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Andrew Belaveshkin MD PhD preventive medicine belaveshkin.com 📖Books: The will to live, The right food at the right time (⬜️🟥⬜️ t.me/belaveshkin)
Food noise in the head. On average, we spend about 15% of our time thinking about food (more than two hours a day) and make 220-300 food-related decisions. In other words, we dedicate more than a month each year just to thoughts about food.
🧠Food is a matter of survival for our brains, and it constantly throws thoughts at us like "What to eat?" or "can I eat this?" and so on. In ancient times, such fixation on food was crucial for survival, but now it's highly detrimental. After all, nowadays, there's only one leap to the refrigerator or one click in a delivery app between thinking about food and getting it.
🚩With obesity and insulin resistance, there's a noticeable increase in thoughts about food - even evident during conversations. A person begins to constantly savor thoughts about food, study and discuss recipes, watch shows, and buy cooking books. The stronger the insulin (and leptin) resistance, the more thoughts there are. The same pattern emerges during weight loss - when you cut calories, thoughts about food become intrusive and overwhelming.
🥦When you're losing weight, it's important to remember the inevitable increase in food noise in response to calorie deficit and be prepared for it in advance! In a well-known Minnesota starvation experiment, the hungry subjects talked about food endlessly. And people with eating disorders think about food three times more!
🤔Food noise is what scientists call the chaotic swarm of thoughts about food throughout the day, which is associated with rumination and obsessive thought spinning. Observing the use of semaglutide showed that its injections remarkably suppress food noise, and patients can enjoy reduced hunger and a freer mind. This happens because suppressing hunger receptors also suppresses thoughts about food.
✅1. Observe. Start observing your thoughts about food - it's a helpful symptom of your condition. Practice mindful observation: don't evaluate, react, or suppress. If you're interested in numbers, you can count them with a clicker - you'll be amazed. Perhaps you'll notice that satiating food suppresses food noise in your head, while ultra-processed products amplify it. It's important not to attach to these thoughts, not to take them personally, but to learn to see them detachedly - this way, they fade away faster. How much time and how often do you think about food?
✅2. Don't react to food thoughts. Distinguish between healthy thoughts and food noise. Healthy thoughts are related to actual tasks and lead to solutions: what to buy and what to cook. Food noise is like, "How many éclairs could I eat if I wash them down with a frappuccino?" Don't blame yourself, don't criticize, don't react, don't follow the thoughts - observe them impartially as they pass like clouds. As they say in the East, to make water clear, stop stirring it.
✅3. Identify triggers. Avoid conversations, watching food porn (images of food), keeping sweets and ready-made food at home. Chronic stress is one of the powerful triggers of food thoughts.
✅4. Keep busy. Instead of suppressing thoughts, simply shift your attention. If you can't do it actively, play Tetris, go for a walk, or engage in sports to let your attention switch on its own. Find something that engages you, and you'll forget about food. Right now, you can do a plank?)
✅5. Satiety diet. Choose foods with a high satiety index. Don't skip breakfast. Having fish or eggs with vegetables and legumes for breakfast will allow you to not think about food for a long time.
✅6. Stick to a routine and manage stress. Lack of sleep leads to a sharp increase in thoughts about food, and stress weakens self-control. Get enough sleep and actively work on stress with non-food methods. Learn how to distinguish between emotional and physical hunger. As you lose weight, improve metabolic flexibility, and enhance insulin sensitivity, you'll feel less hungry, and the food noise in your head will diminish.
What Is Food Noise? A Conceptual Model of Food Cue Reactivity. Nutrients 2023, 15(22), 4809;
What will your action do to you? Modern thinking is rigidly focused on the external results of our actions. And this seems logical—why do anything at all if there is no obvious effect or clear benefit? But this pseudo-rational approach is fundamentally flawed and destructive. For many philosophical teachings, the key aspect is precisely the opposite effect. What matters more is how your action changes you, rather than how it changes the world.
What will your action do to you?—this is the truly important question.
🟥1. We are both sculptor and marble.
Every action we take, regardless of its external results (whether anyone notices it or whether it changes anything in the world), changes us. Various mechanisms are involved: Self-identity—our actions shape how we perceive ourselves and what we believe we are. (For example, by performing kind acts, you truly become kinder.). Our actions do not just reflect our character—they shape it. “We become just by performing just acts, brave by performing brave acts, temperate by performing temperate acts.”
🟥2. The trap of inaction.
You are what you do—almost nothing else matters. A person shapes themselves through their actions. If they do nothing, they lose their sense of self and their desires, leading to emptiness, apathy, and a crisis of meaning. Self-respect is not given for free.
“He who does nothing has nothing to be proud of.”
🟥3. Behavioral activation.
We can fall into a downward spiral of depression precisely due to inaction (or meaningless actions). Energy is born from action. The more you do, the more energy you have. As soon as you lower your standards, you lose strength, procrastinate more, do even less, and the cycle continues. The same applies to happiness—our emotions and inner state are shaped by actions, not the other way around.
“We do not sing because we are happy, but we are happy because we sing.”
🟥4. Failing to do what you must is a betrayal of your values.
When you neglect your duties out of fear or laziness, the consequences of inaction are destructive to your personality. The mind must justify why the important task was not done, leading to fabricated rationalizations or excuses for wrongdoing. A person convinces themselves that their inaction was justified—thus betraying themselves and what truly matters to them. The price of inaction is moral decay.
🟥5. Fear and passivity.
Avoiding difficult situations leads to fear of them. If a person constantly retreats in the face of challenges, they eventually stop believing they can overcome them. “He who avoids battle has already lost". Every action reshapes our perception, our assessment of risk and pain, and thus encourages further action. The price of inaction is missed opportunities. “If you do not control your life, someone else will.” Inaction robs a person of initiative, allowing others to make decisions for them.
What does this mean?
✅Instead of obsessing over “Will this change anything? Where’s the guarantee?”—focus on your moral duty, on action as an extension of your character, and ask yourself: “How will this action (or inaction) change me?” This is the far more important question.
It does not matter whether your action brings tangible results. It does not matter whether anyone notices or comments on it. What matters is that you will know.
✅The practice of any act can be a path to enlightenment and mastery. Even sweeping the street can lead to insight. And most importantly—never wait for compensation. Immediately forget all the good you have done for others—but never forget the good done for you.
✅The joy of simply having the opportunity to do the right thing is already a reward. The very ability to perform a good deed is already a benefit and a blessing to yourself. The chance to fulfill your duty and embody your values is already an incredible opportunity for personal growth. Instead of asking “What do I want to do?”, ask yourself: “Who do I want to become?”
✅And let’s conclude with these verses from the Dhammapada:
Improvement through destruction. One of the most dangerous and persistent cognitive illusions is the belief that people (organizations, markets, things, books, cities, etc.) can be improved by destroying (humiliating, demolishing, violating, etc.) them. Such views are very characteristic of barbaric primitive thinking, which is currently the most widespread and has a biological nature.
Here are the main components of this illusion: all problems arise from something bad, and you can improve your life simply by destroying it; once you destroy the bad, the good will appear by itself; it takes a lot of effort to destroy the bad, while the good grows easily and quickly.
