The text which follows was sent during Christmas to my site by the mother of an old student of mine. She and her son are regular readers of the site,something which I greatly appreciate.I believe that the text,whose author remains anonymous,projects values which have a lot in common with the general philosophy of the site.The original text was written in Greek.
For almost 20 years,I have been going to a swimming pool because I have loved swimming since very young,and also because my contact with the water sooths me psychologically and physically.3 months ago,I noticed a young person in the swimming pool who must have become a member during that time.I took notice of him first because the time of day I swim(12-2p.m.),there are almost no young people there,and second, I saw a very talented swimmer,who was swimming with such extreme intensity and such spastic movements,that I felt it almost “unnatural”.
My dear friend, things in your lives went very wrong for very simple reasons. And it΄s exactly those same reasons hampering people in our society, whether young or old, to feel at ease. At ease with their own life and with their fellow beings, and at ease to create a civilisation(adults are not the sole creators)which would honour the aesthetics, the mystery and the majesty of our existence in its totality, and not as a reflection of our self-centered view of life. Initially, I would have to say that in your family there is no real happiness, and you know exactly what I mean. I am talking about spontaneous happiness from individuals who feel free and are comfortable with themselves;not an organized type of “happiness”(leisure)based on routines, traditions and habits. The latter one representing programmed self-amusement where almost everything is under control so that there would be the expected results. It is therefore no wonder why so many people today go to such great lengths to dine out with “friends”, since the whole setup is given, while there is rarely now any opportunity for spontaneous human expressions(virtual reality).