Why do people drink energy drinks? Seriously, I don't get it. They cost more than water, and the taste is usually disgusting. I've literally tried maybe 3 in my life — some acrid, sugary water with an unpleasantly pronounced aftertaste that you want to wash down with mineral water just to kill it.
And when girls invite me over and I see those same energy drinks in the fridge,
for me it's always a clear red flag.After breaking up with me, in a stressed state, every one of them started smoking and doing similar stuff. And for me that was always an immediate marker
that I made the right choice by leaving. I can't stand the smell or sight of cigarettes, it's such vileness. Provokes nothing but disgust.
Alcohol — same story. I've never in my life tried vodka, I have no idea what it tastes like. But for me, people who love drinks like that immediately associate with the homeless guys I saw lying in the streets of Paris. What I can understand is grabbing a bottle of wine that costs someone's monthly salary at a restaurant with blood relatives you haven't seen in years.
I won't even sleep with a girl who's in any kind of intoxicated state, except (we had a glass of wine or champagne).
And the main reason I broadcast this stance is that my daughter is 13. I just remember myself as a kid. The fact that I don't swear, don't drink, and am well-educated —
the reason for that is my endlessly beloved mother, who never drank, never smoked, and in 50 years I've never heard a single curse word from her, and my respected ethics teacher. Right now I'm not even sure schools still have an ethics teacher who teaches aristocratic manners of high society.
What's the takeaway? Education — we're back to it again. In gymnasium №1, in the lyceum, even in primary school we studied several foreign languages at once. And so when I, as someone with German roots but who never lived in Germany, flew back to my homeland in 2021 to visit my grandfather in Berlin, or before that, celebrating my birthday in Paris, or this year in Monaco — I felt insanely comfortable. Because it's really pleasant when you can instantly switch from your English with a British accent, which half the people don't understand because I speak too slowly, to French or German that the locals actually understand.
And what do we have in the country now? Literally everyone is practically forced to speak, write, and do business in their native language, and in government institutions there's maybe one foreign language, tops.
When you study foreign languages, first, you develop your brain — there's plenty of scientific research on this — and second, you also study the culture. That is, you broaden your horizons, it's like traveling. I've already traveled half the world,
which has given me an insane exposure to business decisions, to how certain social groups behave, to style and fashion in different countries, to how the economy is structured and how political movements work within different social groups and regions. Thanks to that, wherever I go to live, do business, or simply build relationships, I'll take the very best of what I've seen and know.
And this is truly the scourge of our times. In my understanding,
traditional values are not about banning everything and anything. It's the deliberate promotion of what's useful and good, and demonstrating why it's better.Remember how I started the post? With alcohol and cigarettes. And now we do a somersault to bring it together.
Why do zoomers drink less and barely smoke, unlike boomers? They choose the wellness-fitness path, and not because "the state restricted alcohol sales," or because they started slapping scary cancer-consequence pictures on cigarettes. Studies show that the main reason was the visible demonstration of what a person on a healthy diet, leading a healthy lifestyle, looks like — contrasted with a smoking, alcoholic skuf.
