I keep thinking about how to make investing interesting when I talk to you about it. I try one format, then another. And then I caught myself thinking that investing simply can’t be interesting in principle.

Interesting is when you want ice cream. You leave the house, five minutes to the store, 70 rubles at the register, and there it is already, “melts in your mouth, not in your hands”: cold, sweet, delicious.

Interesting is when we want new active-noise-canceling headphones, and instead of paying 15 000 rubles today, the store, out of the kindness of its heart, is ready to give them to us for only 14 990 rubles, plus a “free” four-month installment plan. Click-click, two days for delivery, and your favorite music is already making your ears happy. They’ll probably throw in some cashback too.

Investing is the exact opposite: you have to put money in, wait for years, decades, tolerate volatility. And all that just to cover some inflation and maybe make another 3–4% a year on top. Are you kidding me?! There is no inflation! Where would it come from? Prices in stores are going up? What do prices have to do with it? That’s different. Investing. Is that interesting?

It’ll get interesting later, in retirement. When instead of the 200–300 thousand rubles a month you’re used to, you start getting something like 30 thousand from the government. Adjusted for inflation. Which doesn’t exist. And that’s best case. That will be your only income, and there won’t be anything else to count on. Well, maybe the kids will toss you something once in a while. Now that’ll be interesting! Write to me then, if anything. Tell me what it’s like living on thirty grand in 2042.