🟥1. Childish thinking. According to Jean Piaget, children are egocentric in their perception of the world until a certain age. They think that if something exists in their environment, it must simply be there (like air or the sun). Children under 7 years old (and adult "savages") exhibit magical thinking, including animism (giving life to objects). This means that if they see a new house, they may think that it "just appeared," that the economy can "grow by itself," and so on. At the primitive stage, there is no understanding of the complexity of the production process, cost estimation, etc.
🫣Thus, children and barbarians perceive the world as a given because their thinking is based on immediate experience. If they haven’t seen something being created, they might assume it simply appears. In developed societies, where stores are always full of goods, houses are "just built," and there’s always water, light, electricity, and medicine, children and many adults do not see the labor involved and don’t understand the complexity of the systems that sustain their lives.
🟥2. Black-and-white thinking. People tend to perceive complex systems in an oversimplified way: "If something doesn’t work as it should, then it’s entirely bad." This gives rise to the idea that the best way to solve a problem is to destroy its source, rather than gradually fix it.
🟥3. Emotional release through destruction. Destroying a system gives the illusion of control: if a person feels helpless in front of a complex structure, it’s easier for them to destroy it than to understand and reform it. This works on a personal level (relationship breakups, firing, moving) and on a collective level (revolutions, uprisings).
🟥4. Cognitive simplicity. Building is hard, it requires knowledge and patience. Destroying is quick and easy. Our brain is evolutionarily programmed to seek the simplest solutions, rather than accounting for the complexity of processes.
🟥5. Mythology. Many cultures have a myth that the world is created through the destruction of the old order (the Flood, the Apocalypse, Ragnarok, purification by fire). This forms the belief that progress is only possible through destruction. In traditional societies, the transition to a new status (from adolescent to adult, from peasant to leader) is often associated with the destruction of the old identity — symbolic death and rebirth. In archaic communities, new leaders often came to power by killing the old leaders, not through a smooth transition. This ingrained the idea that destroying the old is the natural way to renew.
This type of thinking has led to many medical errors and misconceptions in the past: removing tonsils to prevent infections, but it turned out that they play an important role in the immune system. Lobotomy for treating mental illnesses, but it turned out to cause personality changes and memory loss. Removing wisdom teeth to prevent jaw problems, but it turned out that they stabilize the jaw and help in chewing. Removing the appendix to prevent inflammation, but it turned out to help with immune defense, etc.
🤔What does this mean?
The further your phone is from you, the better you think
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4. Moral readiness to kill the aggressor.
It is read unconsciously and can only be acquired through real experience of confrontation. This is why it's beneficial for children to play "rough games without rules" and for both boys and girls to learn martial arts. They teach how to use force and endure pain from blows and attacks.
Remember, your brain and body are your primary weapons. The readiness to bite off the aggressor's ear or lip and strike them with any part of your body—head, fist, elbow, knee, or foot—is perceived nonverbally. It signals that you will be morally and physically ready to resist desperately rather than digging your grave. Even if the aggressor is stronger than you, you become a "difficult target" for them—they will refrain from aggression.
Psychopathy and Victim Selection: The Use of Gait as a Cue to Vulnerability February 2013 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 28(11)
The influence of body posture of bullying victim selection Brandilyn Judith Gilbert 2013
Attracting Assault: Victim's Nonverbal Cues. 1981 Journal of Communication 31 (1): 68–75.
‘Evil’ Intentions: Examining the Relationship between the Dark Tetrad and Victim Selection Based on Nonverbal Gait Cues.” Personality and Individual Differences 138 (February): 126–32
Don't fall before the shot or the gloomy shadow of the future and how to hack uncertainty. For our brains, uncertainty can be a source of joyful anticipation and possibilities and an overwhelming burden of despair. It depends on your abilities, expectations, and mental attitudes. When uncertainty and unpredictability are negatively perceived, their pressure becomes strong, and events that have not yet occurred darken life right now.
🫣Prediction of the future is one of the key functions of our brain; we can consider it as a kind of machine for simulating different scenarios and adapting to them in an anticipatory manner. Neurobiologically, predictions and expectations are encoded by the level of dopamine; its increase is an anticipation of good, and its decrease is a bad feeling.
This can be called the "shadow of the future" - how the expected future has the most immediate influence on our decisions, moods, and behavior today. We often spend today in the shadow of the future. That's why, for example, depression should be considered not so much as an influence of the past but as a consequence of distorting the vision of the future. A person in depression does not suffer from what is happening to them now - they suffer because they see nothing good in their future. Or, as Dr. Strange said, "I've seen a hundred thousand futures, and they all suck."
Bad ways to reduce the uncertainty of the future are quitting everything, finding faith, and following fortune-telling.
🟥1. This can lead not just to depression but to the point where you might just want to give up or procrastinate, not because the task is difficult but because of a low tolerance for uncertainty. Because when you give up, and abandon everything - the level of uncertainty noticeably decreases.
🟥2. You can find simple and incorrect explanations for what is happening, from conspiracy theories to religion, which provide clear forecasts.
🟥3. You can simply listen to modern fortune tellers about the entrails of sacrificial animals, coffee grounds, or birds' flight (today, we call them "experts").
Good ways to reduce uncertainty: develop mindfulness (meditate), be in the zone of the internal locus (do and focus on what you control and think less about other things), train the stoic skill of acceptance (from acceptance to following fate and finally to Amor Fati).
✅1. Developing mindfulness will allow you to often step out of the shadow of the future into the sunlight of the present
✅2. Focusing on the internal locus will allow you to stay within the chalk circle and be protected from anxieties
✅3. Acceptance skill will make you a stoic "dog on a leash, joyfully following the cart, rather than a dog being dragged by the cart."
Choose wisely! And don't fall before the shot.
The homeland of Europe. A major recent study on ancient DNA analysis was recently published, pinpointing the precise homeland of Europe—the village of Mykhailivka in the Beryslav district of Kherson region, Ukraine, which is currently under russian occupation. There, the burials of the earliest direct representatives of the Yamna culture were discovered. These people were not native to the area; they migrated here from the east, but it was in this region that they developed into an expansive and influential culture.
Five thousand years ago, small tribes lived here—numbering only a few thousand people, based on DNA variability. However, they created a series of groundbreaking innovations: from cultural advancements and military organization to horseback riding, wheeled transport, and metallurgy. Due to the passage of millennia, we can say little about the finer details of their cultural evolution, but one of their most significant developments was the emergence of individual consciousness.
Before the Yamna culture, burials were predominantly collective, but for the first time in history, they began to practice individual burials. These people spoke an Indo-European language, the ancestor of more than 400 modern languages.
The accumulation of innovations led to a rapid population growth and the expansion of their culture—not only westward, reaching as far as Portugal, but also eastward, all the way to China, Central Asia, and eventually India. Over the following centuries, the Yamna culture became dominant. Today, 65% of modern European men are direct genetic descendants of three Yamnaya chieftains who lived on the banks of the Dnipro River.
📖The genetic origin of the indo-europeans. Nature, volume 639, pages 132–142 (2025)
👁️For illustration—a facial reconstruction based on the skull of a Yamna chieftain (4200 years ago): age: 60+ Burial: in Asia, individual grave, seated as if on horseback. Ritual: Covered in red ochre
The manipulation technology has advanced so much that it can break the mind even of someone with strong critical thinking. So what should you do? The answer is simple—always start from the pillar!
When a train starts moving gently, it’s hard to tell whether your train is moving or the one next to you? The same goes for the mind—it’s not always clear who’s lost their grip on reality. The solution is simple: look at the pillar, and everything will become clear.
