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[Alexandr Korol]

And it felt like God or the system was watching how I reacted, how I understood it, so I could understand why all of this – everything that happens to people, and everything people do with each other – was happening. It was as if I was thrown into the world of people for this very purpose. And you know, writing a smart book – that’s not enough. You also have to understand the rules of the 21st century social world in which they live, so that those people would want to publish your book. So, let’s put it this way: if you want to go to America, you have to follow all the corresponding rules and do what’s required of you. You have to have a good history, you have to get your documents in order, and only then will you be able to go to America. You won’t get into America without a passport – it’s logical, right? And in a way, that’s probably what the social-material adaptation was about. Maybe it wasn’t America that gave me something, but the very fact that I found myself there at that time. Again, there’s no point in judging or evaluating it now, thinking about people in America or thinking that they have somehow understood the material world. No, I’m saying it’s not about America itself, it’s the fact that Big Alexander congratulated me for having fully understood this society from the inside, that I’ve fully understood this world of people from the inside. Initially, I wasn’t supposed to build relationships, you see. So, I ended up with employees, a company, work, documents, all that – a social life, growing up. Traveling, countries, making connections. And it was during this time that I started working on my first book to get it published. Before that, books were just published for free on the internet, in open access, in electronic format. But here, I decided that if people in the world don’t recognize you as a writer, no matter how many manuscripts you write, they won’t recognize you until you get it published. So I thought, “Fine, I’ll play by your rules.” That’s what social-material adaptation is about – that’s what it means to understand the material world. Simply put, I became independent, I learned to work, to earn money, to have relationships, to have friends and employees. All of that appeared in my life. I started traveling, began publishing books. This, I suppose, is what Big Alexander meant when he said I had conquered the “red dragon,” as he called it, meaning the material world. He said, after a small incident, “Now your heart is open,” meaning it was closed before. And that’s a paradox because, truly, when you live with your heart open, you live in one world, while people without their heart live in another.