A DREAM
If a child absorbs from an early age the idea of wealth or a luxurious life but lacks the material resources and opportunities to realize it, they may resort to extremes simply to bring that attractive, and sometimes unconscious, idea of wealth to life.
Therefore, from an early age, children should be raised around moral authorities.
For example, the dream of becoming president requires considerable physical effort, intellectual development, leadership qualities, good education, the ability to communicate with people, the capacity to make decisions, and many other useful qualities.
Even if a person never becomes president, the dream itself may compel them to develop.
It becomes a driving force behind education, discipline, and self-improvement.
The idea of wealth or a “beautiful life,” absorbed by a child during childhood, may produce an entirely different result.
If wealth is perceived solely as the ability to satisfy one's desires, a person may gradually become selfish, greedy, and acquisitive.
In another case, the idea of a “beautiful life” may turn a person into a partygoer or a spendthrift.
And if they cannot realize this idea through legal means, it may potentially push them toward crime.
Consequently, the problem lies not only in the dream itself, but also in the moral content of that dream.

THE DREAM AS A HIDDEN DRIVING FORCE
Human actions—bad or good, useful or harmful, rational or meaningless—may lead toward the dream that the mind formed during childhood.
A person may never achieve it, but it nevertheless determines, to a greater or lesser extent, the character of their actions.
When we advise someone to change something in their life, giving them various recommendations and hoping they will follow them, we often forget about the “great” goal—achieving happiness—that keeps us on our chosen path.
Everyone follows their own route toward it.
And for each person, happiness has a different appearance.
One sees happiness in wealth, another sees it in love, a third in respect, a fourth in freedom, a fifth in service to society.
Therefore, there is no universal recipe for happiness.

THE DREAM OF A PEOPLE
Moreover, such a guiding star exists not only for an individual but also for an entire people.
When it passes from an unconscious idea into a clearly defined goal, a people becomes united by a common aspiration to achieve it and becomes a nation.
Thus, a collective idea can perform the same function as a personal dream.
It unites many people, causes them to sacrifice the present for the sake of the future, and shapes political movements, cultural projects, and historical processes.
A people may exist for a long time with an unconscious conception of its desired future.
But when this conception receives a clear expression, it becomes a political or social objective.
And then movement begins.

DESTINY AND CIRCUMSTANCES
Consequently, much in our lives depends on circumstances—both favorable and unfavorable, both internal and external.
It is precisely the totality of these circumstances that determines a person's opportunities to become wealthy.
It merely seems to us that we act as we please. In reality, the entire psychological experience accumulated before the moment of action guides our choice.
We do not choose from an infinite number of possibilities.
We choose from those possibilities that we are capable of seeing, understanding, and accepting.
And our ability to see an opportunity is itself shaped by our previous experience.
Thus, a person may experience a sense of freedom of choice while simultaneously remaining bound to an enormous system of causes and circumstances.
This is where we encounter one of the most difficult philosophical problems.
If a person's practical choice is completely predetermined, while a person is capable primarily of changing the character of their intentions—whether good or evil—then how are social freedom, moral responsibility, and ethical choice possible at all?
This question goes far beyond the problem of wealth.
It concerns the very foundation of human existence.
For this reason, in the next topic we must examine how freedom and responsibility for human actions can exist in the presence of causal predetermination.



DEPENDENCE OF FATE ON CIRCUMSTANCES

“Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.”
Cleanthes, Greek philosopher, 3rd century BC

FATE AS A CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP

The ancient Greeks understood fate not simply as a mystical force that somehow governs human life. In their view, fate was closely connected with causality — a sequence of events in which each subsequent phenomenon arises from the circumstances preceding it.
In such an understanding of fate, there is no need to resort to superstition. On the contrary, a quite rational idea emerges here: a person is not able to arbitrarily change what has already become the result of a certain set of causes. We can change our attitude toward what is happening, we can take action, we can try to influence the surrounding world, but our actions themselves are also part of the chain of cause and effect.
This is where one of the most difficult questions of human existence arises: how free is a person in choosing their own fate?
It seems to us that every day we choose between several possibilities. We decide where to go, whom to talk to, what profession to choose, whether to get married, whether to start a family, whether to buy a certain item, whether to accept another person’s offer. However, behind each such choice lie preceding circumstances: upbringing, education, character, physical condition, life experience, social environment, financial situation, chance encounters, and a huge number of other factors.
Therefore, freedom of choice may be much more limited than it seems to us.
We choose, but the choice itself does not arise from nothing. It appears as a result of a certain state of the person and the world around them.
It is precisely this dependence that we propose to examine.

THE ANCIENT HUMAN AND LIVING NATURE
The culture of Ancient Greece differed in many ways from modern culture in its attitude toward the surrounding world.
For the ancient person, nature was not a lifeless mechanism existing solely to satisfy human needs. Every stream, forest, grove, mountain, and meadow could be perceived as part of a single living world filled with spiritual meaning. A person did not feel like the absolute master of nature. On the contrary, they perceived themselves as part of it.
This distinction is extremely important.
The modern person, thanks to the development of science and technology, has acquired enormous capabilities to influence the environment. They have learned to transform space, use energy, create complex machines, and intervene in natural processes. Gradually, a sense emerged that nature is an object that can be studied, calculated, and controlled.
Ancient consciousness was more cautious.
A person understood their own dependence on forces far exceeding their capabilities. The ancient Greeks represented these forces through gods, fate, and various mythological images. The gods could punish a person for arrogance, pride, and attempts to place themselves above the established order.
In this respect, ancient culture contained an important idea: a human being is not the absolute measure of all that exists.
No one can violate the order of the world without consequences.
Of course, ancient Greek mythology did not explain the laws of nature in the modern scientific sense. However, mythological consciousness sometimes surprisingly accurately reflected human dependence on reality. Behind the images of gods and fate lay an observation of real life: a person is indeed not capable of controlling everything that happens around them.

FROM ANCIENT REALISM TO MODERN INDIVIDUALISM
Modern culture has taken a different path.
Instead of a predominantly collective and mythological perception of the world, it has gradually formed an individualistic view. A modern work of art is often primarily an expression of the author’s individual vision.
There is a great advantage in this.
Such an approach has opened cultural space for a large number of people striving to express their own talent. Now an artist, writer, or musician is not obliged to reproduce a unified picture of the world. They can create their own reality, express inner experiences, fantasies, fears, and desires.
But at the same time, the very attitude toward reality has changed.
A modern work of art does not necessarily have to be realistic. It can be subjective, bizarre, even deliberately incomprehensible. Its value may lie precisely in its individuality.
One person will see genius in such a work, another — nonsense, a third — a manifestation of the author’s inner world.
Thus, modern culture has significantly expanded the space of individual self-expression.
But at the same time, it has also strengthened the individualistic perception of the person themselves.
A person increasingly perceives themselves as an independent center of the world. From this arises a popular idea:
“Every person is the blacksmith of their own happiness.”
At first glance, this formula seems attractive. It promises a person almost unlimited freedom: if you are persistent enough, intelligent enough, and determined enough, you are supposedly capable of creating any desired fate.
But life experience forces us to treat this statement with much more caution.
A person may make enormous efforts and still not achieve the desired result. Another, on the contrary, may achieve success with almost no effort. One is born into favorable circumstances, another into extremely difficult ones. One receives support from family and society, another faces obstacles from early childhood.
Therefore, life circumstances cannot be excluded from the analysis of human fate.

HUMAN BEING AND THE RELENTLESS FATE
The ancient Greeks very subtly noticed the dependence of a person on forces that exceed their individual will.
In their view, a person was in the embrace of an inexorable fate. Today, such a worldview may seem overly pessimistic. Modern culture, on the contrary, prefers to speak of self-realization, personal success, and the ability of each individual to change their own life.
But the question arises: does this optimistic picture truly correspond to reality?
If a person is capable of fully controlling their fate, why then do tragic accidents, severe life circumstances, unexpected illnesses, catastrophes, wars, economic crises, and sudden deaths exist?
Why does one person find themselves in the center of favorable circumstances while another ends up in destructive ones?
We cannot give a simple answer.
However, it can be assumed that fate is not a separate mystical force, but the result of the interaction of a huge number of causes, most of which a person is unable to control.
In this sense, fate becomes not the opposite of logic, but its consequence.

THE MYTH OF NARCISSUS
To gain a deeper understanding of human nature, let us turn to the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus.
According to the most common version of the myth, Narcissus’ parents asked the seer Tiresias about their son’s future. The seer replied that Narcissus would live to old age if he never saw his own face.
Narcissus grew into an extraordinarily beautiful young man. Many women sought his love, but he remained indifferent.
When the nymph Echo fell in love with him, Narcissus rejected her. In despair, Echo withered away so much that only her voice remained.
The women rejected by Narcissus demanded punishment for him. The goddess Nemesis heard their pleas.
One day, returning from a hunt, Narcissus approached a clear spring and saw his reflection in the water. He fell in love with his own image and could no longer tear himself away from it.
Narcissus became a prisoner of his own reflection.
He could not possess the one he saw before him, because he was seeing himself. His love turned into a closed circle from which there was no escape.
In the end, Narcissus died, and a flower bearing his name grew in the place of his death.
This ancient myth is of great importance for understanding human psychology.
Narcissus becomes a symbol of a person trapped within their own “self.”

THE EGO AND HUMAN LONELINESS
We propose to consider this myth not only as a story of self-admiration, but also as an image of a more general psychological process.
A human being is a social creature. They constantly compare themselves with others, seek recognition, look for love, friendship, respect, and their place in society.
Our “I” is not formed in a vacuum.
A person learns about themselves through others. They see their reflection in the reactions of other people: they are loved or rejected, respected or despised, accepted or excluded.
Therefore, there is always a certain tension between a person’s internal self-image and the evaluation of others.
If a person considers themselves significant, while society evaluates them differently, an internal conflict arises.
If, on the other hand, a person gradually becomes convinced of their own uselessness, unattractiveness, or meaninglessness, this conflict can become destructive.
This is where the idea of a person’s complete closure within their own “self” becomes especially dangerous.
When a person stops seeing themselves as part of a broader human world, their own personality may become the only object of evaluation for them.
Then any failure is perceived as a failure of existence as a whole.
Any criticism becomes humiliation of the personality.
Any loss turns into proof of one’s own uselessness.
And any discrepancy between the desired self-image and reality begins to be perceived as a catastrophe.

ON SUICIDE AND THE LIMITS OF JUDGMENT
Historically, society’s attitude toward suicide has been extremely harsh. In some cultures, a person who committed suicide was denied the right to be buried in a common cemetery.
Today we understand human despair in a much more complex way.
Suicide cannot be reduced to a single cause, and even more so, it cannot in all cases be explained solely by selfishness or a desire to hurt others. A person’s decision may be influenced by severe psychological states, mental disorders, traumatic experiences, social isolation, a sense of hopelessness, and many other factors.
However, the philosophical question posed in our study remains important:
what happens to a person when their internal self-image completely diverges from external reality?
In some cases, a person may become so strongly dependent on their own “I” that the loss of status, love, respect, or meaning becomes unbearable.
A person who perceives themselves as exceptionally significant may painfully experience a situation in which society does not confirm this significance.
Especially tragic is the condition of a person who is unable to accept their own defeat.
They may perceive death as the last opportunity to regain control over the situation, prove their significance, or force others to recognize their value.
But such a decision is a manifestation of extreme despair, not a free and rational choice.
Therefore, the problem of suicide requires not moral condemnation, but a deep understanding of the causes that lead a person to a state of hopelessness.

REASON AND THE “DESTRUCTIVE IDEA”
Here we come to the central part of our reasoning.
A person lives not only in a world of physical objects. They also live in a world of ideas.
From a multitude of facts, impressions, memories, experiences, and social interactions, a person’s self-image gradually takes shape.
We do not wake up every morning and recreate our personality anew. Our sense of identity arises naturally.
We simply know that we are ourselves.
In this sense, the idea of the “self” has an immanent character for us.
Reason constantly sums up the information a person receives. It connects individual events and forms more general representations.


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DESIRE AND INTERNAL CONCLUSION

Particularly interesting is the difference between what a person consciously wants and the conclusion they gradually arrive at under the influence of accumulated circumstances.
A person in a difficult state may want a completely normal life.
They may dream of restoring relationships with loved ones.
They may want to solve their problems.
They may hope to improve their financial situation.
They may want to feel needed again.
However, at the same time, a completely opposite conclusion may form within them: “Nothing will ever change for me.”
Thus arises a conflict between desire and internal belief.
That is why we cannot fully identify a person’s conscious desire with the processes taking place in their psyche.
A person may desire one thing but act under the influence of a completely different internal system.
In this sense, a person’s fate may be formed gradually, long before they become aware of the direction in which they are moving.

FATE AND CIRCUMSTANCES
Thus, fate is connected not only with major events. It is formed from a multitude of small circumstances. One event influences another. One acquaintance changes the direction of life. One chance encounter leads to another. One decision creates new conditions from which subsequent decisions arise. Therefore, we cannot view human fate as a prewritten script existing independently of reality. It is much more accurate to see it as a continuous chain of causes and effects.
We find ourselves within this chain and simultaneously become part of it. Our actions influence other people. Their actions influence us. Social processes change individual life. Individual actions, in turn, sometimes change society. As a result, a person is constantly within a vast system of interactions that they can only partially control.

This is why the ancient formula of Cleanthes acquires a special meaning:
“Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.”
We can resist circumstances, but resistance itself also becomes part of the chain of cause and effect.
Human freedom, therefore, does not necessarily lie in the ability to break causality. Perhaps it lies primarily in the ability to understand circumstances, recognize their influence, and choose the most reasonable attitude toward what cannot be changed.
Thus, the ancient idea of fate unexpectedly converges with the modern philosophical question of free will. And the deeper we investigate human behavior, the more obvious it becomes: a person does not exist separately from circumstances.
Circumstances shape the person, the person responds to circumstances, and their response creates new circumstances. In this continuous circle, what we call fate arises.

TRAGIC DEATH: COINCIDENCE OR PATTERN?
If human fate is indeed formed under the influence of circumstances, the following question arises: what, then, is a tragic death?
Is it exclusively an accident, a random coincidence of circumstances that could not have been foreseen? Or does even a tragic accident have a certain prehistory consisting of many causes, each of which on its own may seem insignificant?
To approach an answer, it is necessary to consider the pattern of human behavior.
We live simultaneously in the world of physical objects and in the world of ideas. Every person perceives themselves as a separate individual, possessing a certain character, habits, memories, desires, and ideas about their own future.
But where does our self-image come from? From a vast amount of information that enters the brain throughout life, a certain system of representations gradually forms. The mind connects individual impressions, compares them, establishes links between them, and forms more general conclusions.
We do not constantly sit and say to ourselves: “I am I.”
We do not need to prove our own existence to ourselves every day. The idea of our “I” arises naturally.
That is why it can be said that a significant part of a person’s internal structure is formed independently of their conscious will.

HOW THE INNER IDEA IS FORMED
Let us imagine a person who, over many years, receives predominantly negative information about themselves.
They constantly hear or think:
“I am not needed by anyone.I am uninteresting. I am unattractive. I am incapable of success. Nobody loves me. I will not succeed. My life is meaningless.”
Each such thought on its own does not yet determine a person’s fate. But constant repetition changes the situation. The mind begins to perceive repeated information as a stable pattern. Individual events merge into a single picture, and then this picture turns into a kind of internal model of reality. A person no longer simply thinks that they have experienced failure. They begin to consider themselves a failure. They no longer simply experience loneliness. They begin to see themselves as someone destined to be alone.
When an individual circumstance turns into a characteristic of the “I,” changing the situation becomes much more difficult.
A person begins to act in accordance with the formed model.
Thus a closed loop arises: circumstances shape the person’s self-image, the self-image determines behavior, and behavior creates new circumstances.

MIND AS A SYSTEM OF CONCLUSIONS
Here we use the concept of “mind” in a special sense.
Reason consciously processes information: a person compares, analyzes, reasons, and makes decisions.
By “mind” we mean a deeper mechanism that is capable of summarizing accumulated experience and forming a general conclusion even without constant conscious control.
If a person has accumulated a large number of negative impressions, the internal conclusion may turn out to be extremely pessimistic.
At the same time, the person’s conscious desire may contradict this conclusion.
A person may want to live. They may want love, family, friendship, success, and a normal future. But at the same time, their internal model of the world may tell them that all this is impossible. As a result, a contradiction arises between conscious desire and the system of beliefs that has been formed.
Such a situation becomes especially dangerous when a person stops checking their beliefs against reality. They begin to live inside their own model of the world.

TRAGIC COINCIDENCE
Now let us return to the question of tragic death.
Sometimes a person dies in circumstances that seem completely accidental. However, the accident itself may be the result of a long chain of events.
To illustrate this idea, let us present a story told by one of our acquaintances.
When he was sixteen years old, he and his friends traveled to a neighboring village located about six kilometers from his home.
There, the young people spent time, communicated, and met new acquaintances.
One day he met a fourteen-year-old girl who had come from Kyiv to spend her vacation with her grandparents and parents.
In the big city her freedom was limited, so her parents allowed her to stay out with friends until late evening.
For several days everything proceeded quite normally.
The young people talked, joked, listened to music, and gradually got to know each other.
But it was precisely the sequence of these ordinary events that later acquired tragic significance.
THE FIRST DAY
On the first day, they met. Nothing unusual. A normal meeting of two young people, which could have ended in an ordinary friendship or a short romantic interest.
But fate, if viewed as a chain of causes and effects, begins precisely with such small events.
THE SECOND DAY
On the second day, the girl unexpectedly began talking about the afterlife.
A month earlier, the young man had read a book about vampires and was therefore able to join the conversation on this topic.
He did not particularly want to talk about dark subjects, especially in the evening, but the girl showed interest. As a result, the conversation continued. In itself, this conversation was not dangerous. But later it acquired a different meaning.
THE THIRD DAY
On the third day, the girl asked the young man to stay longer than usual. Instead of eleven o’clock in the evening, the conversation continued until about half past one at night.
They talked about music—the main topic of communication among young people of that age. Before parting, the girl told a story about an eleven-year-old boy who once climbed into a neighbor’s garden to taste cherries.
The owner of the garden had surrounded the tree with electric wires connected to the power supply. The boy died from electric shock.
This story turned out to be a strange omen of later events.
THE FOURTH DAY
On the fourth day, the young people met again. After the rain, they decided to change their usual route and walk along the other side of the street. The road was wet, and the ground had turned into heavy black soil. It was precisely this change of route that became one of the links in the tragic chain. Suddenly the girl screamed and fell into a puddle. She stretched her hand upward. The young man was nearby and, not understanding what was happening, grabbed her by the wrist. At that moment, an electric current passed through his body.

STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
The first impact of electricity was so strong that the young man felt his body gradually stop obeying his will.
In such moments, a person faces immediate danger of death. Consciousness begins to perceive what is happening in a completely different way. Memories, fragments of life events, and faces of loved ones may appear before the eyes.
But the main process occurs at the level of the body. The organism tries to resist the electric current. After a few seconds, his strength was almost gone. It seemed that death was inevitable. However, an unexpected turn occurred. Under the influence of his own weight, the young man leaned backward and thereby tore his hand away from contact with the girl. He became free. The girl remained lying under voltage.
Then the attempt to save her began. One of the friends ran for a motorcycle to illuminate the scene. The young man himself was completely soaked by the rain. There were no dry clothes nearby. He took off his wet vest and tried to use it to pull the girl away. But the electric current continued to pass through the body. Physical strength sharply decreased. Then an electric wire was discovered. Using the vest as an insulating tool, the young man tried to pull the wire from under the girl’s body. Despite the danger, he continued to act. After some time, he managed to remove the wire. But the girl could not be saved.