What can serve as such a pillar?
✅1. Autonomous Control Zone.
Every minute of attention, effort, and emotion spent on things you can’t control leads to burnout. Every minute spent on things you can control leads to progress and better health. Focus on what’s in your power: for example, donating to the Armed Forces of Ukraine effectively and safely reduces anxiety.
✅2. Information hygiene.
You can’t stay healthy in an unhealthy environment. We live not only in the physical world but also in the digital one. Imagine trying to be productive in a filthy garbage dump surrounded by disease and profanity. Why allow yourself to exist in such a space virtually?
✅3. Core values.
These have remained unchanged since Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: courage, moderation, generosity, magnanimity, truthfulness, friendliness, wit, justice, benevolence, and wisdom.
✅4. Fundamental rules.
The goal of manipulation is to create a virtual reality that benefits the aggressor and pull you into it, forcing you to play by their rules. Your task is simple—don’t step onto that field. You cannot win there. You have your real world, here and now—stay in it and live. Breathe. Listen to your body. Fill yourself with gratitude and awe.
✅5. The Best Version of Yourself.
If you’re unsure what to do, ask your best self for advice. Do I respect myself when I do this? Will I regret this in the future? Will I regret not doing this? If my 5-year-old and 95-year-old selves were watching, what would I do? If I had everything I needed, how would I act? Act accordingly.
✅6. Focus on stability.
Manipulation only works when it first throws you off balance. Anger, resentment, greed—these are hooks meant to pull you out of your safe zone. A stable daily routine, exercise, meditation, and sleep create the foundation that keeps everything else in place.
✅7. Self-care.
You will handle any future situation better if you become stronger—physically, mentally, socially, and financially. Focus on what makes you stronger, healthier, and happier, and do more of it. Stop doing what weakens you in the long run.
The principle of the Big Lie. The Big Lie is a long-standing and powerful propaganda technique, defined by Hitler as “a lie so ‘big’ that no one would believe someone would have the audacity to so shamelessly distort reality.” He described this principle, which he actively used:
"The more monstrous the lie, the sooner people will believe it. Ordinary people are more likely to believe a big lie than a small one. (…) And even when shown that it is a colossal lie, they will still doubt and tend to think that there is probably some truth to it."
Characteristics of the Big Lie:
🟥1. Spread by sociopaths and propagandists. Since sociopaths biologically do not experience any remorse or empathy and have no morals, they can lie with a complete absence of non-verbal and verbal signs of lying. Pathological liars show no signs of deception, making them highly convincing to others.
🟥2. Repetition effect. Have you noticed how U.S. or Russian media endlessly repeat the same phrases in identical wording? The Big Lie relies on relentless repetition—people perceive information as valid if they hear it repeatedly. Even if a statement initially seems false, constant repetition increases trust in it due to cognitive ease: information that is easier to process feels more truthful.
🟥3. Scale effect. The more grandiose or unbelievable the claim, the more it confuses people, making them less likely to analyze it critically. People may assume that a lie of such magnitude is too big to be fabricated entirely, so they believe there must be some truth. The Big Lie must be on an enormous scale and completely invert reality—turning murderers into heroes and victims into villains.
🟥4. Cognitive dissonance effect. The Big Lie must be absurd and contradict basic moral beliefs. This creates cognitive dissonance, forcing people to rationalize the lie instead of rejecting it outright. Attempts to refute or analyze the lie only reinforce its effect. The Big Lie constantly shifts and lacks logic—similar to the “word salad” tactic used by abusers, designed to confuse the audience and make them create their own explanations for the lie.
🟥5. Social pressure effect. Liars are always backed by a team of other liars who echo the dictator’s falsehoods. When a lie is supported by authorities or a large group, individuals tend to accept it as truth to avoid social rejection. Social networks now reinforce this effect—there are no longer independent social media platforms, as their algorithms are entirely controlled by anti-democratic regimes.
🟥6. The Big Lie must be gratifying and boost the ego of those who spread it or believe in it. Hitler’s lie about a Jewish conspiracy eased Germans’ humiliation after their war defeat. Putin’s lies appeal to Russians by letting them imagine progress despite their actual decline. Trump’s lies let his followers fantasize about greatness long lost. The Big Lie is always a form of flattery and seduction, like a drug that makes people feel "great" and "part of something important" while actually destroying them.
🟥7. Everything will be the exact opposite. If Bolsheviks promise land to peasants, they will lose even their little land. If Musk promises freedom of speech, people will get censorship. If Lukashenko says Belarus has no political prisoners, it becomes the world's leader in prisoners per capita. If Putin calls others fascists, he is the fascist himself. If Trump claims to make America great, he actually destroys U.S. influence, military strength, financial stability, and institutions. The Big Lie must always be understood with a negative sign.
What to do?
✅1. Do not listen to or analyze pathological liars.
For example, during his first presidency, Trump deliberately lied 20,055 times over 1,267 days—about 16 times per day. Every lie has been fact-checked and compiled in a separate book. Analyzing lies is a pointless and mentally harmful activity.
The outward behavior of people who fanatically (almost sexually) adore tyrants, murderers, and criminals—who inevitably end up robbing and killing their own followers—may seem strange (fatal attraction phenomenon). However, from a biological perspective, this is a well-documented and widespread phenomenon.
▶️Let’s illustrate this with mice. A regular, healthy mouse instinctively fears and avoids the smell of cat urine, stays away from open spaces, and moves cautiously and discreetly. Now imagine a healthy mouse observing other mice that suddenly adore the smell of cat urine, become sexually aroused, seek it out, and roll in it. These mice become hyperactive, fearless, and run into open spaces—where cats inevitably eat them.
🤔Madness? What makes the mice love the smell of cat urine and rush toward their own demise? This is not some complex secret conspiracy but a primitive single-celled parasite—Toxoplasma gondii. Infection with the parasite rewires the neurobiology of mice and rats: changes in the dopamine system invert attraction—what was once fear of cat urine turns into an obsession with it, while modifications in the amygdala make the mouse fearless, eliminating its natural aversion to open spaces.
Parasites are not limited to biological organisms; they also exist in the form of memes ("certain systems of misbelief can be fruitfully treated as cultural parasites"). Destructive cultural memes (or mental viruses) are parasites of consciousness.
💬They follow the same principles as parasitic invasions: they target weakened individuals, cluster hosts into dense groups to facilitate transmission, and compel infected individuals to spread the parasite (as seen in the mouse-cat example). The parasite is indifferent to its host's death—it only cares that the host infects enough new victims before dying.
A meme-parasite becomes an obsession, a sacred idea for an infected person. This is why debating is futile—it's like arguing with a mouse that gets turned on by the smell of cat urine. Likewise, those infected with destructive ideologies (such as rashism, fascism, islamism, conspiracy theories etc) lose rationality. To defend against such threats, we must apply classical parasitology methods. Here are two key principles:
✅1. Cultural identity as immunity.
Maintaining and fostering cultural identity (on all levels—personal, familial, regional, national, civilizational, and the broader identity of Western civilization and humanity itself) is crucial. Preserving one's cultural identity is essential for both mental and physical health—it makes one immune to ideological infections, mentally and physically stronger.
✅2. Cultural quarantine as a preventive measure to survive.
