“Playing it dumb”…..!!!
I have a former student who is doing postgraduate studies in a European country, and who is a regular reader of my site. I honour him, I respect him and I love him very much because he is a young person who is trying to “disentangle” himself from the mediocrity and the greyness of the established social roles, so that he can evolve into a real creative individual with a universal conscience. Yet, I consider it a bit strange when this young man, often expresses the opinion that my texts are not very optimistic. And I always try to explain to him that just the process of trying to identify what is real, is an act of faith and hope. Turning now to my friend Phedros from the swimming pool (extra-The psychological state of the young today, 2009-02-01), our exchange of messages have almost but stopped due to the fact that I had been trying to explain to him my position that it is not enough just to recognize all those harsh and impersonal everyday realities;but it is also very imperative to question all these everyday realities, in a substantial way if they subvert our personality and our psyche. And this can be realized only when one begins to recognize and respect one΄s own personality and the creative potentialities of life itself, not the limited and unnatural framework of a “virtual society”.
Many scholars who have studied human civilization,have through their analyses supported the position that the true forerunner of Christ “ideologically” was not John the Baptist(as has been taught in schools and seminaries), but Socrates who lived 4 centuries before in Athens. One could briefly say, that these scholars ascertained that these two “enlightened”personalities had based their “beliefs” on primeval human values. These universal values not only reinforced the cohesion of human beings but also the natural potentialities of each person for free judgement,free self-expression and a free creative spirit.
During the last 25 years that I have been giving lessons to young and old,from children with learning disabilities to young people wanting to undertake their higher studies in a foreign language,I have discovered a common factor among all of those young individuals.This factor for me represents a valuable tool to better understand the psyche and the personalities of all my students,both female and male.This common element can be described as follows:During the course of the lesson ,many young people have the tendency to make “doodles” or abstract drawings on pieces of paper,on pages of note-books,or even on my cigarette or cigar packages.These sketches are of great value to me because they are spontaneous creations describing or defining the real situation or disposition of the person. It is the subconscious expressing itself,meaning the truly creative and revealing aspect of the human persona, exactly like the dreams.
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.