Philosophical and historical essay is devoted to the rarely discussed relationship between the depths of the individual and collective human psyche with the rough reality of the historical process, with the acute motives of current geopolitics, with the intricate relations of not only large and small countries, but also religious denominations. An analysis of this relationship even in the first approximation (mainly on the examples of Russian military history and the difficult experience of the development of American democracy) makes it possible to understand not only the flashy contradictions of yesterday and today, but also to feel the ambiguous nature of the nearest tomorrow. At the same time, the focus of the author's view is focused not so much on the outline of external events as on the collective unconscious mass of individuals and on decoding the true depth of the human "I." Fundamentally important in the life of every person is not so much the achievement of external goals as the determination to go through a difficult experience of colliding with oneself. The fact is that the loss by an individual of the true depth of his own personality, the loss of a "I" ready for reflection, somewhat reminiscent of the loss of conscience and moral guidelines (and this threat in the current "information society" is becoming more and more real), is capable of depriving the significance of the historical process itself, turning the high creative tension of people into a chaotic sum of curveballs that have lost their meaning.