THE CHAIN OF CIRCUMSTANCES
At first glance, this appears to be an ordinary tragic accident. The wire happened to be in a dangerous place. After the rain, a puddle formed. The girl ended up nearby. The young man was next to her. At that very moment, he grabbed her hand. But if we examine the events in more detail, a long chain of circumstances emerges. They had met a few days earlier. The girl had come to the village for vacation. She chose to meet precisely these young people. On one of the evenings, the conversation lasted unusually long. Then the return route was changed. After the rain, they took a different road. It was there that the electric wire was located.
Each of these circumstances on its own had no tragic meaning. But their sequence led to a tragic outcome.

LATER INFORMATION
Several years later, the young man learned additional details from the mother of the deceased girl.
It turned out that shortly before the tragedy, a difficult conversation had taken place in the family.
The mother tried to convince her daughter that she should not meet with village boys, since such a life, in her opinion, could lead to an unenviable future.
The conversation ended emotionally. The daughter said: “I will leave and never come back.”
These words could have been merely an emotional reaction of a teenager to an unpleasant conversation.
But after the tragedy, they acquired a completely different meaning. In addition, before meeting the young man, the girl had experienced a breakup with another boy.
For a teenager, such an event can have enormous emotional significance.
Today, for an adult, it may seem insignificant. But for the teenager herself, the loss of first love can become a real catastrophe.

INFORMATION THAT REMAINED IN MEMORY

An especially interesting circumstance was that on the day of the tragedy, the family of the deceased discussed that very electric wire.
Relatives talked about neighbors who had not reported the malfunction to the local council.
It is possible that the girl saw the wire or heard the conversation about it.
However, none of the other participants in the tragedy, as far as the narrator knows, perceived this information.
This creates a kind of psychological puzzle.
Information may remain in a person’s memory even if it is not consciously perceived as important.
We cannot claim that this information was the cause of the tragedy.
But this case clearly demonstrates another idea: a person constantly receives a huge amount of information, most of which does not become the subject of conscious analysis. Nevertheless, this information can influence subsequent behavior.

CAN THIS BE CALLED FATE?

We do not claim that the described case proves the existence of mystical fate. On the contrary, it allows us to pose a more rational question. If even one link in the chain had been changed, the tragedy might not have occurred.
But this is precisely why fate turns out to be such a complex phenomenon. It is formed not only by major decisions. It can depend on the smallest circumstances.

A PERSON DOES NOT KNOW THE ENTIRE CHAIN OF CAUSES
Every person is unique. The same circumstances can cause completely different reactions in different people. For one, the loss of a relationship becomes a temporary disappointment. For another, it can become a severe psychological trauma. For one, criticism is a stimulus for development. For another, it is proof of personal inadequacy. For one, loneliness becomes an opportunity for self-development. For another, it becomes a source of despair. Therefore, it is impossible to understand human fate by considering only external circumstances.
One must also take into account the internal state of the person.
It is precisely the combination of the external and the internal that creates a specific line of behavior.

MIND AS A “SUPREME JUDGE”
The mind constantly compares what is happening with accumulated experience.
It evaluates circumstances, establishes connections, and forms conclusions.
We may not know what exact conclusion will be made. Sometimes it is obvious and conscious. Sometimes it is hidden. Sometimes a person understands why they acted in a certain way. Sometimes they can only explain their action afterward. Therefore, we can call the mind a kind of internal judge.
But this does not mean that the mind always produces objectively correct decisions. The mind works with the information available to it. If the initial data is incomplete or distorted, the final conclusion may also be incorrect. This is one of the most important problems of human psychology.
We are capable of creating a logically consistent picture based on incorrect premises.

THE DANGER OF THE HUMAN FACTOR
This problem is especially evident where human error can lead to catastrophe.
People working in hazardous industries constantly face the need to take the human factor into account.
Even the most perfect technical system does not exist separately from a human being.
A person can become tired, distracted, can misunderstand instructions, can overestimate their abilities, can be afraid of their superiors, can make the wrong decision under pressure.
That is why modern safety systems aim to reduce dependence on individual human error in critical processes.
However, it is impossible to eliminate the human factor completely.
Technology, instructions are created by humans. Control is carried out by humans. Decisions are made by humans.
Therefore, the human factor remains one of the most important elements of any complex system.

FATE AND THE INSTINCT OF PRESERVING THE SPECIES
Particular attention should be paid to the influence of social and biological needs of humans. A human being is both a biological and a social creature. They need not only food, safety, and physical existence, but also belonging to other people. Family, children, friends, professional activity, and social recognition can create a sense of personal significance. Therefore, a person who for a long time does not find their place in society may experience deep internal tension.
However, it cannot be claimed that a certain age or lack of family automatically leads to depression or a tragic outcome.
People are too different. One person may create a family and feel unhappy. Another may have no children but find deep meaning in scientific, artistic, professional, or social activity. Therefore, what matters is not the form of life itself, but the sense of personal significance and belonging to something greater than the individual “I.”

A PERSON FINDS MEANING THROUGH CONNECTION WITH OTHERS
Here we return to the social nature of human beings. A person is rarely able to perceive themselves completely separately from society. They evaluate their own life through relationships with others.
That is why ancient folk wisdom remains surprisingly relevant: plant a tree, build a house, raise a child. Behind these simple words lies a deep philosophical idea. A person wants to leave a continuation of themselves. They want to see the result of their life. This continuation can be biological—a child. It can be material—a house, a work, an enterprise. It can be spiritual—a book, an idea, a scientific discovery, a work of art. A person strives to feel that their existence was not meaningless. And this feeling can become one of the most important factors of psychological stability.

FROM INDIVIDUAL TRAGEDY TO COLLECTIVE ONES
If the fate of an individual is formed by the interaction of many circumstances, then the fate of a group of people becomes even more complex.
Disasters in which dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people die cannot be explained by a single cause.
They arise from a complex interaction of technical, social, political, organizational, and human factors.
A good illustration of this problem is the Chernobyl disaster.
Regardless of political assessments of the Soviet system, the tragedy itself shows how dangerous the combination of complex technology, organizational errors, management deficiencies, and human behavior can be.
In a rigid hierarchy, a subordinate may not dare to object to a superior.
The superior, in turn, may be following orders from higher management.
Information is transmitted along a chain. Each subsequent participant in the system assumes that the previous one has already assessed the risk. As a result, one person’s mistake can turn into a systemic error.

AUTHORITARIANISM AND TECHNOLOGICAL RISK
The more complex a technological system is, the more dangerous the lack of free information exchange becomes.
If an employee is afraid to report a problem to management, the system loses the ability to correct errors in time.
If a subordinate is required to unconditionally follow orders, critical thinking is suppressed.
If management considers its own decisions infallible, warnings are perceived as resistance. Therefore, technical safety depends not only on the quality of equipment.
It also depends on the culture of society.
A technological civilization requires not only mathematical calculations, but also the human ability to doubt, verify, argue, and admit mistakes.

FUKUSHIMA AND THE LIMITS OF CALCULATION
Similar problems have appeared in other countries as well.
The accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi showed that even an extremely advanced technological system cannot be fully protected from the interaction of natural factors, technical limitations, and human decisions.
From this follows an important philosophical conclusion.
Calculation is not equal to reality. A mathematical model can be extremely precise within a given set of assumptions. But reality itself can turn out to be far more complex than the model. Therefore, the application of mathematical calculation requires constant comparison of theory with experience. Here we come to the next problem—the role of mathematics in human cognition.

MATHEMATICS AND NATURE
Humanity made a huge intellectual leap when it learned to describe the surrounding world mathematically.
Ancient civilizations gradually moved from simple counting of objects to abstract operations.
A particularly important stage was the development of mathematics in Ancient Egypt.
Humans gained the ability to consider not only concrete objects, but also the relations between them.
Two objects could be represented as the number two. Five objects—as the number five. Then it became possible to work with numbers independently of concrete things. This was a fundamental intellectual breakthrough.
Now humans could build ideal models that first existed only in the mind and then apply them to reality. This is how one of the foundations of modern technology emerged.

MATHEMATICS AS A THEORETICAL SYNTHESIS
Mathematics has a unique feature. It allows us to combine elements into structures that may not exist directly in experience.
We can mentally construct a figure, calculate its properties, determine relationships between quantities, and only then look for correspondence of the resulting model in nature.
In this sense, mathematics is a theoretical synthetic discipline. It does not merely record what has already been observed. It allows the construction of new knowledge.
But here a limit arises. A mathematical construction is ideal. A natural object is not. A mathematical unit does not age, does not decay, and does not change its state. A physical object is constantly exposed to environmental influences. Therefore, absolute coincidence between a mathematical model and reality is impossible.

IDEAL THINKING AND THE REAL WORLD
Thinkers such as Plato, Leibniz, and Descartes were not only outstanding philosophers but also brilliant mathematicians. Their ability to think abstractly allowed them to consider reality from the perspective of ideal constructions.
This is where the enormous power of philosophical thinking lies.
A human being is capable of mentally creating systems that far exceed immediate experience. We can imagine a perfect state, an absolutely just society, an ideal person, a flawless logical system, or a perfect mathematical model.
But there is a fundamental difference between an idea and reality.
An idea may be internally consistent, while reality is not.
A mathematical model may be perfect, but real people are not obliged to behave according to it.
That is why many philosophical constructions that seemed logically impeccable revealed their limitations when confronted with history.
History shows that human society is far more complicated than any ideal scheme.
A human being is not exclusively a rational creature. Human behavior includes emotions, instincts, habits, fears, the desire for recognition, the desire for superiority, and an enormous number of unconscious factors.
Therefore, any ideal theory of human nature inevitably encounters the imperfection of the real human being.

THE MAIN PROBLEM OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
This is where the problem of modern applied psychology arises.
Psychological counseling, personal-development training, and various methods of psychological assistance seek to change a person's condition by influencing their thinking.
However, an important question arises:
To what extent is a person actually capable of independently changing their own inner structure?
The average person tends to believe that thinking and free will are instruments completely under their control.
It seems to us that we first think, then make a decision, and afterwards act.
But this process can be viewed differently.
We constantly receive information from the world around us.
We see people, hear their words, read books, watch films, receive an education, experience successes and failures.
All of this gradually forms our internal system of representations.
A person does not choose every individual thought that arises in their mind.
The thought simply appears.
Sometimes we accept it. Sometimes we reject it. Sometimes we do not even notice it. But the very possibility of a particular thought arising is already connected with previous experience.

REASON, THINKING, AND WILL
For the purposes of our analysis, it is necessary to distinguish three levels.
The first is information coming from the external world.
The second is its processing through thought.
The third is the formation of a more general inner conceptions.
Reason, in this process, acts as a mechanism of synthesis.
It connects separate pieces of information and forms a general picture.
This picture subsequently influences thinking and will.
A person does not act simply because they have received certain information.
They act according to the meaning that this information has acquired within their personality.
The same event can have completely different meanings for two people.
For one person, dismissal from a job becomes a catastrophe. For another, it becomes an opportunity to begin a new life.
For one person, criticism means humiliation. For another, it is useful advice.
For one person, loneliness means suffering. For another, it means freedom.
Therefore, an external circumstance by itself does not yet determine behavior.
It interacts with the internal structure that has already developed within the person.

REASON, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND CHOICE
Reason and circumstances constitute two complementary systems whose interaction shapes human choice. The mind creates a certain system of values and perceptions that guides a person’s practical decisions, relating them both to the circumstances around them and to their accumulated psychological experience.
When we judge the actions of others, and especially when we later reassess our own decisions, a particular choice may appear mistaken or even illogical. However, such an assessment is often based on an incomplete understanding of the circumstances. We are not always capable of seeing the entire range of factors that existed at the moment a decision was made. Moreover, a person makes decisions not only on the basis of the objective situation, but also under the influence of past experience, emotions, beliefs, and previously formed perceptions of the world.
Therefore, human choice cannot be regarded solely as the result of free and independent reasoning. At any given moment, the mind relies upon the psychological experience accumulated up to that point, while circumstances determine the space within which possible actions can take place.
Thus, our choices are formed at the intersection of two forces: what is happening around us and what has already been formed within us. Circumstances establish the conditions of choice, while psychological experience determines how the mind perceives those conditions and what meaning it assigns to them. It is precisely the interaction between these two factors that largely determines the direction of our behaviour.

CAN AN EXCESS OF INFORMATION LEAD TO A MENTAL DISORDER?
Sometimes we hear the claim that an excessive amount of information overloads the brain and causes a person to draw incorrect conclusions, which may allegedly lead to serious mental disorders.
However, caution is necessary here.
A large amount of information by itself does not mean that a mental illness will develop.
Modern people really do receive enormous amounts of information every day: news, social media, books, conversations, images, advertising, and professional information.
But the human brain possesses mechanisms for selecting and processing information.
The problem does not arise simply because of the quantity of information, but because of how a person interprets it, how contradictory it is, how capable the person is of adapting to it, and what their psychological state is.
Therefore, informational overload, stress, and clinical mental disorders must be distinguished from one another.
The philosophical problem lies elsewhere.
If a person constantly receives distorted information and then builds an internal picture of the world upon it, that picture may differ substantially from reality.

REALITY AND THE INTERNAL MODEL
Reason creates an internal image of the world for us. This image can never be a complete copy of reality. We are incapable of perceiving all existing circumstances simultaneously. Our consciousness selects certain elements, connects them, and creates a particular interpretation.
Therefore, in a certain sense, every person lives simultaneously in two worlds:
the objective world of circumstances and the subjective world of their interpretation.
The greater the discrepancy between these two worlds, the more difficult it becomes for a person to adapt.
Healthy thinking requires constant testing of one's internal model against reality.
A person must have the opportunity to hear objections, have the opportunity to make mistakes and to change their opinion.
That is why society plays such an important role in maintaining a person's intellectual balance.

LONELINESS AS A SOURCE OF INTELLECTUAL ISOLATION
One of the circumstances capable of seriously changing a person's inner world is loneliness.
A human being is a social creature.
We form our understanding of ourselves through interaction with others.
If a person remains isolated from society for a long time, they lose an important mechanism for testing their own perceptions.
History contains cases in which people, after prolonged isolation, experienced serious difficulties when returning to ordinary social life.
What matters here is not only the lack of communication but also the absence of intellectual exchange.
A conversation with another person forces us to explain our position.
An objection forces us to examine our arguments. Criticism reveals weaknesses. Agreement confirms certain ideas.
Thus, society functions as a kind of mirror in which a person constantly examines themselves.

WITHDRAWAL INTO ONESELF
The second circumstance is conscious or forced withdrawal into oneself.
Let us imagine the leader of a small religious or ideological group who encounters practically no intellectual resistance.
Their followers constantly confirm their correctness.
If this person also has little contact with people outside their organization, there is a danger that a closed intellectual system will develop.
Every new thought confirms the previous one. Every follower strengthens the authority of the leader. Every external objection may be interpreted as proof of the hostility of the outside world.
Thus, a system develops that becomes increasingly stable within itself and increasingly incapable of accepting external criticism.
As a result, a person may become absolutely convinced that they are right, even though their beliefs appear completely different from the outside.

CONCENTRATION ON THE EXACT SCIENCES
The third circumstance, in our view, is excessive confinement of thinking exclusively within the sphere of formal systems.
Mathematics possesses a characteristic that most social relationships do not.
If a statement has been proven within a particular mathematical system, the dispute concerning it ends.
For example:
2 + 2 = 4.
There is no need to consider another person's opinion here.
But social life is organized in a completely different way.
There is no equivalent of a simple mathematical equation in the human world.
A person may be right from one point of view and wrong from another.
One action may have positive consequences for one person and negative consequences for another.
Therefore, transferring mathematical thinking directly to human behavior can lead to excessive confidence in one's own correctness.
Mathematics works extraordinarily well with quantitative relationships.
But human life contains qualitative and psychological changes that cannot always be expressed by a number.

THE DANGER OF CREATING ONE'S OWN REALITY
If a person remains within their own intellectual world for a long time, they gradually stop encountering resistance to their beliefs.
They do not hear opposing opinions, do not test their conclusions, do not correct their mistakes. Their internal system begins to function like a perfectly calibrated mechanism: all its elements confirm one another.
Such a person may become convinced that the entire surrounding world is mistaken rather than themselves.
But healthy thinking presupposes the opposite. We must communicate, express our opinions, receive objections, make mistakes, correct ourselves.
And we must continually test our conclusions.
It is this process that allows a person to maintain contact with reality.

UNDERSTANDING AND REASON
Here we return once again to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
For the purposes of our study, it is particularly important to distinguish between understanding and reason.
Understanding enables a person to consciously process information, form concepts, and connect them through logical categories.
Reason has a broader character.
It strives to unite individual pieces of knowledge into a coherent system of ideas.
That is why the subject of the dependence of fate on circumstances is closely connected with Kant's philosophy.
We are attempting to continue one of his fundamental ideas: a human being does not merely perceive individual phenomena but strives to unite them into a general picture of the world.

CAN REASON BE WRONG?
If reason draws conclusions from available information, an important question arises: can the conclusion itself be incorrect?
We believe it is necessary to distinguish between two things.
Reason can logically connect the available data.
But if the data themselves are incomplete, distorted, or one-sided, the resulting picture may fail to correspond to reality.
In this sense, the problem does not necessarily lie in the ability of reason to draw conclusions.
The problem may lie in the original material.
If a person is constantly shown only one side of reality, their final understanding will also be one-sided.
Therefore, intellectual health requires diverse information and the constant comparison of different points of view.

SOCIETY AS A SYSTEM OF CORRECTION
A person cannot independently create a complete system of values from nothing.
Society passes on to each person an enormous cultural experience accumulated over generations.
Moral norms, traditions, laws, religion, philosophy, art, and education perform the function of a kind of system of orientation.
If one system of values disappears, society begins searching for a replacement.
This is why a person cannot exist in a complete vacuum of values.
If traditional forms of explaining the world disappear, new ones take their place.
Psychology, philosophy, religion, ideology, popular culture, and even various forms of esotericism can become sources of meaning.
A person needs more than knowledge.
A person needs an explanation of their own existence.

PSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION
Modern psychology has, in many respects, taken upon itself functions that previously belonged primarily to philosophy and religion.
A person does not come to a psychologist only with a specific problem.
They often come with the question: "Why am I the way I am? Why am I unhappy? How can I find my place?”
These are no longer merely psychological questions. They contain philosophical meaning. When a person loses a traditional system of values, they begin searching for a new one.
This is why fortune-tellers, folk healers, and various spiritual practices continue to exist alongside psychologists.
Their popularity is not explained solely by ignorance.
It is explained by a deep human need to find meaning, explanation, and hope.

PRACTICAL FREEDOM
If fate is connected with causality, does this mean that there is no freedom at all?
We do not believe that such a conclusion is necessary.
A person possesses a certain degree of practical freedom.
They are capable of stopping an impulse. They can refuse to act. They can change their attitude toward the past. They can change their conception of the future.
But this freedom is not absolute.
It exists within a system of limitations. A person cannot abolish the laws of nature. They cannot change what has already happened. They cannot instantly find themselves in another place without passing through the necessary chain of physical processes.
We may dream of being on a deserted island thousands of kilometers away, but in order to physically reach it, we must travel there by some means.
Nature contains no arbitrary gaps. One event is connected with another.

