Илья Марголин – The First Quarter Of My Century (страница 10)

Someone who says, «My cat died – and yet I won the competition,» or «I was rejected – and yet I became independent,» is not describing events. They are redefining their status. What happened does not disappear and does not cease to be negative, but it is placed into a sequence that does not collapse along with it. This is not an argument. It is a structural redistribution of tension.

Thinking in these terms is not spontaneous. It requires discipline: not to deceive oneself, not to exaggerate the positive, not to invent a reassuring conclusion. Its aim is not persuasion, but the preservation of the functional capacity of consciousness under conditions where external support has collapsed.

Within the philosophy of action, such forms correspond to what Kierkegaard called a «serious decision»: a decision that does not rest on a completed foundation, but maintains inner coherence through an act of personal affirmation.

And yet is not a formula of optimism. It does not mean that things turned out for the better. It does not justify, conclude, or moralize. It functions because it allows continuation without erasure. It keeps life from freezing at the point of rupture.

For this reason, and yet cannot be borrowed or imitated. It arises only from inner necessity. It is not something one offers to another person. It is something one produces within oneself in order to restore the internal movement of time that was interrupted by an event.

On a cultural level, this structure appears in literature where characters continue not according to genre conventions, but because they have no other form of existence than to go on without clarity. This can be found in Platonov, in Beckett’s prose, in the letters of Nathan Zach – wherever there is no goal, but movement remains.

This leads to an important distinction: and yet is not equivalent to «everything happens for a reason.» It does not reconcile, resolve, or console. It refuses capitulation in thinking, because it allows a new phase to begin without annulling the previous one.

A person capable of uttering and yet honestly – without illusion, but with precision – does not demonstrate strength. They demonstrate the minimum required to restore action. This is what maturity consists in: not the ability to avoid rupture, but the ability to preserve form within its logical irreversibility.

This mode of thinking cannot be taught as a technique. It emerges through direct engagement with a reality that fails to meet expectations. It becomes the only way not to disappear after an event, while still keeping it in view.

A form of life based on such continuity does not require external support. It requires an internal order in which the recognition of rupture does not cancel the possibility of continuation. And yet is a minimal – but sufficient – structure for this task.

Between Generations

In this essay, I reflect on the impossibility of a shared language between generations – not as a social problem, but as a philosophical condition of growing up. What interests me is not the cultural gap as such, but the logic of difference that becomes visible when an adult attempts to enter the speech of the young. I argue that a parent who wants to «speak the same language» violates the function of that speech, because it is not designed for explanation or rapprochement. It produces distance – a distance necessary for the formation of autonomy. In such cases, respect is expressed not through participation, but through the ability not to interfere. It is precisely separation that makes possible a form of closeness in which each remains in their own position without destroying the position of the other.

In any culture, the generational gap is not a deviation from the norm but a mode of its existence. Different generations do not merely have different interests or habits. They think and speak in different registers.

The contemporary digital environment has made this gap especially visible. Youth languages now form far more rapidly than before. They exist in autonomous media ecosystems, constantly update their internal rules, and are oriented not toward the transmission of information, but toward the recognition of «one’s own.»

An adult who attempts to enter this language is not simply late. They alter the very function of speech – a function that seeks to remain unnoticed. When a parent sends a child a «meme,» they act according to a logic of participation. They want to be involved, to establish contact. But the medium through which they attempt this has already lost its force.

Jokes that once functioned as social connectors perform a different task in newer digital generations: not to connect, but to restrict access. They are built on deliberate distortion of language, excess, and chaotic fragmentation of meaning. This is not a matter of «stupidity» or «superficiality,» but of constructing a protected zone that is not easily penetrated.

The impossibility of shared humor between generations is not a cultural malfunction. It is an expression of a deeper difference in how the world is structured. A young person does not want an adult to speak their language, because language here is not merely a tool – it is a marker of age-based autonomy.

When a parent tries to «understand» a joke, it almost always causes irritation. Not because the parent lacks intelligence, but because the joke ceases to function the moment it becomes an object of explanation. Anything that requires explanation stops being alive.

This is especially evident in digital speech. Where irony is based on intentional absurdity, interpretation destroys the game itself. Adolescent speech is built not on content, but on intonation, speed, and the recognizability of specific gestures. It is an environment in which the main thing is not the joke, but how quickly it is recognized and how little needs to be said explicitly.

A parent cannot be part of this. And should not be. The role of the parent is not to enter the child’s speech, but to remain within their own – stable enough to endure estrangement. This is precisely a form of respect. Not respect for fashion, but for the autonomous formation of another person.

In a culture where the idea of «being on the same wavelength» is popular, it is difficult to accept that separation is a more mature form of closeness than imitation of participation. Being close does not mean speaking the same way. Being close means allowing space for a speech that does not coincide with one’s own.

This is not isolation. It is the correct distance. It requires nothing from the parent except endurance. To be an adult means not interfering in those areas where one is not expected – and not taking offense at that fact.

A joke is not a bridge between generations. It is a local sign meant for insiders. A parent who understands this does not feel excluded. They remain outside because outside is their natural position at that moment. They have not left. They have not withdrawn. They simply do not violate boundaries.

Perhaps, over time, the adolescent will move beyond this mode of speech. Then the form of dialogue will change. But until that happens, the adult who is capable of not interfering acts more precisely than the one who strives for «accessibility.»

Speech does not tolerate coercion – especially young speech. It is structured to avoid explanation, pressure, and intrusion. Genuine participation here consists in the ability to remain silent at the right distance.

Action / Inaction

In this text, I examine the problem of action and inaction outside a moralistic framework. What interests me is not what appears stronger or more correct, but what disrupts structure: an act performed without grounding, or a refusal to act that conceals participation. I analyze the conditions under which action becomes destructive and inaction becomes complicity, drawing on the ideas of Hannah Arendt, Plato, Kant, and contemporary interpretations of political guilt. The text includes an ethical analysis of how to distinguish the preservation of distance from an evasion of responsibility. Finally, I move to a metaphysical level: every action and every inaction produces consequences, and the question lies not in choosing between them, but in a person’s capacity to hold those consequences as part of their will.

The question of what destroys more – action or inaction – does not allow for an answer in the form of a judgment. It requires an examination of the conditions under which a subject, acting or refraining from action, takes their position to be justified.

Action is not always a virtue. It can be aggressive, ungrounded, self-appointed. What presents itself as activity often turns out to be a form of escape from thinking, from analysis, from proportionality. Action deprived of grounding produces consequences for which no one is prepared to take responsibility. In this sense, action cannot be assessed outside context: who acts, when, for what purpose, and whether they are capable of accepting the consequences of their intervention.