It is evident that nations need their own firewalls and independent social networks to survive, as mainstream media has become a laboratory for manufacturing meme-parasites. Establishing a complete cultural quarantine against harmful and destructive cultures from early childhood is also critical. The essence of cultural quarantine is the total isolation of epidemic centers of destructive meme-parasites, preventing their spread.
📖Parasites of the mind. Why cultural theorists need the meme’s eye view Сognitive Systems Research Volume 52, December 2018, Pages 155-167
Why join groups? Lessons from parasite-manipulated Artemia Ecol Lett 2013 Apr;16(4):493-501.
Predator Cat Odors Activate Sexual Arousal Pathways in Brains of Toxoplasma gondii Infected Rats 2011 PLoS ONE 6(8): e23277
You need to be more careful when consuming content than when consuming food. You can vomit up spoiled food, but it is impossible to get mental poison out of your head, just as it is impossible to understand that you have been poisoned.
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🤔A growing concern is that in the U.S., a disproportionate number of drug addicts have gained unchecked power and influence. As early as 2023, Musk was restricted from accessing classified SpaceX information due to parties involving ketamine, ecstasy, and cocaine. This list extends to other members of the new administration: Congressman Matt Gaetz (cocaine, ecstasy), Health Department head Kennedy (amphetamine and heroin), Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth (alcoholism), and so on.
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False novelty and variety. The unfamiliar is more interesting than the familiar, a new author is more interesting than an old one, and a new sort of candy is more attractive than an old one. Falling into the trap of false variety, using the allure of novelty, we become not explorers but instead rats, endlessly pressing the lever to get more stimulation of dopamine centers in the brain.
Let's talk about the trap of novelty, how new things are often worse than old ones, using food, sex, and information as examples.
▶️1. Attraction and sex.
The Coolidge effect influences diversity and novelty; the new seems more attractive than the familiar. Biologically, this is an increase in sexual activity in the presence of a female ready for fertilization, which the brain perceives as a unique opportunity. Strangers are most attractive. Interestingly, when a man sees a woman's photo for only the second time, he perceives her as less attractive. The desire for novelty (as in sex or porn addiction) turns into sexual addiction, leading to hyperstimulation and dopamine burnout. A person stops getting pleasure from normal stimuli and people and slides into pathology.
▶️2. Appetite and overeating.
The smorgasbord effect - we overeat diverse food but tend to decrease consumption of the same. The variety of processed and calorie-rich food only increases overeating. An abundance of different delicious dishes on one table is a big temptation. The more diverse the food on the table, the more we eat. High-calorie foods are rare in nature, so the body strives to consume them in bulk and store them in fat tissue for possible future threats. Manufacturers make hundreds of various colorful, different flavors and smells products from sugar and flour, stimulating interest in them using the diversity effect. Use uniformity and simplisity regarding high-calorie foods, no more than one per meal.
▶️3. Curiosity and doomscrolling.
The trap of getting stuck in social networks - algorithms consume our attention, stimulating with diversity and pseudo-useful information. Our brain seeks to learn new things that are important for survival. The most important thing is information about threats and maintaining our social status. So, instead of benefiting, we only charge ourselves with hostility in online tribal wars, rise our narcissism, and hyperstimulate the amygdala with an endless stream of bad news and conspiracy fakes (paranoia, fakes, and trash spread in social media much faster than helpful information). Information overload leads to isolation, mood decline, passivity, increased stress, and worsened decision-making. Social network feeds are designed only for endless consumption of your attention.
What to do? 🤔
✅Replace false variety with true variety.
For example, use variety for low-calorie and healthy foods. Four types of seaweed, three types of nuts, five types of legumes, ten types of greens, and two dozen spices. Using the "rainbow" principle, add more colorful vegetables and fruits. This way, vegetables won't get boring, and you'll enjoy eating them. Use variety in shared experiences with your spouse, starting from activities and fun and ending with varied sex. In consuming information, use several quality sources to validate and cross-check one idea or study one phenomenon from all sides. True variety strengthens your body, your psyche, and your relationships, makes you stronger and more authentic. False variety is the addict's chase for another dose, which destroys you.
✅True variety in life is an enriched environment.
It includes visual, social, motor, and many other diverse stimuli, provides opportunities for control and broad participation in society, to study, interact, and receive feedback, contains many opportunities, and can be used; you can try without fear of making mistakes. Aesthetics, friends, leisure, work, worthy challenges - all this heals without exaggeration. An enriched environment heals obesity and addictions and can even slow down the rate of tumor growth and prolong life.
"Land and water." Such was the ultimatum from the ambassadors of the vast Persian Empire to the few and scattered Greek city-states. The demand for land and water meant that the opponent had to not only lay down their arms and surrender but also grant the Persians control over all the land and everything produced on it; the Persians would have absolute power over all the inhabitants of the conquered lands, and the lives of the subjects would now be at the mercy of the Persians. During further negotiations, the Persians determined what rights the conquered would be allowed. Even in modern Greek, "land and water" is synonymous with complete submission.
You know Sparta's reaction to this ultimatum. The Spartans threw the Persian ambassadors into a deep well, saying that there, the Persians would dig up their own land and find enough water.
In the history of these wars, there is everything – the bribery of votes in the Athenian democracy by the Persians, the overthrow of the Athenian tyrant Hippias, who betrayed the Greeks and fled to the Persians, and the Persians demanding the restoration of his power. There were also attempts by tyrants and aristocracies of individual city-states to submit and surrender their cities to the Persians, just to prevent the democratic party from gaining the upper hand. At first, it seemed like there was no chance – the Persians broke through the Thermopylae (see 300 Spartans), Athens fell.
✅But in the scattered city-states, the consciousness of their national unity had already awakened. Mutual quarrels were forgotten, and dozens of city-states formed a military alliance. Coordinated tactics and high morale helped the Greeks fight fantastically against vastly superior enemy forces. In the Battle of Marathon, 10,000 Greeks defeated 26,000 Persians, with the Greeks losing 192 men and the Persians losing 6,400.
✅The Greco-Persian wars ended with the victory of Greek civilization, and the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire was halted. These victories became the catalyst for Greek culture, instilling in them the awareness of their greatness, the triumph of freedom over slavery, and the establishment of democracy in most city-states – which led to the incredible rise of the economy, trade, construction, thought, and culture, creating a majestic civilization. This civilization, in turn, became a model for Roman and Western culture, and thus, a part of each of us.
Athena is not only the goddess of wisdom but, first and foremost, the goddess of strategy and just warfare in ancient Greek mythology. Unlike Ares, who personifies the chaos of battle, she wages wars wisely, protecting order and justice. Her symbols are the owl, shield, and spear.
Wisdom and bravery were inseparable for the Greeks, as Thucydides aptly observed in 460 BCE: "A society that separates intellectuals from warriors will get weak thinkers and warlike fools."
Carnage and culture : landmark battles in the rise of Western power Hanson, Victor Davis 2001
Nonsense as a weapon. One of the most underestimated psychological weapons is nonsense. Rationally planned irrationality is a powerful tool for attacking the body and psyche. Meaningless words, actions, and goals serve a purposeful goal of suppression and repression.
✅1. Uncontrollable stress.
Any stress that cannot be understood is more harmful than comprehensible stress. When a doctor explains the purpose of a procedure, it becomes easier to endure. To humiliate recruits, they are made to perform meaningless actions like painting grass or cutting it with manicure scissors. The endless digging and then filling of holes was practiced in Soviet and Nazi concentration camps to suppress the will of prisoners. Thus, nonsense here serves as an additional torture tool.