SOCIAL FREEDOM
However, there is another level of freedom — social freedom.
Society restricts individual desires through laws, morality, traditions, punishment, and social condemnation.
At first glance, this reduces the freedom of the individual.
But at the same time, such restrictions increase the freedom of society as a whole.
If every person satisfies every whim, the freedom of one person will quickly become a restriction on the freedom of another.
Therefore, social freedom arises when people voluntarily or involuntarily relinquish some of their individual claims.
This is where civilization emerges.
We restrict part of our own freedom for the sake of the possibility of living together.

THE HUMAN BEING AS OBJECT AND SUBJECT
A person is capable of perceiving themselves in two ways.
On the one hand, they are an object — a physical body existing in space and time.
On the other hand, they perceive themselves as a subject — as an inner “I” capable of thinking, desiring, and evaluating.
This duality creates one of the central philosophical problems of psychology.
Where does the idea of our inner “I” come from?
We believe that it is formed from the totality of circumstances.
Our face differs from the faces of other people. Our body has particular characteristics. We have received a particular upbringing. We have a particular circle of acquaintances. We possess things, habits, memories, knowledge, and interests.
Reason sums all of this up and forms the idea:
“This is me.”
Consequently, our inner “I” does not arise in isolation.
It is formed through interaction with the surrounding world.

IS OUR CHOICE PREDETERMINED?
If every state of a person has preceding causes, a very difficult question concerning free will arises.
We choose an action. But why do we choose precisely that action? Because we have a particular character. Why do we have that character? Because it has been influenced by heredity, upbringing, experience, and the environment.
Why did we receive precisely that experience? Because certain events happened before.
Thus, an endless chain of causes emerges.
In this case, our choice becomes part of general causality.
But this does not mean that a person should abandon responsibility.
On the contrary, understanding the causes of our own behavior can make us more responsible.
If we know why certain circumstances provoke a particular reaction, we gain the possibility of influencing those circumstances.
Freedom, then, consists not in destroying causality but in understanding it and acting within it.

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
We are free to imagine. We can create different scenarios for the future. We can reinterpret the past. We can change our attitude toward people and events. This constitutes an important form of human freedom. But intellectual freedom does not mean physical freedom from the laws of nature.
We can imagine flying without an aircraft. But imagination itself will not make the human body fly. We can imagine returning to the past. But human fantasy cannot reverse the passage of time. We can imagine any place on Earth. But physically traveling there requires appropriate conditions.
Therefore, human freedom exists within objective reality, not instead of it.

CAN PSYCHOLOGISTS AND HEALERS HELP?
We cannot categorically claim that psychological assistance or various forms of folk healing never provide benefits.
On the contrary, conversation, support, attention, and belief in the possibility of improvement can have a real effect on a person's well-being.
It is known that stress can negatively affect the body.
If a person manages to reduce anxiety, restore sleep, receive support, and feel protected, their overall condition may improve.
Therefore, sometimes assistance proves effective regardless of how exactly the person explains it.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
Let us recall the story of an elderly woman who spoke about her childhood.
When she was seven years old, she was very short. Her parents fed her well, but the problem persisted.
After lengthy arguments, her mother took her to a folk healer.
The healer performed a particular ritual and announced that she had discovered a “curse.”
According to the woman's recollection, she began to grow after that.
Today, we cannot use this case as evidence for the existence of a supernatural “curse.”
But it is interesting as a psychological phenomenon.
The child may have received strong emotional support. Her mother believed in the treatment. The girl felt that someone was helping her. Her fear decreased. Hope appeared. At the same time, her physical condition was naturally changing as she grew older.
Thus, the coincidence of two events does not prove a causal connection between them. But the psychological effect of the experience itself can be completely real.

WARTS AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT
Another example concerns a young man who had warts on his hands. His parents tried various methods of treatment. Eventually, his mother took him to a folk healer. After the ritual was performed, the warts disappeared.
Such a case also cannot automatically be regarded as proof of supernatural healing. Some illnesses and skin conditions can disappear naturally. But the patient's belief in the treatment can indeed influence their emotional state. When a person becomes calmer, stress decreases. And a reduction in stress can have a positive effect on general well-being.
Therefore, the relationship between belief and physiological condition is more complex than a simple opposition between the “scientific” and the “unscientific.”

STRESS AS A FACTOR IN HEALTH
A person constantly interacts with their environment.
Stress arises when the demands of a situation exceed the person's perceived ability to cope with them.
If stress becomes chronic, it can negatively affect sleep, mood, concentration, and general health.
Therefore, sometimes a person is helped not so much by an unusual method of treatment as by the opportunity to talk, feel supported, and escape the feeling of complete hopelessness.
This is why a conversation with a relative, a friend, or even a chance acquaintance can sometimes have an unexpectedly powerful psychological effect.
The person feels better simply because their inner world is no longer completely closed off.

CONTRADICTORY ADVICE
However, a question arises concerning certain popular psychological recommendations.
A person is told:
“Why are you the way you are? Don't be like that.Pull yourself together. Become a better person.”
Then they are told:
“Remain yourself.”
At first glance, these recommendations contradict one another. But behind them lies a certain psychological function.
The first set of recommendations demands change. The second demands self-acceptance.
Depending on the person's condition, either approach may be useful.
If a person completely rejects themselves, they need to learn to accept their own personality.
But if a person uses “self-acceptance” as an excuse for any behavior, they may need to change.
Therefore, the formula “be yourself” is insufficient by itself. It is necessary to determine what exactly we mean by our own “I” and which aspects of our personality need development.

PSYCHOLOGY AS ANALYSIS
In this respect, psychological analysis becomes particularly important.
Instead of simply giving a person advice, it is necessary to investigate the causes of their behavior.
Why do they react in precisely this way? What circumstances formed their beliefs?What events created their understanding of themselves? Why do certain situations cause fear while others provoke aggression? Why is one person able to adapt easily to change while another becomes paralyzed by circumstances?
These questions are considerably deeper than simple recommendations.
Psychology becomes most useful when it helps a person see the structure of their own behavior.

CRIME AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
This problem is also important for society.
The traditional system responds to crime after it has been committed.
A person breaks the law. An investigation follows. Then punishment. After that, an attempt is made to rehabilitate the person.
But another question arises:
Can we influence the causes of criminal behavior before a crime occurs?
If certain behavioral patterns genuinely make it possible to identify a high risk of aggression, violence, or other dangerous actions, society may seek preventive measures.
However, particular caution is necessary here.
A person must not be declared a criminal merely on the basis of their character, diagnosis, appearance, or isolated psychological characteristics.
Any preventive system must respect individual rights and the principle of the presumption of innocence.
Otherwise, the fight against crime itself may become a source of injustice.
Therefore, psychological analysis should serve not to punish a person for a possible future act, but to provide timely assistance, monitor dangerous situations, and prevent actual harm.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PREVENTION
Ideally, society should strive not only to correct consequences but also to reduce the likelihood that tragic situations will arise.
For this purpose, it is necessary to develop: accessible psychological assistance; family support; social integration; education; a culture of open communication; systems for the early identification of serious crises; safe working environments; mechanisms for protecting people who find themselves in difficult circumstances.
This approach corresponds to the general logic of our study.
If fate is formed by circumstances, then changing circumstances can also change the subsequent outcome.

FATE AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGING IT
At the beginning of our discussion, we asked the question:
Can a person change their fate?
Now we can give a more complex answer.
If by fate we mean a mystically predetermined scenario that cannot be changed, then its existence cannot be demonstrated.
But if by fate we mean the sequence of causes and effects that shape human life, then it exists objectively.
We cannot cancel the past. But we can change the present. And changing the present becomes the cause of a different future.
Therefore, a person cannot escape the chain of cause and effect. But they can become one of its active elements.
This is a fundamental distinction. We do not choose all circumstances. But we can influence some of them.
We do not choose the past. But we can change our attitude toward it.
We cannot know the entire future. But we can create conditions that increase the probability of certain outcomes. Unfortunately, only those people can do a positive change in their life, who are predisposed for it.

PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT THEY CONTROL THEIR LIFE
People often want to believe that they completely control their own lives.
This belief provides a sense of strength and responsibility.
But reality is considerably more complex.
We are born into a particular family, country, and historical era. We receive a particular upbringing. We meet particular people. We acquire particular experiences. We encounter circumstances that we did not choose. All these factors gradually shape our personality.
Then the personality that has been formed begins to influence the surrounding world itself.
Thus, a continuous interaction arises:
circumstances shape the person, the person changes circumstances, and the changed circumstances shape the person again.
It is within this process that human fate emerges.
Therefore, we cannot regard a person as either completely free or completely helpless.
A person is simultaneously limited and capable of acting. They are a consequence of the past and a cause of the future. They depend on society and, at the same time, influence it. They are subject to the laws of nature, but they are capable of understanding these laws and using them.
Perhaps this is where the most realistic understanding of freedom lies. Freedom is not the ability to violate causality. Freedom is the ability to understand causality and act within it.
We cannot stop the movement of the world. But we can try to understand its direction. We cannot abolish circumstances. But we can change those circumstances that lie within our power to influence. We cannot know all the causes that determine our future. But we can become the cause of new events. And therefore, human fate is not merely what happens to us. It is also the entire chain of interactions in which we ourselves become an active cause.
A person does not exist outside fate. A person is part of its mechanism. And the deeper we understand this mechanism, the greater our ability to develop a rational attitude toward our own lives.

THE SYSTEM OF VALUES AND THE MIND
Sociology today is perhaps one of the most objective sciences concerned with human beings, because it examines the individual not in isolation but as a part of society. It studies people through their relationships with others, social groups, and institutions, analyzing patterns of behavior and social development on the basis of observations, facts, and statistical data rather than merely opinions and emotions. At the same time, sociology, like every empirical science, should not go beyond what can be investigated and confirmed through experience.
From this we can draw an important conclusion: changing our position in life does not change the laws of nature themselves, although it can radically change our attitude toward them. A person may change his beliefs, values, and goals, but the surrounding world does not thereby rearrange itself according to his wishes. What changes first of all is the person himself — his perception of circumstances, interpretation of events, and direction of action.
Nevertheless, we must recognize that applied psychology — psychological counseling, training, and various practices aimed at modifying behavior — has not only strengthened its position in recent times but continues to expand its sphere of influence with confidence. This is quite natural. Modern science has dealt a powerful blow to the traditional spiritual system of values. Ancient concepts on which religious worldviews were based for centuries have been called into question by the development of the natural sciences.
Works such as Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity became part of an intellectual process through which human beings acquired the ability to explain many phenomena without directly appealing to traditional religious concepts. As a result, a new intellectual space emerged in which psychological explanations of human beings gradually began to occupy a place previously held by religious interpretations.
Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of becoming a profound analyst and independently constructing a complex philosophical system of conclusions. Most people need a simple, comprehensible, and accessible system of values capable of organizing enormous amounts of fragmented information into a unified structure of meaning. Therefore, the victorious development of applied psychology, which deals with the correction of human behavior, and the gradual weakening of religious influence are difficult to stop.
Human beings will always need a system that explains why they should live, how they should relate to other people, how they should evaluate their own actions, and how they should overcome life's difficulties.

THE HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE MIND
By the word "system," we mean a hierarchical, pyramid-like organization of the mind around one central idea.
For clarity, this system can be represented as follows:
The main idea.
Abstract concepts and ideas.
General ideas.
Objects of experience.
Objects of experience are united by general ideas. General ideas, in turn, are subordinated to more significant abstract ideas, while all the contents of the mind can ultimately be organized around one central idea.
For example, such a central idea may be the idea of "God." In this case, individual circumstances of life, knowledge, moral norms, and personal goals acquire meaning within a religious system of reference.
Modern psychology largely teaches a person to organize knowledge around the idea of "I." The individual is encouraged to perceive himself as an independent center of decision-making, possessing freedom of choice and bearing responsibility for his own destiny.
The religious hierarchy of the mind, by contrast, places God's will at the center. Here the familiar saying is appropriate: "Man proposes, but God disposes."
When Jesus Christ prayed before His arrest and crucifixion, He said: "Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done" (Luke 22:41–42).
Thus, the difference between the two systems lies not so much in the presence or absence of values as in which idea occupies the highest position in the hierarchy. In one system, the highest value is the human "I"; in the other, it is God.

HOW THE CENTRAL IDEA ORGANIZES INFORMATION
Depending on which idea is central, a person selects corresponding information for his system of values. If new information contradicts the central idea, the mind may interpret it in its own way, adapt it to the existing system, or reject it altogether as absurd.
Therefore, it is very difficult to persuade a person guided by the idea of "God" to abandon his fundamental worldview. When confronted with information that contradicts his faith, he may reject it or find an interpretation that allows him to preserve the central idea.
However, the same applies to a person guided by the idea of "I." Such a person may also reject information that threatens his conception of his own independence, freedom, and ability to control his life completely.
The emergence of numerous books about how to organize one's personal life independently, cope with internal and external problems, achieve happiness, gain control over one's destiny, and attain success demonstrates the emergence of a new psychological movement responding to the needs of broad sections of society.
In the development of modern culture, an evolutionary system of values is gradually beginning to displace the religious one. If we take into account modern tendencies toward the rational and mathematical organization of everyday life, we may assume that psychology could eventually occupy a position once held by religion.
This does not necessarily mean the complete disappearance of religious consciousness. Rather, it indicates a gradual transformation in the way human beings seek answers to fundamental questions about their existence.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE MIND
The mind is the ability of our brain to intuitively derive ideas and values from the circumstances surrounding us and to direct our actions toward their realization.
The mind, like nature itself, is dynamic. The circumstances of our lives are constantly changing. Along with them, the significance of particular circumstances for a person also changes: some values become stronger, others weaker, and still others disappear completely.
For example, in his youth a person may be involved in an accident and come close to death. At a certain moment, his mind may arrive at the tragic conclusion that life has lost its meaning. But if he survives, the circumstances change. His experience receives a new interpretation, and with that new interpretation the meaning of life may return.
Thus, the mind constantly reevaluates reality.
For human beings, practically everything has a certain value. We evaluate objects and phenomena as pleasant or unpleasant, useful or harmful, suitable or unsuitable. We love, despise, hate, desire, or ignore them.
Imagine a person who owns a laptop and is completely satisfied with it. Then he sees a more modern computer belonging to a friend. Later, he discovers that almost all his acquaintances are already using newer models. The mind reassesses the circumstances and directs the person toward acquiring a new computer.
Someone may object: "I am satisfied with my old laptop." In that case, there is probably a higher goal for which the person is willing to sacrifice this relatively insignificant value. The mind can sacrifice one value in favor of another that is considered more important.
Consequently, human behavior is determined not by isolated desires but by their hierarchy.

OPINION AND TRUTH
An opinion can be defined as incomplete information about a phenomenon.
OPINION = factual knowledge about an object + knowledge based on hypotheses and assumptions.
If a person lacks sufficient facts to achieve logical completeness, the mind fills the gaps with hypotheses. This is necessary so that a person can at least provisionally explain a phenomenon to himself.
As a result, an opinion is formed. If the proposed hypothesis subsequently corresponds to the actual facts, the opinion approaches the truth.
Therefore, a person who does not know the exact answer can sometimes guess it correctly. But a correct assumption does not mean that the person possessed true knowledge. Truth requires correspondence between one's conception of a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself.
TRUTH = information about a phenomenon that corresponds to the phenomenon itself.
Thus, the important distinction between opinion and truth lies not merely in a person's confidence but also in the completeness and objectivity of the information.

GRIEF, JOY, AND HAPPINESS
Grief can be defined as the predominance of unfavorable circumstances over favorable ones.
A serious event can overshadow many other favorable circumstances, especially when those circumstances were connected with the values that matter most. For example, the death of a loved one can make many material achievements that previously seemed important appear insignificant.
IDEA OF GRIEF = unfavorable circumstances predominate over favorable circumstances.
The idea of death represents the extreme expression of unfavorable circumstances:
IDEA OF DEATH = a complete set of unfavorable circumstances.
Joy, by contrast, can be understood as the predominance of favorable circumstances over unfavorable ones.
IDEA OF JOY = favorable circumstances stronger than unfavorable circumstances.
Happiness, in this framework, represents the idea of a complete predominance of favorable circumstances.
However, it is difficult for the mind to obtain the logical completeness of the idea of absolute happiness, because in real life there are always circumstances capable of disturbing the achieved balance. Therefore, a person constantly seeks to reduce unfavorable circumstances and increase favorable ones.
In this sense, the pursuit of happiness becomes a continuous process rather than a state that can be permanently secured.

DREAMS AS THE WORKING OF THE MIND
The working of the mind can perhaps be better understood by analyzing dreams.
During sleep, critical thinking is weakened, while the impressions received during the day continue to be processed. Throughout the day, a person receives numerous fresh sensations. Among them, one dominant feeling may emerge — for example, joy, anxiety, fear, or grief.
When the idea underlying this feeling has not yet been clearly defined, the mind begins searching for circumstances connected with it. It compares fresh impressions with similar experiences from the past, links them into chains of cause and effect, and creates a particular structure of meaning.
In doing so, facts may be altered or distorted so that they correspond to the emerging idea.
We may therefore suppose that a dream represents a kind of mental attempt to create logical completeness from a collection of fragmented sensations.
Sigmund Freud associated dreams with the fulfillment of unrealized wishes. Yet an obvious question arises: if a dream is the fulfillment of a wish, how should we explain nightmares? Does a person really wish to experience terror, fear, and his own destruction?
We therefore propose another explanation: during sleep, the mind attempts to construct a coherent picture from fresh sensations and memories, adapting individual facts to the conclusion that is taking shape.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL NATURE OF THE HUMAN BEING
According to the concept under consideration, the true nature of the human being is transcendental, meaning that it extends beyond immediate experience.
If we look carefully at nature as a whole, we can observe the constant transformation of matter from one state into another. We interpret these changes as causal relationships and discover within them a certain driving force.
But psychology alone may not be sufficient to understand human behavior.
If life is understood exclusively as a natural process of the succession of generations and species, human existence may appear devoid of ultimate meaning. Yet the mind addresses this problem by creating ideas that connect individual events in life into a unified structure of meaning.
This is why human beings can live not only in the present moment but also according to a future goal, ideal, memory, belief, or abstract meaning.

TRANSCENDENTAL, TRANSCENDENT, AND IMMANENT IDEAS
In Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant distinguishes between the concepts of the transcendental and the transcendent.
In the author's interpretation presented here, transcendental ideas go beyond the limits of any possible experience but cannot be conclusively refuted by experience. They are regarded as necessary conclusions of reason derived from a multiplicity of circumstances.
For example, a person cannot perceive God as a material object. He can observe the surrounding world and, through its existence, arrive at the idea of a higher power that he calls God.
Experience cannot directly prove the existence of God as a material object, but neither can it experimentally and conclusively disprove the transcendental idea of God.
We include God, the soul, personal good, happiness, freedom, and the afterlife among such ideas.
Transcendent ideas, by contrast, go beyond the boundaries of practical experience. A person can create an ideal and use it as an internal guide. He can bring his actions closer to this ideal, but he can never guarantee its complete embodiment in reality.
A moral ideal, for example, constantly imposes new demands on a person. A person may conform to it in one action and violate it in another. Therefore, the ideal remains a guiding point toward which a person can move but with which he cannot completely merge.
Immanent ideas can be confirmed by experience. For example, the proposition that matter has an atomic structure can be tested through scientific methods.
Unreal ideas, by contrast, can be contradicted by experience. For example, the idea of traveling through time in a physical sense is not confirmed by our immediate experience. We always find ourselves in the present.
Time itself, however, is not simply a fantasy: it exists as a form of our perception of reality. The disputed question concerns specifically the possibility of physically moving between different temporal states.

THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN IDEAS
Human evolution occurred simultaneously with the development of the mind's ability to form ideas about existence.
Before becoming conscious of his own identity, the human being, according to the hypothesis under consideration, existed primarily through the satisfaction of instinctive needs. But increasing environmental complexity forced the brain to develop a more sophisticated system of relationships with the external world.
Thus emerged awareness of one's own "I."
The first idea — "I."
Having recognized himself as a separate being, the human being simultaneously discovered the existence of an external world that did not obey his wishes.
Then came the necessity of taking other people into account.
The second idea — "We."
Collective existence increased human protection against the dangers of nature. The emergence of a group created mutual dependence, cooperation, and common interests.
On this basis, the idea of personal well-being gradually developed.
The third idea — "Happiness."
At the same time, human beings encountered natural forces they could not explain. Thunder, lightning, earthquakes, disease, death, the vastness of the cosmos, and other unknown phenomena were interpreted through the idea of the supernatural.
Thus the idea of God emerged.
The fourth idea — "God."
Finally, the fear of death required another explanation. The mind created the concept of existence after death.
The fifth idea — "The Afterlife."
Reward or punishment after death became a vector for earthly behavior. A person could perceive earthly life as preparation for existence in another world.
Thus, five fundamental ideas formed a kind of intellectual chain connecting self-identity, community, personal well-being, a higher power, and the ultimate destiny of the human being.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD'S MIND
If we observe the development of a modern child, we may notice certain similarities between individual intellectual development and the presumed historical formation of human consciousness.
First, the child becomes aware of his own identity. Then he discovers the existence of other people, develops an understanding of belonging to a family and society, begins to understand his own desires, and gradually asks questions about the world, justice, death, and meaning.
A complete awareness of existence develops much later — in adulthood, when separate life values become connected into a relatively coherent system.
This system begins to determine a person's orientation in life.
Transcendental ideas of reason govern not only individuals but humanity as a whole. They are immaterial and are sometimes called spiritual. They cannot be fully explained by psychology alone because they claim to operate at a broader level of interpretation of human existence.
Psychology, in this context, is regarded as the study of the individual's internal experience as he realizes his understanding of the world through concrete actions.

THE EVOLUTIONARY SCHEME
The five fundamental ideas of the mind in the evolutionary scheme are:
I.
We.
Happiness.
Freedom of choice.
Meaning of life.
Freedom of choice — the possibility of realizing personal goals.
Happiness — the ideal of life toward which a person strives in order to achieve personal well-being.
Meaning of life — the striving to realize the ultimate purpose of one's existence.
Within such a system, a person may be considered moral if he follows the principle: treat others as you would like them to treat you.
THE RELIGIOUS SCHEME
The religious system can be represented as follows:
Soul.
God.
Freedom of choice.
Blessings.
Kingdom of God.
Blessings — the desire to receive God's mercy as the result of actions pleasing to God.
Freedom of choice — the ability to change the nature of one's intentions, consciously choosing between good and evil intentions.
The Kingdom of God — the ultimate goal of a righteous life.
Within this interpretation, the religious theory is the original one because, historically, it gave human beings a comprehensive system for explaining their existence and subsequently created conditions for the emergence of more secular and evolutionary interpretations.
Despite their differences, evolutionary and religious systems can address the same fundamental problems of human existence. What differs primarily is their interpretation of those problems.
In the religious conception, the ideas have clearer outlines: there is God, the soul, freedom of choice, blessings as a reward for one's actions and the Kingdom of God.
In the evolutionary conception, the idea that unites humanity is often less clearly defined. It may be love, humanity, the eternal energy of the cosmos, or some universal force.
Such uncertainty can weaken the social function of a moral system.
A believer, by contrast, has a clear system of reference. He believes in the existence of the soul and God, seeks to fulfill God's will, and associates the highest good with the Kingdom of God.
The fundamental moral principle is expressed in the words: love God above all and love your neighbor as yourself.

MORALITY AND PERSONAL WELL-BEING
When a person concentrates entirely on himself and forgets society, he risks losing the meaning of his own existence.
However, this does not mean that every person oriented toward personal well-being necessarily becomes evil or cruel. In this concept, immorality is determined primarily by excessive concentration on one's own interests while ignoring the interests of society.
A human being is part of a complex system of relationships. His personal well-being depends upon family, friends, relatives, colleagues, community, and society as a whole.
Therefore, a question arises: if there are many people whom we consider immoral, why do some of them nevertheless live successfully into old age?
The answer lies in the relativity of human judgment. We ourselves determine which actions we consider moral or immoral. Perhaps a person performs actions that appear immoral to us but is nevertheless motivated by love for his family, children, organization, or community.
Therefore, a truly moral person should be oriented not only toward the interests of a particular group to which he belongs but also toward universal human values.
The modern Christian world regards Jesus Christ as an absolute moral authority, yet historically He was accused and condemned for blasphemy. This demonstrates how strongly social judgments of morality depend upon a particular historical and social environment.

THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM
Freedom is one of the most difficult problems in philosophy and science.
Immanuel Kant probably came closer than many other thinkers to analyzing it. However, we believe that Kant made a mistake by treating morality as the primary form of practical freedom.
We may also turn to Jesus Christ, who said: "If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Freedom in the Christian understanding does not necessarily mean the absence of all obligations. On the contrary, a person may be freed from one form of service in order to voluntarily choose another.
Freedom can therefore be understood primarily as the ability to choose one's intention.
Kant also described the possibility of acting freely from an anthropological perspective. His moral principle requires a person to act in such a way that the rule underlying an individual action could become a universal law of behavior.
For example, if a person intends to commit suicide and makes his decision a universal rule, a contradiction arises: if everyone acted in the same way, humanity would cease to exist.
Thus, the universality of an action can serve as a criterion for its moral evaluation.
But here another problem emerges: a universal action does not always coincide with an action that is socially acceptable or morally desirable.
Imagine a city surrounded by enemy forces. One person begins persuading its defenders to surrender without resistance, guided by the principle of love for one's enemy. From the perspective of one abstract moral maxim, his actions may appear humane. But from the perspective of society, his actions may lead to the deaths of the inhabitants.
If, after the city has been captured, another person secretly assists the enemy, the inhabitants will also regard his actions as betrayal, regardless of the moral considerations motivating him.
Therefore, the theoretical possibility of acting morally from the perspective of individual intention does not always imply the social acceptability of a particular action.

THREE TYPES OF FREEDOM
T
We propose distinguishing three types of freedom:
freedom from the laws of nature;
intellectual freedom;
social freedom.
Intellectual freedom includes freedom of choice and the ability to form intentions.
Social freedom includes independence, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and other forms of freedom existing within society.
If human freedom from the laws of nature were completely excluded, a person would be like any other natural object and would respond exclusively to external impulses: heat and cold, day and night, hunger and satiety.
But human beings are capable not only of responding to instincts but also of evaluating them.
A person may feel hunger and consciously refuse food. He may experience fear and nevertheless perform an action he considers necessary. He may feel aggression and suppress it.
Thus, the human being is simultaneously free and dependent.
He is free as a subject capable of forming intentions, but dependent as part of the natural and social world.
The mind determines values: good or bad, right or wrong, love or hatred, generosity or greed. The will then directs actions toward the realization of the chosen value.
Morality implies a greater concentration on social values than on immediate personal well-being.

MORALITY AS A DYNAMIC PROCESS
Morality operates most effectively when it is supported by a significant part of society.
Here a certain dilemma arises: a person is capable of changing his intentions, but he cannot always change the consequences of actions that have already been performed.
How can this contradiction be overcome?
We connect the answer with the teaching of Jesus Christ: a person should glorify the Heavenly Father through his actions.
The advancement of morality begins with the individual. When a particular moral idea spreads among a large number of people, society gradually begins to reorganize its behavior according to that idea.
Therefore, morality is not a static condition but a dynamic process. It requires constant maintenance and expansion.
For morality to exist, an idea is needed that can focus the attention of the mind. Such an idea must be simple, clear, and understandable.
Within the present concept, this unifying idea becomes: "Our Father who is in heaven."
This formula unites humanity into one family and becomes a moral orientation for the mind.

FAITH AND PERSONAL WELL-BEING
If a person perceives himself as "not of this world," his values based on faith may begin to prevail over values based exclusively on immediate experience.
In such a case, the idea of personal well-being may give way to the idea of inheriting the Kingdom of God.
But a person cannot completely abandon earthly existence because he remains a physical being.
The history of religion contains examples of people who attempted to distance themselves as much as possible from worldly life. Hermits and recluses withdrew into caves and other isolated places, seeking to devote themselves entirely to God.
However, we emphasize that the highest purpose of a believer may consist not in physical withdrawal from the world but in helping other people and spreading moral values within society.

THE PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF FREEDOM
In everyday life, freedom is primarily a practical concept.
We constantly solve tasks, overcome problems, make plans, and strive to achieve our goals. At the same time, we rarely consider how the process of choice actually occurs from the perspective of the fundamental laws of nature.
We obtain a result through experience, see that we could have acted in one way or another, and therefore conclude that the choice depended on us.
In this way, the mind creates for us a practical idea of freedom.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, there were the concepts of fatum — fate, unavoidable destiny — and fortuna — fortune, a favorable outcome.
A person cannot predict his own destiny with absolute certainty. He does not know what awaits him — fate or fortune.
But even if a person believes that destiny has already been determined, he continues to act and hope for the best. Perhaps fortuna will become his destiny.
This demonstrates that the idea of freedom can perform a practical function regardless of whether its absolute existence can be proven.

ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AND IMAGINATION
Absolute freedom belongs primarily to the intellect and can extend beyond experience.
The mind is capable of constructing complex logical structures that cannot be directly realized in a particular situation.
The clearest example is the human ability to imagine.
The practical application of reason can be represented through two main directions:
mathematics;
imagination.
Imagination, in turn, can either expand knowledge by relying on experience or create constructions based on hypothetical and nonexistent principles.
In the first case, a person uses accumulated knowledge to solve new problems.
For example, the idea of human flight arose from observing birds. People dreamed of the ability to fly, then gradually accumulated knowledge about movement, aerodynamics, materials, and mechanics. Eventually, the idea acquired the necessary completeness of practical data and became a reality.
The same principle can be applied to any complex technological task.
IDEA: HUMAN FLIGHT TO MARS + existing answers obtained through experience = the problem that must be solved.
The more necessary facts and technical solutions are obtained, the closer the idea comes to practical realization.
But there is another kind of imagination — the creation of ideas based on nonexistent or hypothetical principles.
For example, a person may imagine a time machine that would allow physical travel into the past or future. If experience never permits such a principle to be realized, the idea will remain fantasy regardless of how complex the mathematical model becomes.
Modern technology, however, can create virtual models of time. With sufficiently powerful computers, it may become possible to reconstruct historical periods and create the illusion of being present in the past. But virtual travel is not physical movement through time.
Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between the expansion of experience and the creation of an intellectual simulation of experience.

RELIGION AS A CHANGE IN THE SYSTEM OF VALUES
We are not always capable of independently creating the fundamental idea of our own existence, because the mind forms it automatically from an enormous number of circumstances.
But we can, to a certain extent, change an already existing system of values.
A striking example is the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus Christ:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
This system of values makes it possible to reinterpret suffering, defeat, rejection, and even death.
In our interpretation, the Sermon on the Mount represents a kind of transformation of the idea of death into the idea of life.
A person who has become desperate about earthly existence receives an opportunity to change his system of reference. Through religious faith, he symbolically "dies" to his former system of values and begins to perceive himself as belonging to another spiritual world.
Physically, however, he continues to live.
Such a person may preserve his life precisely because he has changed the meaning he gives to his existence.
It is important, however, to emphasize that this does not refer to all believers or everyone who attends church. For many people, religion is part of family tradition, cultural environment, or a means of social interaction.
The focus here is primarily on a person for whom a religious idea becomes the central system of values and enables him to overcome a profound internal crisis.

CHANGING DESTINY THROUGH CHANGING VALUES
In the course of evolution, the human brain developed a complex system that allows the mind to intuitively choose a particular direction from a multitude of circumstances and, through the will, direct a person toward its realization.
However, this choice does not always coincide with generally accepted values. Sometimes it may lead to tragic consequences.
From this, we draw a radical conclusion: the only accessible way for a person to change his destiny is to change his own system of values.
When a person changes his system of values, he begins to evaluate the same circumstances differently. What previously appeared to be defeat may become a test. What appeared to be meaningless suffering may acquire significance. What was perceived as an ending may become the beginning of a new stage.
In this sense, changing one's worldview does not change the objective laws of nature, but it changes the direction of human behavior within those laws.
The mind creates a new transcendental reality — not a physical world existing independently of the individual, but an intellectual and meaningful space in which the person determines the significance of what is happening.
Here we see the possibility of inner freedom.
Freedom, therefore, manifests itself not so much in the ability to control nature as in the ability to restructure one's own system of meanings.
The mind remains connected to nature, but at the same time it transcends immediate natural necessity through ideas, ideals, values, and goals.
As a result, the human being becomes a creature who simultaneously belongs to nature and is capable of creating above his natural existence a special level of meaningful reality.
We regard this ability as one of the principal mechanisms of human freedom.
Thus, changing one's system of values can change not destiny itself as an objective sequence of natural and social circumstances, but the path by which a person moves through that destiny. He does not gain power over every event, but he gains the ability to respond to events differently.
This is the central idea of the concept under consideration: a person cannot completely change the world, but he can change the system of values through which the mind perceives the world, and by changing that system, he can change his decisions, actions, and direction in life.










