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”.

I would therefore like to disclose some personal experiences which I believe relate directly to the particular positions of these two good friends, but which also complement the themes of this month΄s texts. They are experiences and observations which have deeply affected my position towards our modern human society;which is on the verge of disintegration, and of course of its eventual but very painful revitalization.

In my life, I have been fortunate to have lived in different societies of different cultures;starting from the Middle East(childhood years), spending my adolescence and young adulthood in North America, doing post graduate studies in Great Britain(4 years), and of course ending up in this “sacred” yet “beleaguered” country which the English call it Greece but its real name is “Hellas”. Hellas, is a country which for the last 200 years(since its liberation from Ottoman rule) has been ravaged, mostly by its own inhabitants, whose main concern has always been(the majority) their own particular material and social defenses, and not their own collective cultural integrity and revival. This is exactly the reason why a peoples with 3, 000 years of a complex and multidimensional history, a history which in “theory” is being taught in schools or is being transmitted through folklore, have ended up living like “barbarians” or “predators”;allowing for few sensitivities concerning a “collective cultural memory” and the aesthetics of a social existence.

I have therefore lived in various societies, with different cultures;I have made very close friendships with individuals from different civilizations and of different social backgrounds, spending an important part of my life working and also educating myself. During all these years, what has made the greatest impression on me has been the fact of “how dumb” people are, almost always by their own choice. When I say “dumb”, I don΄t mean dumb in a “societal” context but in an “existential” one, meaning one΄s relation to a complex yet mortal life. From what I have experienced and from what I have read, especially in relation to human evolution “culturally” but also “socially”, I have confirmed that people, young and old, educated and non-educated, poor and rich, labourers and entrepreneurs, men and women;all this wide “spectrum” of individuals on the whole, have chosen “to play it dumb” with respect to the many potentialities and sensitivities which life or nature has bestowed on them so generously. We can briefly then say that human beings have “consciously” put aside all those wonderful gifts of nature which are imagination, eroticism, creative thinking, good-fellowship, intimacy, collectivity, and especially the sense of relativity (humility) to the enormity and the sanctity of life and nature. This distorted life stance began with the first “well organized” human societies which were dominated by the “social superiority” of the male gender and by the “sacredness” of private property. This unbalanced socio-economic environment which still reigns supreme worldwide(after 6, 000 years of “human civilization”), is based on dividing social boundaries, on competition, on human conceit, on greed, on the exploitation of humans and nature, on a one dimensional human behaviour, on a psychic and erotic debasement, and on the virtual negation of a human being΄s free creative nature. The Human Kind, almost every human being, has accepted “consciously” and “by choice” to “play it dumb”, in order to live “apprehensively” the “virtual reality” of an unnatural and unbalanced society. Fortunately, the universe is now conspiring(metaphorically) to put an end to this “dumb”, but very destructive human “farce”!!!

Being very critical and almost angry at a human being’s “intentional” and “hypocritical” stance of ignorance as to what is “true”, “wholesome” and “creative” in Life, Jesus Christ in “The Secret Book of James”(Gnostic Christian Gospel) compiled in the beginning of the 2nd century in the Greek language, makes the following remarks to his friend and disciple James.

“…First I spoke with you in parables, and you did not understand (pretended not to understand). Now I am speaking with you openly, and you do not grasp it(pretend not to grasp it). Nevertheless, you were for me a parable among parables and a disclosure among things revealed (an insight into human nature).

“Be eager to be saved without being urged. Rather, be fervent on your own and, if possible, outdo even me, for this is how the father will love you.

“Come to hate hypocrisy and evil intention. Intention produces hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is far from the truth…” (p.195-196, Meyer, Marvin, “The Secret Gospels of Jesus”, Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., London, 2005).