✅2. Verbal nonsense.
Word salad is a favorite trick of all kinds of deceivers and bearers of the dark triad (psychopaths, narcissists, manipulators). The stream of meaningless words from the deceiver diverts your attention, overloading the prefrontal cortex that tries to make sense of it and preventing you from noticing the deception. This is essentially a classic DoS attack on your brain.
✅3. Disorientation and distraction.
Nonsense as a camouflage weapon makes you feel smarter than the attacker, causing you to perceive them as foolish and stop tracking their intentions, thus becoming distracted. This is precisely what is needed – under the guise of a silly and ignorant person being mocked, it is much easier to deceive and commit crimes. If it’s impossible to understand, then there’s no need to know what they want, and you can start ignoring them.
When you realize that absurdity is not stupidity but a weapon, it becomes easier to recognize and resist it.
"Think not lightly of evil, saying, 'It will not come to me.'
Even a water-pot is filled by the falling of drops.
Likewise, the fool, gathering little by little,
fills himself with evil."
"Think not lightly of good, saying, 'It will not come to me.'
Even a water-pot is filled by the falling of drops.
Likewise, the wise man, gathering little by little,
fills himself with good."
Photo - Man Carving His Own Destiny is a sculpture by Albin Polasek. It shows how we must all carve ourselves out from the rock which we are born within. That this sculpting of one’s life and one’s being into a work of art is the purpose of life.
The idea of total destruction as a way to create a new order is a primitive fallacy. In reality, the most successful changes happen through evolution, not through chaos. Destruction without a plan leads to degradation, so it’s essential to always understand the hidden complexity of systems — without this, it’s impossible to improve them.
That is why it is so important not to succumb to the childish-barbaric enthusiasm of destructive ideologies that propose to destroy our entire world, hoping that something much better will suddenly emerge from the ruins. It never does, and it never will. This is precisely why Mother Nature uses evolution for her masterpieces—thousands of random experiments, continuous accumulation of adaptive changes, and their transmission to future generations.
👁️This is why healthy conservatism works—as the idea of a union and an unbroken chain of mutual responsibility between the dead, the living, and the yet-to-be-born.
The dangerous myth of the noble savage. One of the most widespread and extremely dangerous myths is the myth of the noble savage, who is unspoiled by civilization, represents an example of morality and ethics, and lives in harmony with nature. This myth is universal for all times and cultures, whether it be the story of the Garden of Eden, the Sumerian Enkidu living with animals, or Roman historians praising barbarians and deriding decadent Rome. Modern narratives, such as the movie Avatar, exploit this same myth.
How did this myth originate? "Before being open, the savage was first invented." Its widespread dissemination suggests probable biological reasons, something akin to escapism, infantile regression, dopamine-induced self-deception fantasies (imagining oneself as better than others), or the fact that we forget bad things faster than good things (thus creating a cognitive illusion that the past was better)—such is the protective mechanism.
The image of the "natural man" is used by various ideologies: for the right, it is a mystical savage with a cult of strength; for the left, it is "primitive communism" with the complete deconstruction of culture. Both ideologies seduce the common man, attacking culture and civilization: for the right, civilization is what suppresses and weakens human strength and potential; for the left, culture is an instrument of oppression and invention of dominant classes. The truth lies only with the savage, the truth lies only with the "simple man," only with the oppressed, and only the savage can be right.
In reality, the lives of hunter-gatherers look very different. It's an incredibly high level of violence - "war of all against all." It's infanticide, geronticide, cannibalism. It's a complete absence of individual rights - they are all just part of the herd. It's the highest level of intra-family violence. Only in intergroup wars do an average of 25-35% of men between the ages of 15 and 49 die. For example, one studied settlement was attacked 25 times in 17 months. No private property exists - your fellow tribesmen will immediately seize everything you acquire. Hunter-gatherers do not adhere to morality or mercy in the commonly accepted sense.
The danger of the myth of the "noble savage" (the simple man) is that it is highly destructive and dangerous for society. Becoming good accidentally is as impossible as accidentally typing a poem by randomly pressing keys. All the good in our lives is not the result of regression or deconstruction but the result of the persistent efforts of many people: institutions, economy, architecture, laws - all of these are created very slowly and can be destroyed instantly. Destruction is sharply asymmetrical to construction - one person obsessed with destruction and necrophilia can undo the results of generations of constructive work. It is much easier and faster for a person and society to fall than to rise.
Civilization arose and developed thanks to cultural evolution—the accumulation of knowledge, experience, rules, cooperation, and interaction of many people, their self-organization, and nonviolent interaction. Civilization has created the goods that we enjoy, not savages. Dangerous right-wing and left-wing ideologies about the destruction of society and culture as a way to become better and purer are extremely dangerous and destructive views aimed at inflating the worst impulses in human nature, appealing to its dark side. Destroying or canceling culture will not give you a Superhuman but a Superpredator.
Eccentricity or psychopathy? For example, a person in a tuxedo and top hat walking down the street, speaking in riddles, and handing out candies because he likes it. Is this okay? Yes, this is normal eccentric behavior if the person is aware of the distinctiveness of their behavior, controls their emotions, and behaves safely. If you ask an eccentric person, they would say, "Yes, I understand that my behavior is strange, I realize how others perceive me, I just enjoy walking with a top hat without causing harm to others."
A person with frontal psychopathy can do the same, but they would not fully realize their inadequacy, fail to control their emotions, and might suddenly become aggressive if you ask them about the top hat.
You’ve probably seen this pattern of behavior many times – in the early stages of dementia, alcoholic encephalopathy, head injuries, and many other brain injuries – the same behavior pattern is often referred to as frontal lobe personality. This condition is often mistaken for eccentricity, although it is a medical disorder. It can occur suddenly after a brain injury (a polite person turns into an aggressive animal within hours), rapidly (due to drug or alcohol-related dementia), or moderately (dementia).
When the frontal lobes are damaged, the higher brain functions are impaired – self-reflection, critical analysis, empathy, the ability to see situations from different perspectives, and most importantly, the inhibitory function of the brain cortex is disrupted, leading to behavioral disinhibition (loss of impulse control).
Key symptoms of frontal lobe personality:
▶️1. Euphoria. Сonstantly elevated mood, inappropriate excitement without clear reasons.
▶️2. Silliness. Use of grandiose terms and words, tactlessness, inappropriate jokes, childish behavior, grimacing, and make-believe.
▶️3. Constant impulsive and unpredictable aggression. Impulsivity, obsessive dominance in any situation, mood swings. Uncontrolled outbursts of anger and rudeness even over trivial matters or no apparent reason.
▶️4. Pathological lying. Systematic lying even without clear benefit. The patient doesn’t remember what they said or did and denies their actions and words.
▶️5. Loss of goal-directed behavior. Difficulty in planning, reluctance to control oneself, chaotic switching between activities without a long-term plan.
▶️6. Hypersexuality and inappropriate behavior. Crude jokes, fixation on sex in inappropriate forms.
▶️7. Egocentrism and loss of self-criticism. Leading to a sense of grandeur. Inability to admit mistakes, insisting others comply, loss of empathy, susceptibility to flattery, easily believes compliments, constantly seeks approval and recognition, and fails to notice the falseness in flattery (loss of healthy skepticism).