THE RESURRECTED ROME


“Every life is subject to its own fate;
no one can escape mistakes…”
Qu Yuan

THE MYSTERY OF HUMAN ORIGINS
If human beings have acquired the ability to solve the most complex logical problems, created technologies that allow them to influence the world around them, and even come close to controlling the forces of nature, an inevitable question arises: is there an even more perfect intelligence capable of creating humanity itself?
Or perhaps everything is much simpler? Perhaps the answer should be sought not in some higher form of intelligence, but, on the contrary, in the lower nature of human beings — creatures that, at the beginning of their historical journey, were guided primarily by the instincts of survival, reproduction, and superiority.
In any case, the origin and development of humanity remain among the greatest mysteries of existence. As Karl Jaspers noted, the emergence of the human being represents a profound mystery that has still not become completely accessible or understandable to us.
Let us mentally return to the distant past — to the era when early humans were only beginning to separate themselves from the animal world. One possible hypothesis is that changes in the environment forced our distant ancestors to search for new sources of food and gradually abandon their familiar arboreal habitat.
Upright walking can likewise be regarded as the result of prolonged adaptation to new conditions. Freed from their role in locomotion, the upper limbs acquired new functions: carrying food, using primitive tools, throwing stones, holding sticks, and defending themselves against predators. Gradually, the hands ceased to be primarily organs of locomotion and became essential instruments for interacting with the environment.
Thus, biological change gradually became a cultural advantage. A hand capable of making a tool was no longer merely a part of the body; it became a means of transforming nature.
THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AND THE STRIVING FOR SUPERIORITY
Like many animals, early humans lived in groups. Within these groups, a certain hierarchy developed, and the strongest, most experienced, or most aggressive male could occupy a dominant position.
Similar relationships can be observed among many social animals. The struggle for position within a group is connected not only with access to food, but also with reproduction, security, and influence over other members of the community.
However, changing environmental conditions gradually made the struggle for existence more difficult. When resources became scarce, different groups of humans inevitably came into conflict with one another. The struggle for territory, food, and security became part of everyday existence.
Thus one of the most contradictory characteristics of human nature gradually emerged: human beings are capable of uniting with one another, but they are simultaneously capable of destroying other human beings for their own interests.
The struggle for superiority acquired increasingly complex forms. Whereas an animal acts primarily according to immediate instinct, human beings are capable of planning, remembering, developing strategies, and even anticipating the consequences of their actions.
Here we encounter one of the great tragedies of human existence.
THE BIRTH OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND MEMORY
We can imagine an ancient human being who became responsible for the death of another member of his group — perhaps even his own brother. This was no longer simply a conflict between two animals.
Human beings are capable of becoming aware of what they have done.
They can remember the dead, experience guilt, regret what has happened, and attempt in some way to restore a connection with someone who can no longer be brought back.
Perhaps experiences of this kind became one of the possible foundations of early religious ideas.
A dead person did not disappear completely from the consciousness of the living. He continued to exist in memory. The thought arose that he must be somewhere else — in another world, among the ancestors, beyond visible reality.
From this could emerge the first rituals, burial places, symbolic objects, and forms of worship directed toward unknown forces.
Human beings were confronted for the first time with a fundamental contradiction: physical existence comes to an end, while the memory of a person continues to live.
In this sense, death may have been one of the important sources of philosophical thought.
Human beings began asking questions that could not be answered through direct observation: What happens after death? Where does a person go? Why does life exist? Where did the world come from? Is there another reality beyond visible existence?
Thus an instinct-driven creature gradually became a symbolic being.
HUMANITY — CREATOR AND DESTROYER
Human beings differ from other living creatures not only in their ability to create, but also in their ability to destroy what they have created.
They invent tools and, at the same time, weapons. They develop methods of healing and means of destruction. They build cities and are capable of destroying them. They create culture and can simultaneously use the achievements of culture against themselves.
Therefore, the principle that “the strongest survives” acquires a special meaning in human society.
Human beings seek not merely to survive. They seek to surpass others.
This striving can manifest itself through wealth, knowledge, power, physical strength, political influence, technological superiority, or cultural authority.
This becomes particularly evident in the history of weapons.
Many achievements of human ingenuity initially emerged under conditions of military competition. States sought an advantage over their enemies, while technologies later found peaceful applications.
Thus human history contains a profound paradox: the desire to destroy another human being has sometimes become a stimulus for the development of civilization.
Yet the same process creates a danger, because technological power can develop faster than humanity's moral capacity to control it.
ANCIENT GREECE AND THE BIRTH OF THE AESTHETIC IDEAL
A special place in the history of humanity belongs to Ancient Greece.
Greek culture developed a distinctive aesthetic and philosophical relationship with the world. Beauty was understood not merely as something that produced pleasure, but also as an expression of harmony, proportion, and measure.
Modern culture has substantially transformed aesthetic values. An enormous space for artistic creativity has emerged, in which there are virtually no universally binding standards.
On the one hand, this represents freedom.
On the other, it raises an important question: can absolute freedom of aesthetic choice lead to the loss of the very concept of beauty?
Modern popular culture possesses enormous power. The commercialization of art encourages works to be judged not only by their artistic value, but also by their ability to attract attention, provoke an emotional reaction, and generate profit.
Therefore, there is a fundamental difference between an everyday understanding of beauty and the aesthetic-philosophical concept of the beautiful.
THE FORMATION OF TASTE
When one person looks at an object and says, “I like it,” while another replies, “It is ugly,” people usually say, “Beauty is a matter of taste.”
But another question arises: if taste is shaped by culture, education, and the surrounding environment, can every form of taste really be considered equally developed?
Aesthetic perception requires a certain degree of cultural experience.
We may perceive an object as beautiful not simply because it gives us immediate pleasure, but because we recognize an inner harmony within it: nothing unnecessary, proper proportion, unity of form, and correspondence among its elements.
The same principle can be applied to human appearance.
Throughout history, different cultures have created their own ideas of ideal proportions of the human body and face. This was particularly evident in ancient art.
Aesthetic perception can therefore be regarded not merely as an emotional reaction, but as a complex form of intellectual and cultural experience.
Taste must be developed.
It is formed gradually — through acquaintance with works of art, the history of culture, architecture, music, literature, and philosophy.
This is why the question of beauty is simultaneously a question of human education.
THE CONTRADICTION OF ANCIENT BEAUTY
However, it would be a mistake to regard ancient culture as completely harmonious.
A. F. Losev drew attention to the paradoxes of Plato's attitude toward art. In Plato's ideal state, the artist and poet do not occupy the privileged position that we might expect from a culture regarded as one of the principal sources of European aesthetic ideals.
Here we encounter a contradiction: the civilization we perceive as one of the greatest sources of art and aesthetic culture itself had a highly ambivalent attitude toward art.
Therefore, ancient beauty was not simply a system of rules.
Perhaps modern civilization also has an opportunity to create a new aesthetic space — a new aesthetosphere — in which traditional ideas of beauty could acquire new meaning.
But the new does not necessarily mean rejection of the past.
On the contrary, the task may be to unite historical experience with contemporary forms of creativity.
GREEK TRAGEDY AND THE FORMATION OF THE HUMAN BEING
Greek tragedy had an enormous influence on the ancient human being.
The works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides presented humanity before fate, the gods, nature, and the inevitable consequences of human actions.
Tragedy forced spectators to experience the suffering of the hero.
But this experience had more than an entertaining purpose.
By witnessing another person's tragedy, the spectator was given the opportunity to confront emotionally something that might also happen to him.
Greek theatre thus became a kind of school of human existence.
Music, the chorus, acting, and dramatic action were united within a single artistic space.
At first, theatrical action was relatively simple, but the introduction of additional actors eventually made dialogue, conflict, and more complex dramatic structures possible.
Tragedy showed human beings the limits of their own abilities.
In the face of fate, they were not all-powerful masters of their own lives, but beings forced to accept existing limitations.
Modern drama often places greater emphasis on human psychological sensitivity. This can broaden emotional culture, but it can also contribute to increased vulnerability.
In the ancient world, however, tragedy was not merely a source of compassion; it was also a way of confronting inevitability.
THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY: THE BIRTH OF CULTURAL MEMORY
The high aesthetic ideal can also be observed in two great works traditionally associated with Homer — The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Greek culture developed in close connection with mythological tradition, and these epic works occupied a central place within it.
The Iliad does not tell the entire story of the Trojan War from beginning to end. Its narrative focuses on a particular episode of the war and on the conflict involving Achilles.
The Odyssey, by contrast, possesses a more complete structure of journey and return.
These works not only preserved the memory of the past, but also shaped society's understanding of heroism, honor, fate, loyalty, revenge, and human dignity.
The epic was transmitted from generation to generation, and its performance formed part of collective culture.
Thus culture could develop not only through the creation of new works, but also through the constant reinterpretation of existing ones.
Perhaps this interaction between memory, art, and collective experience became one of the conditions for the formation of a high culture.
A special system of relationships emerged:
human being — nature — society — culture.
The idea of harmony among these elements remained one of the central questions of European thought for many centuries.
THE FIRST TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
For many centuries, the everyday life of human beings changed relatively slowly.
But at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, Europe entered a period of accelerated technological development.
The central question is: why did this happen at that particular time?
To understand this process, we must turn to the history of the Roman Empire.
Rome created an enormous political system that united many peoples and territories. The empire included territories of the northern Black Sea region, including important Greek cities.
The widespread use of slave labor reduced the economic necessity for certain forms of technological development. Cheap forced labor could make the introduction of complex machinery less attractive.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire became a crucial turning point in European history.
THE CRISIS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Among the factors that contributed to the weakening of the Western Roman Empire, we can identify:
exhaustion of military resources;
continuous internal and external conflicts;
demographic difficulties;
economic problems;
weakening of social institutions;
political instability;
growing internal contradictions;
pressure from external peoples and migration processes;
changes in the cultural and religious structure of society.
However, the fall of Rome cannot be explained by a single cause.
The history of the empire was the result of a complex interaction among economic, political, military, demographic, and cultural processes.
Christianity also became an important part of these transformations, but reducing the fall of Rome exclusively to the emergence of a new religion would be an excessive simplification.
CHRISTIANITY AND EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
It is necessary to distinguish between the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Christian religious tradition, and the specific historical institutions of the Christian Church.
There was indeed a contradiction between the Gospel ideal of love and certain historical actions carried out by religious institutions.
European history knows religious wars, persecution of heretics, the Crusades, and the Inquisition. These phenomena demonstrate how far historical institutions could depart from the original ethical principles of a religion.
At the same time, however, the Christian tradition introduced into European culture ideas of mercy, compassion, the value of the individual, and moral responsibility.
Therefore, the historical role of Christianity in Europe cannot be evaluated in purely black-and-white terms.
It was simultaneously a source of spiritual unity, moral ideas, and cultural development — and, during certain historical periods, an instrument of power and repression.
It is precisely this duality that makes its historical significance particularly complex.
FROM ALCHEMY TO THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, European societies underwent a long period of transformation.
New states, new economic relationships, and new forms of intellectual life gradually emerged.
Alchemy played a special role in this process.
Alchemists sought to transform ordinary substances into gold, searched for the philosopher's stone, and investigated the properties of metals, minerals, and various compounds.
From the standpoint of modern science, many of their ideas were incorrect. Nevertheless, the experimental character of alchemy played a certain role in the development of chemical knowledge.
Human beings increasingly sought not merely to contemplate nature, but to experiment with it.
This transformation in worldview was of enormous importance.
Observation gradually became experiment.
Assumption became a testable hypothesis.
Craft became technology.
And curiosity became systematic investigation.
In this way, the foundations for the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions gradually emerged.
THE RESURRECTED ROME
The history of Europe represents an extraordinary cycle.
The Roman Empire once united a vast part of the European world. After its collapse, numerous states emerged and developed independently of one another for centuries.
Yet the idea of European unity did not disappear.
It survived in the language of culture, Roman law, Christian tradition, ancient philosophy, and a shared historical heritage.
Centuries passed.
European states experienced wars, religious conflicts, revolutions, economic crises, and technological transformations.
And yet the idea of a united Europe gradually returned.
In this sense, the European Union can be viewed as a kind of historical return to the idea of political and economic unity on the continent.
Of course, the European Union is not a literal continuation of the Roman Empire. It is a fundamentally different political system, based not on conquest and subjugation but on voluntary cooperation among states.
Nevertheless, the symbolic connection remains.
Rome once created European unity through force.
Modern Europe attempts to create unity through law, economics, common institutions, and political agreement.
That is why the title “The Resurrected Rome” can be understood not as a claim that the empire has literally been restored, but as a philosophical metaphor for historical memory.
Civilizations disappear, but ideas can outlive states.
Empires collapse, but cultural heritage continues to exist.
Peoples change, but the human striving for unity, superiority, security, and meaning remains.
This reveals the central paradox of human history: humanity constantly creates new forms of society in an attempt to overcome the limitations of its own nature, yet it repeatedly reproduces the same ancient conflicts.
We begin with a struggle for food and territory, create cities, states, and empires, develop science and technology, and construct extraordinarily complex political systems — and still continue to confront the questions that arose among the first human beings.
What is a human being?
Why does humanity strive for superiority?
Why are human beings capable of both love and destruction?
Why do we create beauty while simultaneously creating weapons?
And will humanity ever be capable of building a civilization in which the development of reason outpaces the development of instinct?
Perhaps the answer to this question will determine the next stage of human history.





