Grim Begins. Wiktor Miesok, Felix Charin. 2025.
Life is grim.
The first lesson I got from the Grim Death: In a blink of an eye, I lost the only person I cared about.
Being where I am now, I have no regrets. I made my choices, and I paid for them. Some of the consequences I still carry, but I do not complain, and I accept the burden.
It was not my accomplishments that satisfy me. In the darkest days I learned the brightest lesson. When Death greets you, all you have is who you have become. It was the man I came to be that made me proud and filled me with the sense of confidence that you end up with after a hard battle.
No point arguing with fanatics, religious or otherwise, won’t listen, and the only thing you can get out of them is their rage.
I began to understand that with money and good connections, anything was possible.
As much as technology makes our lives easier, it also makes us more dependent on it. How many men nowadays could find their way through a maze of country roads without their phone and a map app? Back then, we had to depend on printed paper and road signs to know we were heading in the right direction. Sometimes we would even have to stop and ask one of the locals for guidance, as some routes were closed due to roadworks, diverting us through small villages and towns. And sometimes we used the most powerful tool of any good man, his instinct, which you can’t develop without experience.
It is good, you can stand your ground. In this business you need that to keep yourself from being eaten alive.
Never look down at the lowlifes. We are all lowlifes in some way or the other, but God never looks down on anyone.
There was no point showing off that I did well among those who were struggling.
It is in times when we succeed, when things seem to be working in our favor, and our egos expand like a pufferfish, that we are most easily blind-sided and in danger of the greatest fall. (Whom the gods would destroy, they first make blind).
Never lose your calm. Those who are loudest are those who are weakest. Those who are silent are the ones who are dangerous.
Always keep your word. If you break it, it will break you. No matter if you are dealing with solid people or criminals. The dealings are the same.
Be honorable. Your honor, your reputation is everything you have. Criminals are well connected. If you ruin your reputation, you don’t just ruin your business, you ruin your life.
An honor once tarnished is not easily restored, and trust broken might never be mended.
Success is never built overnight, it’s an iceberg. You only see the very tip, but never the fundament.
What is owned by everyone, is owned by no one.
It is in our hands to either allow tyranny, or to stand in its way.
When times are hard, when tyranny is pressing down on us. The choice is always there, it is just a matter of how determined we are, how much we are willing to sacrifice, how much we value ourselves.
Public education often stifles rather than nurtures our true potential, and the labor market, combined with an oppressive taxation system, ensures that even in an age of incredible production efficiency, most people are barely getting by.
There wasn’t much difference between zeki and the guards when it came to violence, criminality and morals. We were all beasts locked in a cage; they just held the weapons and had some power over us.
There were fates worse than death that could be dealt out by these harsh men, as I would learn in time.
—Pecunia non olet, as they said in Ancient Rome, money does not stink.
—Zhadnost' vsyakomu goryu nachalo, Greed is the root of all sorrow, as they say in Russia.
Information is key, and when you know your opponents’ actions, you can adjust your own strategy accordingly.
Knowledge is good, but it is the experience that really puts us ahead in life.
Know your enemy in and out, droog.
The importance of communication and how much power a man can wield if he has the ability to convey his thoughts effectively.
Human beings are multidimensional creatures, with sometimes conflicting characteristics.
I am wiser now, unaffected by either success or failure, as both are fleeting and vain.
It can be a cycle for many of us, until we learn how to break it, how to be unaffected by either success or failure, and just keep moving forward, towards our goals.
It was part of my ego that had led me astray a few times in my life. It took quite a bit of suffering before I was able to turn it into dust. But at that time, I was still full of it.
In prison, droog, you never let your guard down. A bad mistake. (Always alert of your surroundings. The Art of Manliness).