▶️8. Antisocial behavior. The patient takes pleasure in the demonstrative violation of social norms, emphasizes antisocial behavior, has a tendency towards sadistic and vandalistic destructive behavior, and enjoys torturing others.
What to do?
It’s important to understand that this is not a personality trait, but a biological loss of adequacy. It’s impossible to reason with such a person or understand their motives – this is impossible. The loss of impulse control and behavioral disinhibition essentially make them cognitively impaired.
📖📖📖Personality in Frontal Lobe Disorders Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2000 Oct;2(5):446–451. doi: 10.1007/s11920-000-0031-5
What Do We Mean by Behavioral Disinhibition in Frontotemporal Dementia? Front. Neurol. , 07 July 2021 Sec. Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Volume 12 - 2021
Areas of Brain Damage Underlying Increased Reports of Behavioral Disinhibition J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2015 May 11;27(3):193–198.
Walking like a victim: how to avoid being an easy target. Predators often target those they perceive as "easy prey" – weakened individuals. Similarly, in human studies, criminals consistently choose specific individuals from a list of potential targets. Interestingly, carriers of sadistic and psychopathic traits are much more accurate at identifying vulnerable individuals than the average person.
They do this subconsciously, primarily assessing gait, posture, and gaze patterns. The success of predators lies in their much more accurate understanding of a victim's vulnerability.
In humans, as social animals, displaying vulnerability also serves another purpose as a social signal that you refuse to fight for social rank and acknowledge your submission.
Evolutionarily, a submissive posture (and infantile behavior) signifies acknowledgment of defeat to prevent further aggression in the struggle for status. You can observe this in animals – they roll onto their backs and "raise their paws," exposing their vulnerable spots. Depression also leads to changes in posture, causing a person to shrink, as if trying to take up as little space as possible and avoiding drawing attention to oneself. However, while this mechanism may alleviate the pressure of competitive struggle, it unfortunately attracts predators.
Let's dissect the three main signs of an "easy target":
1. Gait.
The gait is a primary indicator of a victim. An unsteady, swaying walk, as if the person is dragging their feet. Differences in gait include stride length (short or long versus medium), weight shifting (up and down as opposed to lateral), lateral or contralateral movement, and placement of feet: lifted feet versus swung, resulting in a non-synchronous gait.
2. Posture.
Potential victims might unconsciously transmit vulnerability through what researchers have termed “gestural hinting”. This includes a slouched posture, timid movements, restless hand movements, and lack of coordination. Victims exhibit disjointed gestures, such as non-fluid body movements or the lifting, rather than graceful swinging, of the feet.
3. Gaze.
An indicator of an easy target is whether you are present at the moment (and aware of potential threats) or lost in thought. Signs include avoiding direct eye contact, not reacting to stares, not looking around, and failing to notice surveillance or signs of an impending attack. Ask yourself, in what state do you walk the streets?
How to become a difficult target.
1. Posture, gait, and gaze.
Maintain a poised, relaxed, and steady posture. Be present in the moment. Walk with an easy, athletic stride, showing alertness and energetic movements. Non-victims “have an organized quality” about their body movements, appearing comfortable in their actions. This is why abusers are so irritated by the behavior of free individuals – smiling, straightened shoulders, direct eye contact – it aggravates them.
2. Interrupt victimization.
Often, physical violence is preceded by psychological manipulation – the intended victim and those around them are constantly told of their inadequacy, and they are discredited and victimized in various ways. This is done to make the person believe they are "inferior" and not resist, preventing others from standing up for them. Constantly interrupt any attempts at victimization, whether directed at you or others, in person or online. Remember that verbal victimization precedes physical violence. Also, avoid self-victimization cause it attracts abusers.
3. Refuse negotiations about how to be eaten.
Attempts to find a compromise, negotiate, or demonstrate compliance only show your weakness to the bearer of dark intentions and increase the likelihood of aggression. Only a demonstration of strength can stop a sadist or psychopath. Yes, perhaps the sadist is stronger than you, but if you show that you can cause significant harm to them, it will deter them from attacking (remember that they always have narcissistic traits and fear being harmed). Negotiations can only be made with those willing and able to negotiate.
Quick stress relief here and now: 12 Ideas
✅1. Restore sensory connection:
Focus on external stimuli instead of internal emotions. Use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: 5 things you see, 4 things you touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell, 1 thing you taste. Pay attention to the people around you.
✅2. Physical contact:
Engage in activities involving the body: self-massage, rubbing ears or the sides of the nose, kneading hands and feet, towel rubbing, or using massage rollers.
✅3. Teeth:
Chewing reduces cortisol levels and improves concentration. Chewing gum or crunchy snacks like carrots work well.
✅4. Breathing:
Practice breath control techniques like a double inhale, square breathing, or slow diaphragmatic breathing. Apps like Breath Ball can guide you.
✅5. Language:
Read aloud, recite poems, sing, or even vent. Reading aloud helps distract and reset your mind. Alternatively, press your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
✅6. Eyes:
Could you fix your gaze on one point, such as the bridge of your nose, to stop racing thoughts?
✅7. Hands and feet: Engage in repetitive motor activities, like counting prayer beads or making monotonous movements, which calm the brain. Jumping, walking, chopping wood, or digging can also help.
✅8. Focus on one thought:
Repeat a thought to yourself to maintain contact with reality. Use self-supportive phrases like, “I can handle this.”
✅9. Distraction:
Do something that fully absorbs your attention, such as playing a simple game like Tetris. Even holding a plank position can help you forget your worries.
✅10. Posture:
Stand up straight, lift your head, and roll back your shoulders. An open posture reduces fear and stress. Try standing this way in front of a mirror.
✅11. Visualization:
Imagine stress overwhelming you, but then realize nothing actually happens! Absurdity helps release tension. Visualize your fear as a metaphor and "squash" it like a bug.
✅12. Physical stress as hormesis:
Counter psychological stress with beneficial physical stress. Physical stress activates anti-stress mechanisms: heat: sauna or hot baths; cold: cold showers; exertion: lifting weights or engaging in strenuous activity.
Dear women! Empower yourselves—sign up for martial arts. It will not only boost your confidence, but the inner readiness to take a hit and strike hard is incredibly beneficial for both mental and physical health.
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✅2. Focus on actions, not false words.
It has long been clear that Trump will never provide real aid. He blocked military aid to Ukraine in 2019, even at the risk of impeachment, did so again last year, and will continue to block it. Lies about “minerals,” “clothing,” or “peace” are just coercion to surrender or victim-blaming. Of course, no help will come after surrender, either.
✅3. Practice information hygiene.
Refuting or mocking the Big Lie only spreads it further. Instead, repeat the truth. The more you analyze a lie, the more likely you are to start believing it yourself (!!). Stop taking their words seriously altogether once you have identified a person or group as liars.
Ἁγία Σοφία - the temple of reason. Walking through the old town of Paphos with children, I always come across the Byzantine Church of Saint Sophia. The construction of such a church as the main cathedral is always a political gesture and a claim to independence and power. After all, it refers to the Great Sophia standing at the heart of Constantinople.