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THE “CALIGULA” PHENOMENON OR THE LIBERATED CONSCIOUSNESS
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, yet remains more of a slave than they are.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau Emperor Caligula is one of the most notorious figures in Roman history. In popular culture, his image is firmly associated with madness, cruelty, depravity, and unlimited power. His modern image has been particularly influenced by works of fiction and cinema, where Caligula is often portrayed as a mentally unstable man incapable of rational thought. However, such an image inevitably simplifies the historical personality. But if we set aside the most scandalous episodes of his biography and examine the totality of his actions, another question arises: how could a man supposedly deprived of reason completely acquire and maintain power over an enormous empire, rapidly assess political situations, gain the support of the army and the people, carry out administrative measures, organize large-scale construction projects, and simultaneously conduct a complex struggle with the Senate? Was Caligula really as unintelligent as popular culture often portrays him? Or are we dealing with a considerably more complex psychological phenomenon—a man whose consciousness was transformed by childhood trauma, the constant threat of death, and the sudden acquisition of virtually unlimited power? For the purposes of psychological analysis, we will provisionally replace the nickname “Caligula” with Little Boot. The Latin caligula was a diminutive form of caliga, a type of military footwear. The nickname originated during his childhood. As a boy, he accompanied his father, Germanicus, during military campaigns. Military clothing was made for the child in an appropriate size, one element of which was a pair of small soldiers’ sandals. These gave him his famous nickname. Germanicus was an experienced military commander and enormously popular among the Romans. It is natural to assume that his young son also found himself at the center of public attention from an early age. For a child, such attention can be an extremely powerful psychological stimulus. He begins to perceive reality through the reactions of others to himself. Today he is loved, admired, and surrounded by attention; tomorrow circumstances may change, and all of this may disappear. If a person has not yet developed a stable internal system of values, such changes can have a profound influence on his subsequent development. The brief period of his family’s fame was followed by difficult times. It was no longer necessary to enjoy popularity; it was necessary to struggle literally for survival. He had to exercise caution, cunning, endurance, and resourcefulness. He had to constantly assess the moods of those around him and anticipate possible danger. When his father died, his mother returned to Rome with the children. Her relationship with the emperor Tiberius was extremely tense. Little Boot witnessed the destruction of part of his own family. After his mother was exiled, he and his sisters lived under the constant surveillance of Tiberius’s agents. In effect, the child lived under conditions resembling imprisonment. But the most interesting point is that Little Boot did not allow himself to display hatred openly. He agreed to accompany Tiberius to Capri. From the standpoint of ordinary morality, such behavior may appear submissive. From the standpoint of the instinct of self-preservation, however, it was rational. To survive, he had to remain silent. He had to conceal his feelings. He had to observe. He had to wait. The six years spent on Capri became a kind of school of survival for him. During this period, his mother and brother died in confinement. He was forced to witness the deaths of those close to him while simultaneously demonstrating loyalty to a man whom he probably regarded as the source of all these misfortunes. Such a psychological state could not have passed without leaving a trace. His advancement was paid for with complete silence, suppression of anger, and inner resentment. He was forced to pay an extraordinarily high price for his own safety. Yet, as it seems to us, this price was later transferred onto other people. Little Boot managed to escape the fate of other members of his family and even gained Tiberius’s favor. A constant struggle for survival could have maximally developed his instinct of self-preservation. Over time, a person living under such conditions begins to notice danger before it becomes obvious. He learns to read the expression on another person’s face, their intonation, gestures, changes in behavior, and even their silence. Such a person is constantly in a state of internal readiness. For an ordinary person, this may be a painful condition. For a future ruler, it could become an instrument of power.
POWER AS A CONTINUATION OF THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION
Little Boot understood perfectly well that the path to advancement in Tiberius’s eyes passed through the people who directly surrounded the emperor. His attention was drawn to a Praetorian named Marcus, with whom the future emperor established friendly relations. This political maneuver proved successful. Marcus spoke well of Little Boot, thereby reducing Tiberius’s suspicions. Later, rumors emerged that Marcus himself had helped accelerate Little Boot’s rise to the throne. Regardless of how reliable these stories may be, the logic of the future emperor’s behavior deserves attention. Little Boot knew how to use people as elements of a political system. He understood who could be useful, who represented a threat, who could open the path to power, and who could be eliminated once they were no longer necessary. Here one of the most important features of his character becomes apparent. A person who has spent a long time in the position of a potential victim may, after gaining power, begin to perceive those around him not as equals, but as potential sources of danger. A simple formula emerges in his mind: If I do not control a person, that person may control me. And if control over others becomes a guarantee of one’s own existence, power ceases to be merely a means of governance and becomes a psychological necessity. Several months after being proclaimed emperor, Little Boot became seriously ill. Ancient sources associated his illness with various circumstances, including excessive indulgence and possible poisoning. Regardless of the actual cause of the illness, its psychological consequences may have been enormous. He had just acquired almost absolute power and almost immediately confronted the threat of his own death. This could have permanently reinforced in his mind the belief that death was always nearby, even when danger appeared to have disappeared. After recovering, he executed some people who had connected their own oaths or political calculations with his death. From the psychological perspective proposed here, this becomes a kind of threshold. Before the illness, Little Boot could still perceive power as an opportunity. After the illness, power became a guarantee of survival. This may have been the point at which the most important transformation occurred. A man who had spent his entire life afraid of being destroyed now acquired the ability to destroy others. He ceased to be the victim and became the source of danger.
FEAR OF DEATH AND UNLIMITED POWER
From that point onward, the emperor could no longer stop. Little Boot became a hostage to his own hypertrophied instinct of self-preservation. Having acquired immense power, he transformed from an obedient and beloved person into a harsh ruler determined to eliminate every potential threat. The fear of death seemed to sweep away every obstacle to rational judgment. Death became, in his consciousness, the presiding judge who had already pronounced the sentence. The first blow fell upon the Senate. He humiliated senators, openly demonstrated their dependence, interfered in their personal lives, and destroyed the traditional notions of dignity held by Rome’s political elite. Such actions may not have been merely expressions of cruelty. They may have had political meaning. Little Boot was demonstrating: You can no longer control me. Before his accession, the Senate retained considerable political influence and still remembered the traditions of the Republic. Tiberius had spent a long period on Capri, and the senatorial elite had become accustomed to a certain degree of independence. The new emperor therefore inevitably faced people who had their own ideas about how state power should function. Little Boot sensed this threat and sought to destroy the very possibility of the Senate returning to its former influence. Here we can see a classic political mechanism: to strengthen his power, a ruler must simultaneously obtain the support of the people, the army, and part of the elite. Little Boot began acting precisely in this direction.
THE PEOPLE, THE ARMY, AND POLITICAL POPULISM
Seeking popular affection, the emperor organized spectacles, gladiatorial games, and various mass entertainments. At the same time, he identified culprits for previous misfortunes and directed popular resentment toward those associated with the previous regime and those who had accumulated wealth. This is a well-known political mechanism. When society is dissatisfied, it is much easier to direct that dissatisfaction against a specific group of people than to explain the complexity of what is happening. Little Boot also sought the support of the army by increasing soldiers’ payments. For a ruler who understood the nature of power, this was extremely important. The army was not merely a military force. Within the political system of the Roman Empire, it was one of the most important guarantees of the emperor’s own survival. At the same time, he destroyed Tiberius’s prison system and recalled exiles. Thus, he created the image of a man who had come to liberate society from the legacy of the previous regime. Then came administrative measures designed to increase his popularity:
the abolition of certain taxes;
assistance to people who had lost property in fires;
the organization of rewards and competitions;
the admission of new people into the Senate;
the restoration of certain democratic procedures and elections. These actions pleased the people while simultaneously irritating the old aristocracy. But there is a çàêîíîìåðíîñòü: popularity purchased at enormous expense eventually encounters financial reality. Excessive extravagance empties the treasury, forcing the emperor to seek new sources of revenue. The reverse process begins. If before he had given to the people, now he began to take from them. Wealthy citizens were accused of crimes, after which their property was confiscated. Here the populist principle becomes clearly visible: the wealthy become the alleged cause of society’s problems, while their property becomes a source for solving those problems. New state fees and taxes appear. Various methods of replenishing the treasury are used, including loans from citizens, taxes on legal proceedings, marriages, prostitution, and other sources of revenue. Former centurions are forced to surrender their accumulated property to the state. Thus, the political system gradually moves from generosity to coercion.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE ABILITIES OF LITTLE BOOT
After a period of reforms, famine emerged, associated with disruptions in grain supplies from Egypt. In the interpretation considered here, the problem was aggravated by a shortage of ships and excessive state expenditure on various projects. Yet the emperor’s response was relatively rapid. He restored supplies and improved the operation of key ports of the Roman Empire. Then large engineering projects began. Among them were the aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which later became outstanding monuments of Roman engineering. Other architectural projects also appeared. All of this forces us to abandon an overly simple characterization of Caligula as a man completely incapable of rational thought. Even if some ancient accounts about him were exaggerated or created by his political enemies, the very possibility of effectively governing an enormous state required certain intellectual abilities. He had to assess situations rapidly. He had to choose among different courses of action. He had to understand the psychology of the people. He had to take the interests of the army into account. He had to control officials. He had to allocate financial resources. He had to respond to emergencies. Therefore, it seems more productive to study not Caligula’s intellectual inadequacy, but the psychological transformation of a man who acquired virtually unlimited power.
THE WAR WITH THE SENATE
Having secured the support of the army and the people, Little Boot struck at the Senate. He reviewed judicial records from the time of Tiberius and questioned their legitimacy. Some representatives of the previous regime came under attack. The culmination of his mockery of the Senate was the famous story of his horse Incitatus being appointed to high office. Most scholars regard this episode as an expression of eccentricity or political provocation. Within our concept, however, it acquires a different meaning. If a state institution claiming political authority can supposedly be replaced by a horse, while society is forced to discuss not the horse itself but the emperor’s power, then this is no longer merely eccentricity. It is a demonstration of absolute power. The message was extremely simple: I can appoint even an animal to this position—and you can do nothing about it. This is why the act can be regarded as a form of political humiliation of the Senate. Little Boot seemed to be telling the senators: Your titles, traditions, and ancestry mean nothing if there is no real power behind you. Such behavior simultaneously destroys political institutions and demonstrates their weakness.
THE SUBJUGATION OF NATURE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF MAN INTO A “GOD”
One of the best-known episodes is the story of the campaign toward the shores of Britain, after which soldiers were allegedly ordered to collect seashells. This story is traditionally regarded as evidence of the emperor’s madness. However, such accounts must be treated cautiously. History is often written by the victors, and a ruler’s political opponents have many reasons to portray his actions in the most ridiculous possible light. The army was one of the principal pillars of Little Boot’s power. It is therefore difficult to assume that he would deliberately destroy his own authority among the soldiers. Perhaps the order really had a symbolic purpose, was a military demonstration, or served another objective that later historians interpreted differently. In any case, this episode illustrates how dramatically the emperor’s reputation had changed. Any unusual action was now automatically interpreted as evidence of madness. Yet alongside the scandalous acts were entirely rational state projects. Little Boot continued construction of the Temple of Augustus, began the construction of major aqueducts, organized large-scale architectural works, and worked on roads and fortifications. A grand circus was constructed, at the center of which stood a huge obelisk brought from Egypt. Today this obelisk stands in Vatican City. Such projects required the organization of labor, financial planning, logistics, and administrative control. Consequently, we encounter a contradiction. On the one hand—a rational organizer and political strategist. On the other—a man performing actions that appear absurd. Perhaps this very contradiction is the key to understanding the Little Boot phenomenon.
DIVINITY AS PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPENSATION
Little Boot liked appearing in the clothing of gods and demanded to be addressed as a divine figure. To the people, such behavior could be perceived as a demonstration of the emperor’s grandeur. To the senators, it was humiliating. Psychologically, however, such an image may have had a deeper meaning. A person who was powerless in childhood before the forces of others acquires the ability to become the person before whom everyone else is powerless. Once he depended on the decisions of others. Now their decisions depended on him. Once he had to conceal his feelings. Now he could force others to conceal theirs. Once he feared death. Now others feared him. Thus, a peculiar psychological compensation develops. A person attempts to become the complete opposite of what he once was. This is precisely why absolute power can be especially dangerous for someone who has experienced prolonged oppression. It removes external limitations but does not eliminate internal trauma. On the contrary, it can provide trauma with virtually unlimited opportunities for expression.
FAMILY AND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE NORMAL
Rumors about Caligula’s intimate relationships with his sisters are among the most scandalous parts of his biography. Ancient sources should be assessed critically, because such stories may have been used to defame the emperor. However, within the psychological model proposed by the author, this episode has symbolic significance. Little Boot lost a significant part of his family. His loved ones became victims of political struggle. Therefore, his emotional attachment to his remaining relatives may have acquired extraordinary intensity. If a person perceives himself not simply as a brother but as a figure of absolute power, even the most natural human relationships can become distorted. Love becomes possession. Care becomes control. Closeness becomes dependence. Here we see the danger of the liberated consciousness. When external boundaries disappear, a person may begin to regard as permissible everything that was previously impossible. As the Poles say: “What is too much is not healthy.” In other words, excess itself can transform even a natural impulse into a pathological form of behavior.
CALIGULA AND THE PARADOX OF SECURITY
An excessive pursuit of security can ultimately produce the opposite result. A person attempts to destroy every possible threat, but the more threats he destroys, the more people begin to fear him. And the more people fear him, the more potential enemies he sees around himself. A vicious circle emerges: fear ; control ; resistance ; increased fear ; even greater control. Little Boot found himself inside this system. The senators feared him. He feared the senators. The army supported him. But the army was also a potential instrument of a coup. The people loved him. But the people could change their attitude. Therefore, absolute power does not free a person from fear. Sometimes it merely increases the number of things he must fear. Eventually, senators and the Praetorian Guard succeeded in organizing a conspiracy against the emperor. However, it is important to note that support for Caligula among the army and the people did not disappear instantly. This also demonstrates the complexity of his position. To some, he was a hated tyrant. To others, a beloved ruler. The same person can simultaneously be a symbol of liberation for one social group and a symbol of oppression for another. This leads us from Caligula’s biography to a more general question: how is human consciousness formed in the first place, and why does society consider some actions normal while regarding others as insane or criminal?
SOCIAL FREEDOM AND THE FORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
At the dawn of human development, people were practically powerless before nature. They depended on cold, hunger, predators, disease, and other threats. To survive, human beings were forced to unite with one another. Thus arose the need for internal restrictions. A person had to renounce some immediate desires for the sake of the group’s existence. One could not take another person’s food without consequences. One could not constantly violate established rules. One could not kill members of one’s own group. One could not destroy relationships upon which everyone’s survival depended. Human reason, interacting with experience, gradually formed a system of rules that enabled people to compensate for their weakness before nature. Thus arose a kind of freedom from the immediate power of nature. Human beings did not cease to be biological organisms, but they learned to control their behavior. They could suppress hunger. They could restrain aggression. They could endure pain for the sake of a future goal. They could sacrifice personal benefit for the group. The ability to control immediate instincts became one of the most important advantages of the human species.
FROM MORALITY TO LAW
When primitive settlements grew significantly, a new problem emerged. In a small group, personal acquaintance, tradition, and religious beliefs were sufficient. But as society grew, moral unity alone was no longer enough. Ancient cities, particularly Athens, faced the need to formalize relationships between people. Thus laws emerged. Law became an external continuation of morality. If morality told a person: “Do not do this,” law said: “If you do this, punishment will follow.” This was a fundamental stage in the development of social freedom. People gained the ability to live among large numbers of strangers because a system of rules existed that limited everyone’s behavior. Yet here a paradox arises. The more freedom people receive, the more rules are required to preserve it. One person’s freedom ends where another person’s freedom begins. Therefore, society is forced constantly to establish boundaries. At first, these boundaries were maintained primarily through religion and tradition. Later, the state, law, education, and social institutions came to play an increasingly important role.
THE WEAKENING OF INTERNAL LIMITATIONS
As civilization developed, human beings acquired an increasing ability to control their environment. Mathematics and technology expanded their capabilities. They learned to build cities, create machines, control energy, treat diseases, travel enormous distances, and transform their surroundings. External control gradually became so effective that the need for internal organization in certain areas began to seem less significant. Modern people can openly express thoughts that in ancient society might have led to exile or death. This is an enormous step in the development of social freedom. But at the same time, another problem emerges. Society permits increasing external freedom, while people’s internal moral culture may remain unequal. A person may be free to speak, but that does not mean he is capable of using freedom properly. He may possess power, but that does not mean he is capable of ruling himself. He may possess money, but that does not mean he knows how to manage it. He may possess social status, but that does not mean he is internally prepared for it. This is where the phenomenon of the liberated consciousness appears.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE FRAMEWORK DISAPPEARS?
Human consciousness can be viewed as an internal system of restraints. These restraints are formed by family, culture, religion, society, the state, education, and personal experience. They establish a moral threshold above which a person tries not to rise in his claims upon the freedom of others and below which he tries not to descend in his behavior. But what happens if external restraints suddenly disappear? Imagine a person who has dreamed of wealth throughout his life but has never had the opportunity to fulfill his desires. If he suddenly receives an enormous inheritance, his behavior may change. But wealth itself did not create new desires within him. It merely provided the opportunity to realize desires that already existed. The same occurs with power. If a person has spent his entire life experiencing humiliation, envy, aggression, and the desire to dominate, but has had no opportunity to express these qualities, external circumstances may have suppressed them. Having acquired power, he suddenly finds himself free from his previous limitations. And then accumulated desires may emerge. This does not mean that every poor person who becomes wealthy will necessarily become a bad person. Nor does it mean that every person who acquires power will become a tyrant. The decisive factor is internal moral culture.
GRADUALITY AND THE SUDDENNESS OF CHANGE
It is extremely important to consider the gradual nature of social changes. A child born into a prosperous and morally stable family becomes accustomed to a certain level of responsibility from an early age. He learns how to handle money. He learns to take the interests of others into account. He learns to understand the consequences of his decisions. If wealth has been present in his life from the beginning, it is not experienced as a sudden liberation. But a person who suddenly acquires enormous wealth may experience an entirely different state of consciousness. Yesterday he could not buy. Today he can buy everything. Yesterday he depended on others. Today others depend on him. Yesterday his desires were limited by circumstances. Today circumstances are no longer an obstacle. Such a psychological transition can transform a person. Therefore, we may assume that not only the change in status itself matters, but also the speed at which it occurs. A sudden transition from powerlessness to authority is especially dangerous for a personality that has not had time to develop internal restraints.
THE LIBERATED CONSCIOUSNESS
The liberated consciousness, within the concept under consideration, emerges when excessively suppressed desires and dissatisfaction acquire the opportunity to be realized. Psychological tension accumulates like energy enclosed within a closed system. As long as social boundaries exist, a person is forced to restrain himself. But if those boundaries disappear, the energy of behavior begins to emerge. Such a person may perform actions that were previously impossible for him. Power becomes a kind of permission. Wealth becomes permission. Impunity becomes permission. Isolation from society can also become permission. However, liberation from external restraints does not mean liberation of the individual. On the contrary, a person may become a slave to his own instincts. This brings us back to Rousseau’s words: A person may consider himself the master of others while remaining a slave himself. Caligula represents an especially illustrative example in this respect. He could force others to obey him, but he was himself dependent upon his own fear. He possessed power over people, but he did not possess complete power over himself. He could destroy an enemy, but he could not destroy the fear that another enemy might appear. He could force senators to bow before him, but he could not force himself to stop fearing them. Therefore, absolute power did not make him free. It made him a prisoner of his own psyche.
THE MORAL THRESHOLD AND THE FORMATION OF THE CHILD
The formation of a child’s consciousness begins with suppressing behavior considered socially unacceptable. But the boundary of what is permissible varies depending on the environment. What is considered normal in one family may be considered unacceptable in another. What is permitted within a particular group may be condemned by society. What is acceptable in one country may contradict the laws of another. Therefore, the moral threshold is not absolutely identical for all people. It is formed in layers. Several levels can be distinguished:
the family and the child’s immediate environment;
the community and social group;
the state and national culture;
the international community and universal concepts of human rights. Each successive level can expand a person’s moral responsibility. A child first learns that he must not harm those close to him. Then he learns that there are rules governing behavior in society. Later, he encounters the laws of the state. Finally, he may come to understand that moral responsibility extends far beyond his own family, community, and country. Thus, the circle of people whom a person perceives as possessing moral value gradually expands.
GOOD AND EVIL AS A PROBLEM OF EVALUATION
Imagine the following situation. Your best friend, whom you trusted like yourself, deceived you out of a large sum of money in order to give it to another person. Naturally, you will be outraged. To you, he will become a bad person. But then you learn the motives behind his action. It turns out that the money was given to a person who was in an extremely difficult situation. Your attitude may change. You may forgive your friend. However, the situation is repeated. This time the money is needed by you yourself, perhaps to solve a serious life problem, and your friend again helps another person. Your attitude toward him will probably become completely different. But the person who received the help will perceive your friend as a benefactor. A paradox emerges. One person suffered. Another received help. To the first, the helper is a bad person. To the second, he is a good person. Who is right? Here we encounter the philosophical problem of the objectivity of good and evil. From the author’s perspective, the moral evaluation of a human action depends upon the position of the observer. Nature contains no labels of “good” and “evil” in the human sense. Nature operates through the interaction of forces and instincts. Morality arises within human society. It is a means of regulating human behavior. Therefore, what one group considers good, another may consider evil. This is precisely why moral norms change throughout history.
THE MORAL ABSOLUTE
The maximum manifestation of good or evil cannot be maintained constantly in exactly the same state. Human nature is dynamic. People change together with circumstances. One may perform an extraordinary act, but one cannot permanently remain at the peak of moral tension. In Holy Scripture, the greatest love is presented as self-sacrifice for the salvation of friends:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 What could be more valuable than life? Nothing. And how many times can a person give his life? Only once. That is precisely why self-sacrifice becomes an absolute moral act. A mother may die saving her child. A defender may sacrifice his life for his country. A person may renounce his own benefit in order to save another. Society usually perceives such actions as the highest form of good. But precisely because they require the ultimate sacrifice, they cannot become a permanent state. They become an ideal toward which a person may orient himself.
MORAL THRESHOLDS OF DIFFERENT SOCIETIES
The moral threshold of social norms occupies different positions depending on the conditions under which a society exists. It differs:
from family to family;
from community to community;
from culture to culture;
from state to state;
from one historical era to another. A person raised in a dysfunctional family may experience difficulties adapting to the norms of a more organized social environment. A person who grew up in an isolated group may transfer its internal rules into a society where they are unacceptable. Conversely, a person raised in an environment with high moral expectations may experience an internal conflict if the surrounding reality requires behavior that he considers wrong. This is precisely why socialization is so important. Consciousness is not formed in a vacuum. It constantly interacts with its environment.
PATHOLOGICAL LYING AND SELF-AFFIRMATION
Pathological lying can also be regarded as a peculiar experience of freedom. A person who constantly invents stories and deceives those around him without an obvious reason may sometimes be seeking to create a sense of importance that is lacking in real life. He creates an alternative reality in which he occupies a higher position. Why? Because reality does not provide him with the necessary sense of self-worth. The consciousness then creates compensation. The person says: “I am who I want to be, even if reality says otherwise.” Such a mechanism is also connected with the liberation of inner desires. In the real world, a person is limited. In the imaginary world, he is free. Therefore, lying can sometimes become not only a means of deceiving others but also a means of psychologically liberating oneself.
THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION AND THE SOCIAL INSTINCT
Every human being possesses an individual consciousness while simultaneously being part of society. Here two principles collide. The first is individual self-preservation. The second is the preservation of the social group. When the interests of the individual coincide with those of society, harmony emerges. But when personal benefit conflicts with the interests of the group, conflict arises. A person may understand that an action is beneficial to himself but harmful to others. His consciousness must then choose. If internal moral restraints are strong, he refuses personal gain. If they are weak, he may violate social norms. This is where crime appears. Crime is not merely a violation of law. It is a collision between individual interest and the system of social restrictions.
CALIGULA AND REDEMPTION
A person perceives himself within the context of society, its culture, laws, and morality. If he constantly acts against established principles, he may experience guilt. In our interpretation, by committing ever more crimes, Caligula simultaneously created an increasing psychological burden for himself. The more violations he committed, the more he had to strengthen his power in order to protect himself from possible retribution. Another vicious circle emerges: crime ; fear of punishment ; increased power ; new crimes ; greater fear. Redemption can then take a distorted form. A person who has committed a crime may unconsciously seek punishment or situations that will allow him to resolve an internal conflict. This theme is particularly vividly explored by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment. In literature, crime rarely remains without psychological consequences. Even if a person avoids official judgment, his internal court continues to operate. Therefore, it can be argued: consciousness is the inner judge of the human being.
REWARD AND PUNISHMENT
There is no complete guarantee that a criminal will be punished in precisely the way that corresponds to the severity of his actions. The legal system can punish a person only within the limits of the law. But psychological consequences are much more complex. A person may pay through fear. He may lose the trust of those close to him. He may destroy his family. He may live in constant anticipation of exposure. He may lose the ability to experience peace. Therefore, punishment is not always limited to imprisonment or the death penalty. Sometimes a person becomes a prisoner of his own life. Yet there is also a tragic paradox. If someone has killed one hundred people, the state can ultimately punish him with only one life. The legal system cannot restore all the lives that have been destroyed. Therefore, the human concept of justice inevitably encounters the limitations of punishment.
MORALITY IN PRIMITIVE AND MODERN SOCIETY
In primitive society, the community constituted the primary moral threshold. If a person committed violence against another group, it was not necessarily perceived as a crime. On the contrary, he might be regarded as a hero. If he brought prey to his own group, his action could be perceived as an act of care for his people. Weakness could be considered a vice. Cruelty toward an outsider could be regarded as a virtue. This demonstrates how strongly morality depends upon social space. Modern society has greatly expanded this space. The idea of good has acquired a global character. A person may feel moral responsibility for the life of someone he has never seen and who lives on the other side of the planet. Yet even today there are exceptions. Warfare, self-defense, and the activities of various ideological organizations can alter the moral evaluation of violence. What is considered a crime in one context may be declared a heroic act in another. This is precisely why a person isolated from broader society and constantly interacting only with a narrow ideological group may gradually adopt norms that most people would find unacceptable.
COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS
Isolated groups can be especially dangerous because a person begins to feel responsible primarily toward members of his own group. If a group convinces a person that the outside society is the enemy, moral restrictions are gradually restructured. Then killing an outsider ceases to be perceived as a crime. It may become “service.” This is why collective psychology can simultaneously strengthen and destroy moral restraints. Within a group, the individual becomes similar to others. It becomes easier for him to accept the majority opinion. It becomes more difficult for him to resist collective judgment. Escaping erroneous collective opinion can be extremely difficult. For this reason, many perceptive thinkers throughout history deliberately withdrew from society for periods of time in order to free themselves from its immediate influence. Withdrawal from the group does not necessarily mean rejection of society. Sometimes it is a way to hear one’s own reason again.
CONSCIOUSNESS AS THE INNER JUDGE
Thus, consciousness can be regarded as an inner court regulating human behavior. It establishes moral boundaries. It compares intention with the norm. It evaluates consequences. It generates feelings of guilt. It allows a person to stop before taking an action. In this sense, consciousness is a kind of gateway between instinct and action. Instinct may demand one thing. Social norms may demand another. Reason acts as the mediator between them. This is why a person can desire to commit an act while simultaneously understanding that he must not commit it. If consciousness is sufficiently developed, self-control emerges. If control is weakened, the probability of violating norms increases.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO INFLUENCE THE SUBCONSCIOUS?
The assertion that correcting human behavior requires directly influencing the subconscious appears insufficient. The subconscious can be regarded as a repository of enormous amounts of information, experience, habits, and automatic reactions. However, during intentional action, information passes through a system of reflection. Therefore, from the perspective of the proposed concept, the primary influence should be exerted through consciousness. A person must understand: what he is doing; why he is doing it; where it will lead; what consequences will arise for himself and others. Without reflection, behavior can easily become an automatic reaction.
FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSCIOUSNESS
Several factors can be identified that are capable of substantially altering the functioning of consciousness. 1. EXTERNAL STIMULANTS AND INTOXICANTS Alcohol, narcotic substances, and other factors can alter a person’s ability to control his own behavior. As a result, social restraints may weaken. 2. STRONG AFFECTIVE STATES Joy, grief, passion, hatred, fear, and other powerful emotions can temporarily alter a person’s ability to assess a situation rationally. The stronger the emotional arousal, the more difficult it may become to maintain the usual level of self-control. 3. AN INCOMPLETE LOGICAL CHAIN A conclusion can be presented to a person in such a way that the mind accepts it as already complete. For example: “The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.” Such a formula does not prove victory, but it creates a psychological sense of completeness. If the same idea is repeatedly presented in different ways, an illusion of logical completeness can emerge. 4. GUILT Guilt possesses enormous power. If a person is convinced that his failures are the consequence of a bad action in the past, his mind begins to seek a way of atonement. Such a person may become more submissive, obedient, and pliable. He seeks to eliminate internal tension and may therefore accept the first path toward “purification” that is offered to him. 5. COLLECTIVE MIND A person within a group begins to adopt its opinion. The stronger the group pressure, the more difficult it becomes for the individual to preserve independence. A group is often easier to control than an individual because its members begin to control one another. 6. HYPNOTIC AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE Various forms of suggestion can significantly alter human behavior. However, even here it is necessary to consider the degree to which conscious control remains intact. Therefore, influence over a person should not be understood as simply switching consciousness off. Rather, it involves altering the person’s ability to critically evaluate incoming information.
CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT A CONSTANT
From everything stated above, it follows that consciousness cannot be regarded as an absolutely constant quantity. It changes depending on circumstances. It is influenced by physical condition, psychological condition, social environment, experience, upbringing, fear, joy, grief, power, wealth, and other factors. The same person may behave completely differently under different conditions. This means that in order to understand an action, it is insufficient to study the person alone. It is necessary to study the environment in which he found himself. This is why the history of Caligula is interesting not merely as the biography of a Roman emperor. It represents a model of the interaction between personality and circumstances. A person may have certain tendencies, but circumstances determine whether they will have the opportunity to manifest themselves. A prisoner held in solitary confinement may have enormous aggressive impulses but lack the opportunity to realize them. Caligula, by contrast, acquired enormous power. Many obstacles disappeared before him. What remained an internal desire in an ordinary person could, in him, become real action. This is why power becomes a kind of experiment upon consciousness.
DIFFERENT MORAL THRESHOLDS FORMING CONSCIOUSNESS
The moral threshold of social norms is formed through several levels: FAMILY AND THE CHILD’S ENVIRONMENT ; COMMUNITY ; COUNTRY ; INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY. Each level creates additional restrictions. But at the same time, each level expands freedom. This appears paradoxical. The more rules there are, the less immediate freedom exists. But precisely these rules allow people to coexist safely. If a person knows that another person cannot steal his property or harm him with impunity, he gains greater freedom to act. Thus, social restrictions simultaneously limit and liberate. This is one of the fundamental paradoxes of human civilization.
FREEDOM AND CHAINS
Human beings want freedom, but absolute freedom is impossible within society. If everyone does whatever they want, the freedom of one person will destroy the freedom of another. Therefore, civilization creates a system of voluntary and compulsory restrictions. A person renounces part of his natural possibilities in exchange for greater social security. This is why Rousseau speaks of a person who is born free but finds himself in chains. However, these chains are not always merely instruments of oppression. Some of them are the foundation of civilization. The law restricts the murderer but simultaneously protects his potential victim. Morality restricts the aggressive person but provides security for those around him. Education restricts the child but simultaneously gives him the opportunity to become a full member of society. Thus, human freedom does not arise from the complete absence of restrictions, but from the creation of restrictions that allow people to exist safely among one another.
THE CALIGULA PHENOMENON
Returning to Caligula, we can see the opposite of this process. In childhood, his freedom was almost completely destroyed by external circumstances. He was forced to suppress himself. He had to witness the deaths of those close to him. He had to conceal his feelings. He had to obey people whom he may have hated. Then the situation changed radically. He acquired power. External restrictions disappeared. And then the internally suppressed part of his personality received the opportunity to manifest itself. Thus, Caligula represents not so much a phenomenon of madness as a phenomenon of the liberation of consciousness from external restraints in the absence of sufficient internal moral organization. In this sense, his story extends far beyond ancient Rome. It can apply to anyone who suddenly acquires wealth, power, fame, or impunity. Power itself does not turn a person into a tyrant. It creates the opportunity to reveal what already exists within him.
CONCLUSION
Society itself creates the conditions that shape the individual. From childhood, a person learns to suppress immediate instincts and to relate his actions to the interests of those around him. In the process of upbringing, a moral threshold is formed. At first, it is limited to the family. Then it expands to the community. Later—to the state. In the modern world, it can extend to all humanity. But human beings remain biological creatures. Within them continue to operate the instincts of self-preservation, aggression, the desire for power, property, reproduction, and security. Civilization does not eliminate these instincts. It teaches people to control them. This is one of the most important functions of consciousness. If external restraints disappear while internal restraints are insufficiently strong, suppressed desires may acquire the opportunity to be realized. Thus, the liberated consciousness emerges. A person who acquires wealth may become extravagant. A person who acquires power may become a tyrant. A person who acquires impunity may cease to observe norms. But a person possessing a developed internal moral culture can maintain self-control even when external restraints disappear. Therefore, society’s main protection against tyranny lies not only in laws. It lies within the human being himself. The higher his internal moral threshold, the less external coercion he requires. Conversely, the weaker his internal control, the more external restrictions society must create. From this arises the fundamental question of free will. If consciousness is formed by society, if moral norms are created by historical circumstances, if human behavior depends upon upbringing, environment, heredity, physical condition, and life experience, then to what extent is a person free in his actions? If free will is a transcendental idea extending beyond immediate experience, and if the individual acts to a significant degree under the influence of necessity, then another question arises: Is punishment fair when imposed on a person for a criminal act? If society itself has created the system of values in which a person grew up, and if this very system exerted a decisive influence on his consciousness, then punishment of the individual is, in a certain sense, punishment of a part of society itself. However, society cannot punish itself as a single subject. It creates the laws itself. It establishes the norms itself. It determines crime and punishment itself. Therefore, for the preservation of social harmony, the only practical course remains the punishment of the individual who has violated established rules. But such punishment should be regarded not merely as retribution. Its purpose is to restore the disrupted balance, protect society, and, where possible, change the person’s behavior. The history of Caligula shows us another side of this problem. If society creates the individual, then an individual who acquires absolute power can change society itself. He can destroy institutions. He can alter moral norms. He can force people to accept his own rules. Therefore, the interaction between the individual and society represents a constant exchange of influences. Society shapes the individual. The individual shapes society. Society establishes the boundaries of consciousness. Consciousness is capable of violating those boundaries. And if external boundaries disappear before internal moral culture has developed, freedom can turn into arbitrariness. This is the central paradox of the Caligula phenomenon. He gained freedom from others, but he did not gain freedom from himself. He ceased to be a slave to another person’s power, but became a slave to his own fear. He became the master of people, but failed to become the master of his own instincts. He acquired virtually unlimited external freedom and at the same time became imprisoned by internal dependence. Therefore, the “Caligula” phenomenon is not merely the story of a single Roman emperor. It is a warning about what happens to a person when external chains disappear but internal ones have not been formed. True freedom begins not when a person is allowed to do everything he wants, but when he is capable of deciding for himself what he should not want.




