Namita Nayyar:
You have always been disciplined and uninterested in “going with the flow.” What is the root of this intense drive? Was there a specific event in your childhood or early life that sparked this desire to “create something of your own”?
Lily Ermak:
I think I was a creative person from childhood. I always wanted to come up with things and do things my own way. For example, I had ordinary clothes, but I found it boring to simply wear them. I could sew rhinestones or beads onto my jeans, decorate something, change something. I always wanted to add something of my own. Probably even my early desire to experiment with my appearance was part of this. I became interested in makeup, perfume and clothes quite early.
My mother and grandmother were very strict and forbade me from doing many things. I remember secretly lining my eyes with a pencil or using perfume. One time I even put lipstick on my lips, and my grandmother scolded me very badly. Now I understand that this was quite painful for me. I simply wanted to be a girl and experiment with my appearance, but it was treated as something wrong. And perhaps these restrictions created a very strong feeling in me that I wanted to decide for myself who I was and how I expressed myself. I was actually quite rebellious as a teenager. I had a difficult teenage period and often did everything against what I was told. But at the same time, I always had some inner drive. I wanted to achieve something and create something of my own. Even at school I participated in beauty contests. Later, after I was married, I participated in the Miss Photo Model 2012 contest.
I wanted to have a modeling career. I liked the idea of the runway, but my height did not allow me to go in that direction, so I chose to work as a photo model. And I remember that even when I had no popularity at all, I wrote to photographers and magazines myself, looked for opportunities, made arrangements and sent my photos. I did not wait for someone to come and offer me a career. I tried to find my own path myself. Then Instagram appeared, and I saw that some people were already building huge audiences there, and I literally thought, “Why can’t I? Why am I worse than anyone else?” And I started doing the same thing. Every day I came up with something, wrote to public pages, sent photos, participated in SFS and looked for ways to grow.
In my first year of running Instagram, I already had around 100,000 followers. Of course, things continued to develop — professional shoots appeared new opportunities and a new audience. But the beginning was exactly like that. I decided that I wanted this and simply started doing it. And I think that is the main answer to what drives me. It was never enough for me to simply observe. I wanted to create. I wanted to try, change, invent, do things my own way and see what would happen.
Discipline probably came later, when I realized that desire alone is not enough. If you really want something, you have to take at least a small step toward it every day. Interestingly, my desire for knowledge also came to me later. At school I did not understand many things because I started school very early and simply could not understand some things because of my age. I even had failing grades in physics. And now I love physics and can spend hours reading and trying to understand difficult things on my own.
And sometimes I think that maybe I could have been a straight-A student if everything had come at the right time. Some interests and abilities simply develop not when school expects them to, but when you come to them yourself. So I think my ambition was always inside me. With age, I simply learned how to direct it, discipline it and turn it into real action.
Namita Nayyar:
Confidence has grown for you over the years. Is there a specific “mental trick” or habit you use to stay confident in your opinions, especially when facing criticism online?
Lily Ermak:
Honestly, I do not deal with hate at all because it does not affect me in any way. In fact, it mostly amuses me. I think hate is a good sign. If you trigger someone, it means you create an emotion, make them feel something or think about something, and is that really a bad thing? And I always remember one simple thing: another person’s reaction is primarily about that person, not about me. Everyone sees something in another person through the lens of their own experience and their own problems. So I do not waste energy on it. I love people in general, even my haters.
Namita Nayyar:
Your reading list is eclectic (history, physics, and psychology). What is a book or a concept you’ve read recently that completely shifted the way you view your life or your work?
Lily Ermak:
One of the concepts that have had a very strong influence on me is connected to the ideas of Carl Jung and the subject of human consciousness in general. I really connect with the idea that thought is material. I do not mean this literally, as if simply imagining something will make it appear, but rather that our thoughts shape our perception of reality.
If a person constantly thinks negatively, they begin to see more negativity around them. We notice what our attention is focused on, and gradually we create a certain picture of the world ourselves. What particularly resonates with me in Jung’s ideas is the idea that people have unconscious beliefs and patterns that are formed in childhood and can influence our decisions, reactions and relationships with other people even when we are not aware of them. And I am very interested in this possibility of exploring our own consciousness, seeing our internal beliefs and, through changing our thinking, changing our perception and, along with it, our actions and our lives.
Namita Nayyar:
As a creator, you are constantly evolving. What is a skill or subject you are currently trying to learn that your audience would be surprised to know about?
Lily Ermak:
I have been interested in the history of humanity for a long time — the lives of historical figures, different versions of the same events, which can differ depending on who tells the story. I am interested not so much in memorizing facts as in understanding the mechanics of knowledge: what do we really know about the past, and what is simply the most convincing reconstruction? I do not like trusting a single source because history is almost always written by winners, contemporaries with their own biases, or later generations with their own agenda. So I try to compare different versions, look for contradictions and ask the question: how do we actually know this? This is probably the main lesson for me.
History teaches not only facts, but critical thinking. Recently, I have become especially fascinated by physics, or more precisely, by trying to understand what reality actually is at the most fundamental level. The questions that do not leave me alone are: why does the universe exist at all? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is matter if we break it down as far as possible, to quarks, fields, and perhaps something even more fundamental?
How much does our perception of space and time actually correspond to what exists in reality? I listen to a lot of scientific podcasts and lectures on these topics, but honestly, the more I learn, the more strongly I feel how little humanity actually understands about its own existence. I am attracted not so much by the answer as by the process itself — how one good question opens up a dozen new ones. There is something almost philosophical about it. At the frontier of science, it starts to become difficult to distinguish science from metaphysics. And the third thing is artificial intelligence.
I follow how quickly this technology is developing and where it could lead humanity, and it gives me mixed feelings — excitement and anxiety at the same time. What will happen if machine intelligence becomes significantly greater than human intelligence? What will happen to society, to the very concept of the human mind, to our place in the world if we stop being the most intelligent species on the planet? On the one hand, it could open incredible possibilities in medicine, science and in understanding the same physical reality I mentioned above.
On the other hand, it could create risks on a scale that we cannot even comprehend yet, because we have no historical precedent to compare it with. Perhaps this is exactly what fascinates me. We are living in a moment when we are shaping what could determine the future of our species, and we are doing it largely without knowing what lies ahead.
Namita Nayyar:
Looking ahead five or ten years, what does “success” look like for the new version of Liliia? Is it a physical place, a specific project, or a state of mind?
Lily Ermak:
For me, success in five to ten years means creating something truly my own and meaningful. I want to continue developing, creating projects that have meaning both for me and for other people, and bringing some kind of value. And for me, it will be a great success to become more interesting to myself.
Namita Nayyar:
If you were to give a commencement speech to young women based on your journey, what would be the single most important piece of advice you would give them about life, ambition, or confidence?
Lily Ermak:
Do not try to live someone else’s life according to someone else’s script. Be open to finding yourself. It is very easy when you are young to start orienting yourself around the opinions of your parents, partner, friends or society, but it is up to you to decide who you want to become and what kind of life you want to create for yourself.
Do not be afraid of mistakes, and do not be afraid to change direction. You do not have to know immediately who you want to be or what you want from life. Learn to understand yourself. When you know yourself, your desires and what you believe in, other people’s opinions stop controlling your life.
Lily Ermak Social Media Presence
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilyermak/
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