A thousand years ago, far from here, the three most prominent centers of Rus’ built grand stone central cathedrals of Saint Sophia in their capitals. Kyiv was the first to begin construction, followed five years later by Prince Vseslav the Sorcerer, who started building Sophia in the heart of Polotsk in Belarus. At the same time, the construction of Sophia in Novgorod commenced. Thus, the three most powerful principalities made a bold statement about their independence and ambitions.
Much has changed since then—Novgorod’s republic lasted for 600 years before being conquered by the Moscow principality. The Belarusian Sophia did not survive in its original form—during the war in 1705, Tsar Peter I entered the cathedral, began hacking apart icons, personally slaughtered five monks, and then ordered the church to be blown up. After the war, Sophia was rebuilt—but in a different style, and Belarus remains unfree to this day. Only Kyiv’s Saint Sophia remains free, though now it trembles under missile strikes from Russian forces.
Continuing the symbolism of Sophia’s cathedrals, it is essential to note that they were not dedicated to a saint. The original Sophia of Constantinople was consecrated in honor of the “Divine Wisdom,” the “Reason of God” (Ἁγία Σοφία). Reason and wisdom were considered divine qualities, referencing a passage from the Bible where Christ is called the “Wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). In essence, this was a temple of reason, civilization, enlightenment, and truth—standing in opposition to ignorance, barbarism, and paganism.
Many other churches in Constantinople were similarly named after divine virtues that people sought to cultivate. Before Sophia, the center of Constantinople saw the construction of the Church of Saint Irene (Ἁγία Εἰρήνη)—dedicated to peace in its broadest sense, as the peace of God and harmony. The Church of Saint Agape honored divine love, while the Church of Saint Dikaiosyne (Ἁγία Δικαιοσύνη) represented divine justice, and so on.
The Temple of Reason as the central place of worship was no coincidence. The ancient world's foundation was the reverence for reason and law among civilized people. In contrast, ignorance, the cult of brute force, and cruelty belonged to the realm of primitive barbarians. Reason, or Logos—the Divine Wisdom in Christian tradition—has always been venerated.
But today, we see the resurgence of barbarism. Its defining trait is hatred of reason—misology. Scholars and intellectuals are despised, and brute force takes precedence over logic. Truth is found in violence. Whoever dominates, whoever violates another, is deemed right. What should we do? We must not emulate them. Instead, we should follow Seneca’s advice: "If you wish to rule over all, let reason rule over you. You will command many if reason commands you."
Three thousand years ago, the "Western Dream" was born in the ancient poleis—the equality of all citizens before the law. Non rex est lex, sed lex est rex. (Not the king is the law, but the law is king.)
For the ancient Greeks, this was the defining characteristic of a civilized man, distinguishing him from a barbarian. Barbarians submit only to violence and never to rules or agreements. The Hellenes, however, saw themselves as civilized and free—they did not submit to any earthly ruler, only to the law. Among the Hellenes, all were free; among the barbarians, all were slaves except for their ruler.
As Euripides’ Jason proclaimed:
"First and foremost, you are in Hellas now and no longer among barbarians; you have learned the law and justice instead of the violence that reigns among your people."
What do drunk people, low-status individuals, and populist politicians have in common? They use the same speech pattern that targets the amygdala— the part of the brain responsible for stereotypical reactions (fight, flight, freeze). When overstimulated, it can shut down prefrontal cortex activity, effectively "hijacking" the brain (amygdala hijack).
Once you recognize this pattern, understand that no discussion or problem-solving will happen— it’s purely an attack on your amygdala to provoke emotions and manipulate you. The core of this manipulation is to create imaginary threats (which you want to avoid) and fabricate imaginary rewards— pushing you exactly where the manipulator wants you to go.
The SCARF model involves five domains of human social experience: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.
Status is about relative importance to others. Certainty concerns being able to predict the future.
Autonomy provides a sense of control over events.
Relatedness is a sense of safety with others, of friend rather than foe.
Fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people.
This model is called SCARF, and here’s how it works:
▶️1. Status
Fear tactic: You (we) are being insulted! I'll make them respect me! Do you respect me? Do you even know who I am? No one respects us! If you don’t do this, you’ll lose respect. No one takes you seriously. You’re just a pawn.
Guidance: Do this, and you’ll earn respect. Do it— what, are you not a real man? Flattery: You are great; we are great (Great Reich, Russia, USA, etc.). Your voice will be heard. We’re doing it all for you.
Antidote: My status is based on my real actions and cannot be shaken by external factors.
▶️2. Certainty
Fear tactic: Enemies, deep state, migrants, conspiracies— they’re coming for us! Conspiracies are everywhere! The most important thing is to avoid war! What are you stirring up? Your future is stolen, and only horror and misery await.
Guidance: We will bring order and stability. We will protect our way of life. We are 100% going to be the best in the world and will defeat all our enemies tomorrow— guaranteed!
Antidote: Amor fati. Reality is the best starting point. The world is unpredictable; I can control only a small part of my actions. The only true certainty is that I will die one day.
▶️3. Autonomy
Fear tactic: They will take away your freedom! They dictate what others must do! You can’t do anything on your own; they have taken all your rights!
Guidance: We will be independent from everyone! We are self-sufficient! You will decide for yourself and do whatever you want.
Antidote: No one is truly independent. We are part of a whole society and must learn to cooperate rather than fight.
▶️4. Relatedness
Fear tactic: They want to divide us, make us fight! You don’t belong there!
Guidance: We are one gang, one race, one nation— a single family! Brothers in arms! Parades, crowds, unity, dissolving into the mass.
Antidote: I choose to interact with people voluntarily, based on mutual agreement and values. I understand that I cannot control others' thoughts or force them to be different.
▶️5. Fairness
Fear tactic: This is unfair! It shouldn't be this way! They violated justice! You (we) were deceived!
Guidance: We will make things fair! We are a socially oriented state! We’ll settle things properly, by the code, fair and square. I will restore historical justice and bring back honest deals.
Antidote: A fair world is a cognitive illusion. Only my own actions can be (un)just.
What to do?
Understand clearly that these are manipulation tactics. Communication on this level is pointless— it belongs to either cynical manipulators or drunkards arguing about who respects whom in a garbage-strewn alley. When a conversation devolves into "respect," "merging with the crowd," or "making you great," the best option is to leave the room.
📖sCARF: A brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others. NeuroLeadership. Journal, 1, 78-87. Rock, D. (2009). Managing with the brain in mind.
Yesterday, a russian drone flew into a bedroom at night and killed an entire family—husband and wife: Tetiana Kulyk, a journalist "Ukrinform," and her husband, Pavlo Ivanchov, an oncolog surgeon and head of the Department of Surgery at the National Medical University. Justice for all Russian war criminals is inevitable!
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Violence and drugs - how stimulants provoke terror and wars. Drugs are often used to dehumanize people, induce a manic state for mass killings. Short-term use causes obsession and weakens fear, conscience, and empathy; medium-term use creates dependence on the supplier; long-term use leads to "addictive personality deformation." If an adult's character suddenly changes, it is a red flag—this is very often a sign of drug addiction.
For example, cocaine alters personality irreversibly much faster than other drugs: it causes depression, emotional blunting, loss of ability to recognize details, constant mood swings, a false sense of grandeur, overconfidence, and arrogance. Addicts develop an "ability" to lie convincingly (emotional dullness makes lies more persuasive), lose self-criticism, frequently experience paranoid delusions even when not using, and moral and ethical norms deteriorate.