THE FOUNDATION OF THE POLITICAL ICEBERG


“Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except that which comes from God; the authorities that exist have been established by God.”
The Apostle Paul, Epistle to the Romans 13:1


THE SURFACE AND THE DEPTH OF THE POLITICAL ICEBERG

The summit of the political iceberg consists of the realities that we can see directly: different political parties, movements, political leaders, election programs, slogans, and endless ideological convictions. Democratic, socialist, communist, Christian, Green, nationalist, and other political forces passionately defend their respective ideas, seeking to prove their correctness, win the support of voters, and, ultimately, obtain political power.
However, politics, like an iceberg, has not only a visible surface. A much larger part remains hidden beneath the water. If we descend into the depths of political processes, we can see that behind the apparent diversity of parties, slogans, and ideologies operate much simpler and more persistent mechanisms. Every political organization consists of people, and people remain human beings regardless of which flag they raise, which ideology they profess, or which political party they belong to. If the number of its supporters falls to zero, the organization disappears together with its slogans.
Therefore, political realities, however diverse they may appear, are ultimately governed by the same principles of human nature: the desire for security, power, property, recognition, influence, justice, and superiority. Political history is not merely a collection of random events; it reflects particular stages in the development of human society.
Each stage of political development corresponds to a particular level of development of society itself. A political system does not emerge out of nothing and cannot simply be established according to the wishes of a few individuals. It is shaped by economic relations, social structure, education, culture, technology, and the ability of different groups within society to organize themselves and defend their interests.
For people, political realities are often more attractive than abstract principles precisely because they allow human emotions to find a direct outlet. A person can place his hopes in a particular candidate who promises to embody ideas close to his heart, or, conversely, blame a particular politician for all his failures. Politics becomes an arena for human emotions: hope, fear, envy, admiration, hatred, disappointment, and the desire for revenge.
Human beings are emotional creatures, and therefore they will always tend toward such a perception of politics: defending some, blaming others, trusting some, and regarding others as enemies. This naturally creates a tendency within political systems toward the division of society into two major camps. In a developed society, such opposition may take the form of two major parties or two stable political coalitions competing continuously for public support.
But behind the visible struggle between political parties lies a deeper principle: politics is a struggle among different interests for the ability to influence the distribution of social resources and determine the rules according to which society lives.
ROME AS AN EXAMPLE OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
When we think of Ancient Rome, we experience a certain admiration for the power of that civilization. Its strong army, discipline, law, culture, literature, and art became models for many subsequent generations.
Yes, the Romans borrowed much from the Greeks. But can a weak man hold a sword that a strong man knows how to wield skillfully? In order to make use of another civilization’s achievements, one must possess one's own strength and the ability to preserve and develop what has been acquired.
What, then, was one of the most important reasons for the formation of a strong Roman state? We tend to see it in the development of the republican form of government — res publica, meaning “the common affair” or “the public matter.” The representative system of government became a political mechanism that allowed different layers of Roman society to participate in the struggle for influence and gradually develop a system of mutual restraints.
The approximate modern counterpart of such a system is called democracy. However, the modern political system is considerably more complex than the ancient forms of direct popular rule. Democratic institutions are not something that can simply be transferred from one country to another. They cannot be established by decree alone. Their stable functioning requires a certain level of political, economic, and social development.
Therefore, democracy cannot simply be adopted — a society must grow into it.
To understand this process, let us turn to Ancient Rome and examine how its republic was formed.
“The state is a living organism.”
According to tradition, Rome was founded by Romulus, who became its first king. After him, kings continued to rule until the expulsion of the last monarch. Traditionally, the beginning of the Roman Republic is dated to 509 BC, although modern historians view the formation of republican institutions as a much longer process.
Administrative authority was gradually transferred to elected officials. The two consuls played a central role, possessing the highest civil authority and exercising supreme command of the army.
However, a change in the form of government did not automatically establish harmony. On the contrary, from its earliest days the republic was an arena of struggle between different social groups.
In the fifth century BC, the conflict between patricians and plebeians became particularly intense. Wars impoverished the lower classes. Many plebeians fell into debt dependence on the patricians. Debtors who could not repay their obligations on time could face extremely severe consequences, including debt slavery.
Such a system naturally generated resentment. The plebeians demanded protection of their interests, while the patricians sought to preserve their privileges.
A peculiar political balance emerged: the state needed the plebeians as soldiers, but the political rights of this part of the population remained restricted. In times of external danger, the patricians were forced to make concessions, but once the danger disappeared, the old contradictions returned.
Eventually, the conflict reached a critical point.
When the Senate rejected a proposal to alleviate the debt burden, the plebeians decided to leave Rome and refused to participate in military campaigns. They withdrew to the Sacred Mount, located beyond the Anio River, not far from the city.
Rome was suddenly confronted with a dangerous situation. The plebeians outside the city feared the reaction of the Senate, while the senators feared that the plebeians remaining in Rome would also join the secession.
Menenius Agrippa, who enjoyed authority among the people, was sent to negotiate with them.
According to Livy's account, Agrippa used the famous allegory of the human body. All its parts once rebelled against the stomach, believing that they worked while the stomach merely enjoyed the fruits of their labor. The hands refused to bring food to the mouth, the mouth refused to receive it, and the teeth refused to chew it. Soon, however, it became clear that without the stomach the entire body could not survive: food was processed and distributed among all its parts.
Through this parable, Agrippa demonstrated the interdependence of different parts of society. Patricians and plebeians could fight each other, but the complete destruction of either side would mean the destruction of the state itself.
As a result of the negotiations, the plebeians gained the right to elect their own representatives — the tribunes of the plebs — who enjoyed special protection and could oppose the actions of the consuls.
This was one of the most important steps in the development of the Roman Republic.
Here we see a fundamental political principle: a state develops sustainably not when conflict is completely eliminated, but when conflict is given legitimate forms of expression.
CONFLICT AS A MECHANISM OF DEVELOPMENT
The struggle between different social groups continued even after the establishment of the tribunate. Opponents of the new institutions waited for an opportunity to restore their former privileges.
The conflict surrounding Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus is particularly famous. After being exiled from Rome, he joined the Volscians and led an army that threatened the city itself.
When the Romans faced an immediate danger, the women of the city came to Coriolanus, among them his mother, wife, and children. Their pleas eventually persuaded him to withdraw.
The story, as related by Livy, reveals another aspect of politics: political institutions never exist separately from human relationships. Even a person capable of threatening the existence of a state remains part of a family, society, and culture.
At another time, when Rome faced a serious external threat, the Senate appointed a dictator. This was an extraordinary office: the dictator was granted exceptionally broad powers, but traditionally served only for a limited period.
Here we encounter another important principle. Even a developed republic may temporarily concentrate power in one person's hands when society faces an extraordinary threat. The crucial condition, however, is that such concentration of power remains limited in time and subject to institutional rules.
Thus, a political system is never completely static. It changes according to circumstances.
A MODEL OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL SOCIETY
We propose to view the political development of society as a sequence of several conditional stages:
Family — the original social institution, in which the head of the family emerges.
Tribe — an association of several clans or families, in which a leader or chief emerges.
Autocracy — the unification of clans and tribes around a supreme individual who concentrates political power.
Oligarchy — a system in which a significant portion of political and economic influence is concentrated among a limited number of wealthy and influential groups.
Republic — a political system in which the interests of numerous organized social and economic groups are represented through institutions of government.
Modern democracy — a complex system combining mechanisms of representation, elections, separation of powers, public oversight, and the coordination of interests.
It is important to distinguish between the concepts of “democracy” and “republic.” In its original meaning, democracy meant rule by the majority. A republic, by contrast, implies stable institutions of representation, division of powers, and legal limitations.
Therefore, majority rule alone does not guarantee freedom. A majority can also oppress a minority. A developed political system must not only reflect the will of the majority but also create mechanisms for protecting minorities, property, an independent judiciary, and civil associations.
FROM FAMILY TO STATE
The family is the initial stage in the formation of political society. Before the emergence of the family, human beings primarily existed in small groups, where a person's influence was determined to a large extent by physical strength, authority, and the ability to provide security.
With the creation of the family comes a new form of responsibility. The head of the family becomes responsible not only for himself but also for the safety of others. Several families eventually unite into a clan, and several clans form a tribe.
A leader emerges who coordinates the actions of the group. The need for such leadership becomes especially evident during war, migration, or other forms of danger.
In early social formations, important decisions could be made directly by the community. This represents the original form of democracy.
Elements of such systems can be found in different historical societies: in the popular assemblies of ancient Greece, assemblies of free men in medieval Iceland, and traditions of electing military and political leaders in the Zaporizhzhian Sich.
However, direct majority rule has a fundamental weakness: it does not always have the ability to take minority interests into account.
As society grows larger, direct decision-making becomes increasingly ineffective. The need for representatives, institutions, and professional administration emerges.
Thus the state develops.
AUTOCRACY AND OLIGARCHY
Conquered tribes gradually came under the influence of their conquerors. Over time, they adapted to the new political system. Centralized authority emerged: a pharaoh, king, monarch, or other supreme ruler.
At the early stages of technological development, centralized authority could provide significant advantages. Large projects — construction, irrigation, warfare, taxation — required the coordination of large numbers of people.
States expanded their territories, extracted resources from conquered lands, and used dependent labor.
However, the development of trade and technology gradually created a new force: wealthy individuals capable of independently acquiring influence.
As wealth accumulated, wealthy groups began demanding political rights. They sought to restrict arbitrary supreme authority and obtain guarantees for property.
Thus the oligarchic stage emerged.
Oligarchy differs from aristocracy primarily in the mechanism by which the elite is formed. Aristocratic status is traditionally associated with ancestry and hereditary position. Oligarchic influence may arise from accumulated capital, economic activity, and the ability to organize resources.
In modern society, business and politics are likewise closely connected. Economic groups seek to influence legislation, taxation, government investment, and other decisions.
This may happen directly, when business representatives themselves enter politics, or indirectly, through the financing of parties, public organizations, and political campaigns.
Thus politics can never exist in complete isolation from economics.
THE MIDDLE CLASS AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
As prosperity increases, new groups of influence emerge: professional associations, trade unions, community organizations, business associations, political parties, and social movements.
They begin competing with existing centers of power.
This process may be conflictual, but conflict itself forces the political system to adapt.
Business seeks favorable conditions for entrepreneurship. Workers demand higher wages and better working conditions. Trade unions use collective action. Public organizations seek legislative changes. Political parties attempt to unite the interests of different groups.
If the state is capable of creating legal mechanisms for expressing these demands, conflict becomes part of the normal functioning of the political system.
If legal channels are absent, pressure gradually accumulates.
REVOLUTION AND ITS MECHANISM
When influential social groups have no legal means of defending their interests, conflict may turn into open struggle.
Once suppressed, individual protests can become more radical. If a movement gains broad public support, a revolutionary situation may emerge.
Here we must distinguish between social conflict and revolution.
A social conflict can contribute to the development of society when it takes place within the law and leads to the expansion of rights and improvement of institutions.
Revolution, in the sense considered here, means the radical destruction of the existing political system and its replacement with a new system, often based on ideological monopoly.
In such a process, a significant portion of existing social institutions may be destroyed. Economic relations are disrupted, property is redistributed, professional personnel are persecuted, and society loses part of its accumulated experience.
In the short term, revolution may promise liberation, justice, and prosperity. But after the new elite comes to power, a fundamental question arises: who will control those who have obtained power?
This is where one of the principal dangers of revolutionary processes appears.
The masses may become an instrument in the struggle among different organized groups. After the revolution succeeds, the most organized group gains the opportunity to occupy key positions.
The population that supported the movement in the hope of improving its life may discover that political decisions are now being made by a new elite.
IDEOLOGY AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MOBILIZATION
A successful revolutionary movement usually needs an idea capable of uniting large numbers of dissatisfied people.
Such an idea must be simple enough for the majority to understand and attractive enough to make people believe in the possibility of a new life.
The promise of prosperity is one of the most important elements of such movements.
Slogans arise that possess powerful emotional appeal: “all power to the people,” “divide everything,” “those who were nothing shall become everything,” and other political maxims.
A practical program is often less attractive than a romantic vision of the future. People want to see not a complicated system of economic calculations but an image of a happy society.
At the same time, an enemy emerges.
For communist movements, this enemy could be the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, or the “class enemy.” In Nazi ideology, certain ethnic and social groups were assigned a similar role.
The mechanism remains similar: complex causes of social problems are reduced to the existence of a specific enemy.
Thus the scapegoat appears.
Psychologically, it is easier for people to explain the complexity of the world through the actions of a particular group than to accept the existence of numerous interconnected economic, social, and historical causes.
THE LEADER, THE SYMBOL, AND THE RITUAL
A revolutionary movement needs a leader.
The leader becomes the embodiment of the idea and the symbol of the struggle. His personality gradually acquires special significance. Loyalty to the leader begins to be perceived as evidence of loyalty to the movement itself.
At the same time, an internal hierarchy develops. At the bottom are ordinary supporters; above them are cell and unit leaders; at the top stands the central leadership.
Mechanisms of internal control emerge to preserve discipline.
Symbols acquire particular importance. Movements use colors, emblems, flags, gestures, and other elements that allow individuals to experience their belonging to a unified whole.
A symbol can influence a person more strongly than a lengthy political program. It creates an emotional connection between the individual and the collective.
Initiation rituals are equally important. A person makes a pledge, accepts the symbol of the movement, and becomes part of a community. Breaking the oath begins to be perceived as betrayal.
In this way, a political movement develops from a collection of people sharing an idea into an organized system.
TEN BASIC PRINCIPLES OF A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT
We tend to identify the following characteristic features:
The idea of the special status and uniqueness of ordinary people.
An authoritative doctrine confirming the correctness of the movement.
A promise of future prosperity.
Dynamic and emotionally powerful symbolism.
Orientation toward mass support.
Identification of a specific ideological enemy.
The creation of a privileged internal control group.
Intolerance toward competing ideologies.
Elevation of the leader's personality.
The transformation of fallen participants into martyrs and symbols of the movement's righteousness.
These characteristics help explain why certain movements are capable of mobilizing enormous numbers of people.
The stronger the emotional connection between an individual and the movement, the more difficult it becomes for that person to abandon it, even when reality begins to contradict the movement's original promises.
CONFLICT AS THE FOUNDATION OF CIVIL SOCIETY
Society develops through conflicts of interest.
There is a common saying: “Life is a struggle.” In this context, we do not necessarily mean physical violence, but the constant collision of different interests.
People have different needs, abilities, beliefs, and goals. Therefore, a completely conflict-free society is impossible.
We tend to distinguish four basic types of civil conflict:
Civil war — the most destructive form of internal conflict, in which confrontation becomes armed.
Riot — a sudden eruption of accumulated public anger.
Socio-economic conflict — a struggle by less privileged groups to expand their rights and change existing rules.
Ideological conflict — a struggle for the complete transformation of the political regime on the basis of a particular ideology.
Each of these forms may contain elements of the others.
It is particularly important that socio-economic conflict have the opportunity to develop within legal institutions. In this case, the struggle among different groups can lead to a gradual expansion of political rights.
REVOLUTION AS A STEP BACKWARD
From this perspective, the revolutionary path may have regressive consequences.
If an existing system of institutions is destroyed without creating a more effective replacement, society is forced to begin reconstruction almost from the beginning.
Revolution may destroy not only the shortcomings of the old regime but also its achievements.
The author regards the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917 as a particularly striking example of such backward movement.
The destruction of the previous social structure and the subsequent concentration of power in the hands of a new political center did not lead to the disappearance of state power, but to its new concentration.
A paradoxical situation emerged: a revolution that proclaimed the liberation of human beings ultimately contributed to the creation of an extremely centralized political system.
This demonstrates that the destruction of one form of power does not, by itself, mean liberation from power.
Power tends to fill a vacuum.
If a society does not possess numerous independent institutions capable of limiting state authority, the vacuum is rapidly filled by a new centralized force.
A CRITIQUE OF THE COMMUNIST EXPERIMENT
This issue became especially acute in the political practice of Bolshevism.
Vladimir Lenin's works on the state and revolution contain propositions that a modern reader may perceive as extremely radical. In them, the state is regarded as an instrument of class domination, while the transitional period presupposes the use of coercion against representatives of the former class.
The practical history of the Soviet regime demonstrated how dangerous the concentration of political power can become in the absence of independent institutions capable of restraining it.
The attempt to create a society of universal equality was ultimately accompanied by the formation of an extremely centralized political system.
Here we encounter a fundamental contradiction: if freedom must be destroyed in order to achieve equality, equality itself becomes an instrument of power.
Marx, Engels, and Lenin proceeded from a particular model of historical development in which class divisions were viewed primarily as a source of exploitation.
From another perspective, however, the existence of different social classes may be not only a source of conflict but also an indicator of the complexity of society.
The upper class possesses capital and can invest it in production, technology, and enterprises. The middle class forms a significant part of the domestic market, creates jobs, and ensures economic activity. The working class participates directly in the production process. The intelligentsia gains opportunities to develop science, education, and culture.
Thus, social stratification in itself does not necessarily mean the destruction of society.
The fundamental question is not whether inequality exists, but whether there are rules that allow people to change their social position, protect their property, and create opportunities for development.
ECONOMICS AND THE PROBLEM OF PRICE
Special attention should be given to Karl Marx's economic theory.
Marx attempted to explain the value of commodities through the labor theory of value and examined the internal laws of capitalist production.
However, a market economy demonstrates that the price of a commodity changes constantly under the influence of numerous factors: supply, demand, scarcity of resources, consumer expectations, technology, competition, and other circumstances.
Therefore, it is impossible to regard price as a natural constant established once and forever.
Price is a dynamic variable.
If demand rises, the price may increase, all other things being equal. If supply exceeds demand, the price falls. Technological changes can completely transform production costs. New materials can make old resources less desirable.
The market functions precisely because prices are constantly changing.
From this perspective, one of the principal problems of a centrally planned economy lies in the attempt to replace numerous decentralized signals with a single administrative decision-making system.
History has shown that such systems can create serious shortages and inefficient allocation of resources.
Therefore, the dispute over ownership is simultaneously a dispute over the mechanism by which economic decisions are made.
OLIGARCHY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
Today many politicians claim that oligarchs are an absolute evil for a country.
But the issue must be examined more deeply.
The emergence of large capital means that significant economic resources have already accumulated within society. Enterprises owned by wealthy individuals can create jobs, pay taxes, invest in production, and support entire regions.
Of course, this does not mean that an oligarchic system has no shortcomings. The concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a small number of people creates the danger of corruption and monopolization.
But combating this phenomenon should not necessarily mean destroying capital. Instead, it should involve creating rules under which capital must compete and operate within the law.
Over time, the development of the middle class creates pressure on oligarchic structures.
The middle class needs stable rules, protection of property, an independent judiciary, access to credit, and the ability to compete.
For this reason, its development becomes an important condition for democratization.
REVOLUTION OR GRADUAL TRANSFORMATION?
If social groups have legal ways of defending their interests, the need for revolution decreases.
Economic groups can influence political parties. Trade unions can organize protests. Civil organizations can appeal to courts and parliaments. Voters can replace political representatives.
In this way, the political system gradually transforms itself.
Business, for example, may finance a political campaign and expect legislative changes. A trade union may organize a strike and obtain higher wages. A social movement may pressure parliament to amend a law.
All these forms of pressure are manifestations of conflict, but in this case the conflict takes place within the political system.
The ability of the state to translate conflict into legal forms is one of the principal characteristics of a developed civil society.
MODERN DEMOCRACY
The modern political system has absorbed elements of various historical forms of government.
We can conditionally distinguish:
The republican component — elected representatives, separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and constitutional limitations.
The democratic component — participation of citizens in elections, referendums, and other forms of direct expression of the popular will.
Elements of extraordinary concentration of power — for example, expanded executive powers during a state of emergency.
Thus, modern democracy is not simply majority rule but a complex mechanism for reconciling different interests.
In a developed system, power should not belong to one individual or one group. It should be distributed among different institutions capable of limiting one another.
We tend to regard the political system of the United States as one of the most developed examples of institutional separation of powers. Sweden, Finland, and Norway demonstrate high levels of social organization. Germany and Japan have achieved outstanding results in technological and industrial development.
But no system is final.
Every system continues to develop.
UKRAINE AND THE POLITICAL ICEBERG
What situation has developed in Ukraine?
Ukraine is a relatively young state whose political institutions continue to develop.
Within the model considered here, an important characteristic is the significant influence of large capital combined with insufficient political organization of small and medium-sized businesses. Trade unions often remain weak, civil organizations are not always capable of consistently defending their interests, and society as a whole may be fragmented.
But fragmentation does not mean the absence of power.
An unorganized society can at a certain moment demonstrate enormous political potential. That is why the state needs to create legal mechanisms that allow public dissatisfaction to be translated into institutional change.
The problem cannot be solved simply by eliminating wealthy people.
If capital leaves the country, investment, enterprises, jobs, and tax revenues may leave with it.
The question should therefore be formulated differently: how can we create rules under which large capital has an incentive to invest within the country while obeying the law and competing with other economic groups?
There is a common saying: “Money makes money.”
Capital can generate new capital when conditions for investment exist.
Therefore, a rational state policy should seek not to destroy capital but to ensure that capital works within the national economy.
DEVELOPING THE DOMESTIC MARKET
One possible instrument of economic development is support for domestic production.
If public financial institutions create conditions for affordable lending to enterprises, the ability to expand production increases. Growing production creates jobs, increases the tax base, and raises household incomes.
In turn, higher incomes expand the domestic market.
A chain emerges:
investment ; production ; jobs ; wages ; demand ; new investment.
But such a policy inevitably affects the interests of other groups.
If domestic production grows, companies dependent on imports may suffer. If the state stimulates domestic producers, the balance of interests between different economic groups changes.
Thus even economic policy is ultimately a politics of competing interests.
The winner is not necessarily the richest or the most numerous. In a stable system, the advantage goes to the group capable of acting in an organized manner and within the law.
THE NATIONAL IDEA
For stable development, a state needs not only economic prosperity but also a certain sense of social unity.
A nation needs ideas that allow people to perceive their own history as meaningful.
This does not mean creating an artificial mythology. On the contrary, a national idea should be grounded in real history, culture, language, literature, architecture, scientific achievements, and historical memory.
Ukrainian history is exceptionally rich.
Ukrainian Cossackdom is an important part of this history, but its political history is complex and contradictory. Different interpretations of the policies of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and other historical figures make it difficult to build an entirely unambiguous political mythology around them.
Therefore, the legacy of Kyivan Rus may become one possible element of Ukrainian national historical consciousness.
At the same time, one historical period should not be placed in opposition to another. History should be perceived as a continuous sequence.
Kyiv, its princes, architecture, culture, literature, and traditions of statehood can serve as sources of national pride.
Young people are of particular importance.
The younger generation is especially receptive to ideas that offer meaning, belonging, and a sense of the future. During periods of political transformation, young people can become one of the most vulnerable groups.
Therefore, the state must pay attention not only to economic development but also to education, culture, and historical consciousness.
DEMOCRACY CANNOT SIMPLY BE IMPPOSED
History shows that democracy cannot be mechanically transferred from one country to another.
Political institutions function only when there is a social environment capable of supporting them.
If there is no independent judiciary, developed middle class, free press, stable civic organizations, political competition, and culture of legality, formal democratic procedures can be captured by corrupt groups.
Therefore, holding elections is not enough.
It is necessary to create a system in which the losing candidate accepts the result, the winner remains constrained by law, the courts are independent, property is protected, and the opposition has the right to exist.
Democracy is not merely the moment of voting.
Democracy is a permanent process of reconciling interests.
POLITICS AS DYNAMICS
Many people perceive the political process as a static condition. They believe that if a “correct choice” is made, a “correct politician” comes to power, and the right constitution is adopted, society will then remain in a state of harmony.
But politics cannot be static.
Like human nature, it is a process of constant movement.
New technologies, professions, economic groups, and interests emerge. Old elites gradually lose influence. New groups demand their place within the system.
Therefore, a political system that stops changing begins to fall behind society.
Every country has the political system corresponding to the level of development of its social institutions.
Democracy does not fall from heaven.
Political rights must be defended, but this struggle should, whenever possible, take place through institutions, law, and social organization.
THE POLITICAL ICEBERG
Now we can return to the image of the iceberg.
On the surface we see political parties, presidents, parliaments, elections, slogans, and political scandals.
But beneath the surface lie:
the economy;
ownership;
social classes;
professional associations;
trade unions;
business groups;
civic organizations;
cultural traditions;
historical memory;
human emotions;
the struggle for security;
the struggle for resources;
the struggle for influence.
This hidden part determines the shape of the visible summit.
When society changes, its political system changes as well.
An established social group seeks to preserve the existing order because its prosperity, influence, and power depend upon it. But every social group has its own life cycle: emergence, development, prosperity, and gradual decline.
New technologies and new ideas create new groups of influence. They enter into conflict with older groups and gradually transform the social structure.
Therefore, sociology cannot be confined within eternal formulas and immutable constants.
Humanity is dynamic.
Time creates new circumstances, and new circumstances create new interests.
THE FUTURE OF POLITICAL SOCIETY
Perhaps in the distant future humanity will reach a state in which the differences between rich and poor, strong and weak, will be significantly reduced.
Technological development may make basic material needs accessible to almost everyone.
But absolute equality will probably remain an idea rather than a reality.
People differ in abilities, desires, character, diligence, and inclinations. Therefore, complete equality is impossible even under identical material conditions.
Perhaps humanity will gradually move toward a society in which individual interests are increasingly reconciled with collective interests.
But even then, conflict will not disappear completely.
Only its form will change.
Today a person struggles for land, capital, and political power. Tomorrow he may struggle for access to knowledge, technology, information, intellectual resources, and opportunities for self-realization.
The political iceberg will continue to exist even if its external appearance changes.
This is why political development cannot be stopped.
Every achieved stage becomes the foundation for the next.
The family gave rise to the clan. The clan gave rise to the tribe. The tribe created the state. The state generated the struggle among elites. The struggle among elites contributed to the emergence of republican institutions. The development of social groups created modern democracy.
But democracy is not the final point of history.
It is only another stage in the reconciliation of human interests.
Ukraine, like other states undergoing profound social transformations, will have to continue along this path. The journey cannot be completely smooth because conflict is a natural element of social development.
The essential point is to prevent conflict from becoming destruction.
A developed society is not a society without contradictions. It is a society capable of resolving contradictions without destroying itself.
Therefore, the political maturity of a state is determined not by the absence of struggle, but by its ability to transform struggle into constructive development.
Every political system survives as long as it is capable of adapting to a changing society.
That is why we must look not only at the summit of the political iceberg, where we see parties, elections, and individual politicians, but also at its enormous hidden part — the economy, social structure, human psychology, and struggle of interests.
There, beneath the surface, lies the true foundation of political society.
There power is born.
There its future is formed.
And there we must search for explanations of political events that, on the surface, may appear unexpected, chaotic, and contradictory.
A common saying tells us: “Everything has its place and its time.”
Political development also has its place and its time.
A society cannot simply skip the necessary stages of its development without consequences. It can accelerate its progress, correct its mistakes, and borrow the experience of other countries, but it cannot completely escape the objective laws of its own social evolution.
Therefore, the future belongs not to those states that attempt to stop history, but to those capable of understanding its movement and learning to manage conflicts without destroying freedom, the economy, or human dignity.
The political iceberg continues to move.
The visible summit changes first.
But genuine change always begins in the depths.

CONCLUSION


“All things are full of labor: man cannot express it all; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
(Ecclesiastes 1:8–9)

Where your search for truth will lead you next, through the thorny labyrinths of life, we do not know. Perhaps you will find answers to some of the questions raised in this book; perhaps, on the contrary, you will discover even more questions. Yet this is precisely the natural condition of a human being who strives for knowledge. Curious minds never cease trying to comprehend the meaning of our existence on this planet. However, instead of becoming completely clear, this meaning sometimes seems to become increasingly shrouded in the mist of new mysteries.
Science has reached heights that once seemed unimaginable. Much of what existed only in the pages of science-fiction books just a few decades ago has become an ordinary reality today, causing little surprise even among inhabitants of relatively isolated parts of our Earth. Humanity has learned to see what was previously invisible to the human eye, explore the depths of matter, observe distant cosmic objects, create extraordinarily complex technological systems, and penetrate areas of knowledge that once seemed beyond our reach.
And it seems that there is hardly a corner of nature left into which the searching eye of the researcher has not penetrated. Yet the farther we advance, the more clearly we understand the paradox of knowledge: every explanation we discover gives birth to new questions. Behind every mystery that is solved, several others appear, deeper and more difficult. Humanity seems to be moving toward a horizon that constantly retreats as we approach it.
And yet humanity refuses to remain confined within the boundaries it has already reached. It constantly attempts to go beyond the limits of immediate experience, to look into places where familiar concepts cease to function. Being itself remains a great mystery. We sense its grandeur and therefore tend to give it not only a rational meaning, but also a philosophical and, at times, mystical one.
Having traveled this contradictory path together with you, we must nevertheless say goodbye and allow you to continue the fascinating journey into the unknown on your own. This book is not the final point of our reflections. Rather, it is one of the many stops along the endless road of human thought.
It is precisely this eternal search that gives birth to great people who move humanity forward. Yet this movement does not take place along a smooth and well-paved road. On the contrary, the path of knowledge is winding, difficult, and often passes through swamps and marshes, dense forests, and high mountains. We make mistakes, stumble, sometimes turn back, reconsider our convictions, and then rise again and continue our ascent.
Human history shows that progress rarely emerges from complete agreement. On the contrary, new ideas almost always encounter resistance from old beliefs. Therefore, doubt, criticism, and disagreement are not necessarily obstacles to truth. Sometimes they become its indispensable companions.
Evil, too, ceases to be obvious. It puts on a mask, acquires a pleasant and attractive appearance, and therefore no longer provokes the same irritation as before. Everything is bought and sold, while the values preserved for centuries gradually lose their strength and become objects of bargaining. The stubborn abandon their principles, those who desire something obtain what they seek, and society gradually adapts to new rules.
To some extent, such a state of affairs does indeed reduce social tension. But at the same time, it forces us to ask: if everything has a price, what remains priceless? If every conviction can be exchanged for personal gain, where is the boundary between a reasonable compromise and the abandonment of oneself?
Human nature is not perfect, and that is precisely what makes it interesting. Within every one of us there exists an enormous field for development. We are speaking not only about physical or intellectual improvement, but above all about spiritual, moral, and intellectual development. A human being is capable of changing himself, reconsidering his views, learning from his own mistakes, and rising above the level at which he stood yesterday.
We will not be irritated if our arguments seem absurd or insufficiently convincing to you. Every person has the right to his or her own opinion, provided that it has been formed independently and is based on a sincere desire to understand reality. This book represents merely one point of view and in no way claims to possess absolute or indisputable truth.
We have simply attempted to demonstrate the workings of reason in its practical application—the ability to observe, doubt, compare, draw conclusions, and then subject those conclusions to critical examination once again.
It is very important to defend the point of view in which you sincerely believe, but it is equally important not to turn your own conviction into a dogma. We should not blindly seek someone else's truth, because every person has his or her own path toward understanding it. We must doubt, wonder, and continue persistently striving for truth.
New views and convictions should be formed not only on the basis of confidence in our own correctness, but also on the willingness to test that confidence. Only someone who is capable of questioning his or her own position has the opportunity to truly strengthen it.
For a human being, preserving individuality means preserving oneself as a personality. In a world where public opinion, material interests, and various forms of influence constantly attempt to make human consciousness uniform, the ability to think independently becomes one of the most important forms of freedom.
If, while reading, you approached our arguments critically and disagreed with them, then we are worthy opponents. After all, truth is discovered not only through agreement, but also through the clash of different viewpoints, discussion, argumentation, and mutual concessions.
And what, then, is the power of superiority, you may ask once again?
There is a well-known story from the life of the great Kant. When, in the final years of his life, a physician came to see the dying Kant, he initially could not understand what the philosopher was saying: his voice was so indistinct. The physician was told that Kant, out of courtesy, could not sit down while his guest remained standing. The physician could hardly believe it, for he had come to see a seriously ill man who could barely remain on his feet.
Later, listening carefully, the physician heard Kant pronounce quite clearly:
“I have not yet lost my sense of belonging to humanity.”
There it is—the invisible power of human superiority.
True superiority is not power over another person, nor the ability to force someone into submission, nor wealth or physical strength. True superiority lies in the ability to remain human when circumstances make it possible to abandon one's human dignity.
In other words, a person can earn society's recognition by surpassing others in useful achievements, scientific discoveries, the struggle for justice, love of one's homeland, and patriotism. It is here, rather than in the suppression of others, that the true strength of a human being should manifest itself.
Perhaps we have not received a final answer to all the questions we have raised. But perhaps a final answer is not the main purpose of the human search. What matters is the journey itself—the ability to ask questions, to search, to doubt, to make mistakes, to begin again, and to continue moving forward.
A person becomes stronger not when he ceases to doubt, but when he is able to live with doubt and nevertheless continue searching for truth. A person rises above others not when he subjugates them, but when he is capable of overcoming his own weakness, limitations, and fear.
And therefore, we leave you not with a ready-made answer, but with a question that each person must answer independently:
What, precisely, is your personal form of superiority, and what are you prepared to do in order to continue your journey?
Perhaps the answer to this question will become the beginning of your own ascent.






REASON, CIRCUMSTANCES, AND CHOICE

Reason and circumstances constitute two complementary systems whose interaction shapes human choice. The mind creates a certain system of values and perceptions that guides a person’s practical decisions, relating them both to the circumstances around them and to their accumulated psychological experience.

When we judge the actions of others, and especially when we later reassess our own decisions, a particular choice may appear mistaken or even illogical. However, such an assessment is often based on an incomplete understanding of the circumstances. We are not always capable of seeing the entire range of factors that existed at the moment a decision was made. Moreover, a person makes decisions not only on the basis of the objective situation, but also under the influence of past experience, emotions, beliefs, and previously formed perceptions of the world.

Therefore, human choice cannot be regarded solely as the result of free and independent reasoning. At any given moment, the mind relies upon the psychological experience accumulated up to that point, while circumstances determine the space within which possible actions can take place.

Thus, our choices are formed at the intersection of two forces: what is happening around us and what has already been formed within us. Circumstances establish the conditions of choice, while psychological experience determines how the mind perceives those conditions and what meaning it assigns to them. It is precisely the interaction between these two factors that largely determines the direction of our behaviour.