Here are examples where drugs became part of politics and violence (even though these movements officially banned them. For example, Nazis and Islamists formally oppose drug use but actively utilize them in practice).
🟥1. The medieval islamic sect of the Assassins used hashish to put their members into a euphoric state before missions. According to legend, they were shown paradise-like gardens under the drug’s influence, promising a return after successful assassinations. The very word "assassin" originates from "hashashin" (hashish users).
🟥2. The jacobin terror. Revolutionaries actively used cheap opium and laudanum (opium tincture in alcohol) before battles and mass executions by guillotine.
🟥3. The bolsheviks during the Red Terror. Morphine and cocaine were widely used by revolutionary bolsheviks during killings and looting and by chekists for interrogations and tortures before executions. Drug addiction spread across all social layers. The infamous "Baltic Tea" was a mix of cocaine dissolved in vodka. Drugs commonly used in Soviet Russia at the time included hashish, opium, cocaine, morphine, and heroin. Drug use became a part of everyday life.
🟥4. The Nazi regime. Hitler’s personal physician Theodor Morell prescribed him Pervitin (methamphetamine) in 1936 to combat depression and enhance work capacity. Soon, not only the entire Reich leadership (Himmler, Göring) but also pilots and tank crews were using it. During the Blitz from April to June 1940, about 3 million German soldiers, sailors, and pilots took Pervitin. Later he added cocaine to his daily methamphetamine intake, and in 1944, he also started using oxycodone.
🟥5. During the Great Terror of 1938, cocaine had lost popularity, and executioners carried out tortures and killings under the influence of alcohol. Notably, "the front 100 grams" (a ration of vodka) was given to almost every Soviet soldier during World War II. A drunk soldier's risk of dying increased by 50–60% compared to a sober one (due to slowed reactions, poor risk assessment, etc.).
🟥6. Cartel mercenaries often consumed cocaine before murders to increase aggression and eliminate fear. Armed groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) used cocaine not only to finance their revolution but also to boost combat morale. Fighters took drugs before attacks to suppress fear and enhance aggression.
🟥7. It is difficult to estimate cocaine consumption in Russia, but one incident involved a 400 kg batch discovered being transported through diplomatic mail. Estimates suggest at least 15–20% of Russian soldiers are using drugs during the current war (mostly cheap alpha-PVP, and to a lesser extent, amphetamine and mephedrone).
🟥8. Islamic terrorist groups. ISIS and Hamas actively use the amphetamine-like drug Captagon. It helps terrorists stay aggressive, alert, and fearless during attacks and executions. Captagon was produced on an industrial scale in Syria by the Assad regime and distributed across the region.
Шаноўнае спадарства! Віншую вас з днем беларускай мовы! Жадаю вам абудзіць імпэт і памкненне да сваіх каранеў, каб яны падсілкоўвалі і падмацоўвалі вас цягам усяго жыцця. Нават невялікія крокі здольны вывесьці вас у правільным накірунку. Бо мова абараняе, мова таксама задае мысленьне і сьветапогляд, каштоўнасьці і імкненні. Мова – гэта зброя і імунітэт вашай псіхікі, выратаванне ў часы псіхічных эпідэмій. Мае тэксты можна чытаць на беларускай мове.
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Barbarians rule through terror. Therefore, wherever they come to power, sacred objects are often items of violence, murder and humiliation. These items are displayed at rallies, parades, and in museums; they are kissed and revered.
Read the message clear: look at this chainsaw – it is a symbol of mass murder.
Here is what we can remember, both recent and distant:
🟥Skulls, scalps, severed heads. Genghis Khan's troops, after conquests, often built pyramids from the skulls of slain city inhabitants (for example, in Nishapur or Baghdad) as a symbol of terror and intimidation. Skull towers of the Aztecs.
🟥The "Wagner" sledgehammer – used as an execution tool and a propagandist symbol, embodying cruelty and strength. It is kept as a sacred object of veneration. Other less revered objects of violence and torture in the Mopstan – a mop, a bottle.
🟥Agricultural hoes in Cambodia – used for intimidation and execution, for burying alive or bludgeoning to death to save bullets.
🟥Nuclear missiles. The reverence for nuclear weapons over time became a cult of destruction, referring to their ability not only to annihilate but also to intimidate, introducing the idea into people's consciousness that the world can be controlled through the threat of total catastrophe.
🟥The French guillotine – During the era of revolutionary terror, the guillotine became a cult symbol of "just" destruction of enemies of the Republic, appearing in cartoons, medals, and propaganda.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. (Einstein)
Goosebumps as transformative therapy. In everyday life, we often lose sight of one of the most essential unique human emotions – awe. It is a simultaneous combination of reverent awe, fear, and delight, it is a positive and instrumental emotion for physical and psychological health. Awe has been perceived as the highest sacred emotion since ancient times, associated with recognizing forces immeasurably more significant than yourself (sacred awe or fear of God).
✅Awe is manifested physically: we feel small in front of something huge, we may get goosebumps, our thinking and planning horizon change, and we seem to rise above the mundane. Awe is easy to feel – you want to say wow!, goosebumps, a sense of unity with the world, you feel small, experience a chill or goosebumps – sacred awe. Unlike addictive sources of dopamine, awe keeps us in reality and allows us to see it from a different perspective. Not only believers, scientists, or thinkers can experience this, but we can.
✅Awe is very beneficial for health: more dopamine, less cortisol, reduced stress and inflammation, improved mood and well-being, feeling closer to others, behaving kinder, more socially, and thinking more clearly and creatively. Awe helps us change, it is a transformative experience that contributes to rethinking our experience.
✅Its components are threat (fear, danger), beauty (nature, people, art, moral beauty of action), participation in the high (when we can touch the miraculous, the sacred), valor (when we see someone adhering to their values, performing a feat), rarity (something extremely rare and wonderful).
↗️When we experience awe:
- unity with nature, dance, music
- when we look from above or widely (overview effect, view from above for a while, on earth, view from a mountain, starry sky, overview of terrain, events, and time "from above"),
- in moments of danger and risk (threat to life),
- it is a striving for great joy and participation in the high when we are delighted by the beauty and uniqueness of the surrounding world,
- when we are near something "sacred" (presence with something sacred and unique, a person, object, building),
- collective excitement (many people do something together from parade to dance or square),
- when we realize the greatness of something physically or psychologically (perceived vastness, mountain, colossal tree, building, person, etc.), spiritual experience, psychedelic experience.
✅When talking to children, I try to teach them this in everyday life. Imagine, iron in red blood cells was born in the explosions of distant stars! And now we walk on the seashell beach – these stones millions of years ago were at the bottom of the ocean. So when you look at the starry sky, I want you not to feel insignificant, but remember – that you are the universe itself come alive, the result of 15 billion years of evolution, eagerly looking back at itself.
It would be good to experience awe at least 3-4 times a week and, even better – at least once a day. Share what causes awe and reverence in you.
Read more:
📖📖📖Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
Keltner, D. J., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314
The psychological model and cognitive neural mechanism of awe Advances in Psychological Science 2021, Vol. 29 Issue (3)
Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health Perspect Psychol Sci 2022 Aug 22;17456916221094856.
Silvia, P. J., Fayn, K., Nusbaum, E. C., & Beaty, R. E. (2015). Openness to experience and awe in response to nature and music: Personality and profound aesthetic experiences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9(4), 376–384.