It is my experience that at a certain age people must stop their occupation with the political life. The logic is as follows: Through politics, you shape and influence the world in which you live. Beyond a certain age however you shape and influence the world in which someone else will live. The needs of every generation as well as the environment which shapes each generation change. Isn't it reasonable that shaping the life of the next generation with the imagination of the previous one breeds and will breed, only destruction?

The road that someone traveled seems to be much more important than the place of his residence. It is really challenging to conceptualize the totality of Odysseas Elytis' poem explaining to us that the journey is more important than the destination.

The truth is that we are in a state of constant traveling - not the distances of Odysseus perhaps -  but incessantly and daily. And every day, our steps, the road we choose to take is different. In a constant flux. It changes from moment to moment as thousands of passengers leave their mark. And every road has its own memory.

I don't doubt for a second that most -if not all the roads- try to forget rather than remember.

Let's think of our birth as the flow of molten metal in a mold shaped as a key. However contrary to usual molds, this one is not ready, it is being created slowly with the passing of time, thought to thought, action to action. The molten metal though does not wait for us to finish the mold, it keeps flowing all the while. Sometimes we haven't even started creating the mold and the metal returns to its source, molten as it begun.

Some other times the key mold is not fully done when the molten metal comes and it will not be able to open the lock of the door it was meant to open, but it *will* open another door which was created at the very moment the shape of the half-made key was final. These doors which open with the half made keys sometimes happen to be the most important ones of all.

Every key is made from the same metal but no two keys are alike. There is a unique locked door for every key and behind every door lies the solution of the mystery of its key's existence.

Let us consider the greatest gift the biblical God gave humankind. In my opinion, it would be none other than freedom.If that is the case, however, we need to look at Genesis in quite a different light. God drove away mankind from the Garden of Eden, viewing and considering them as "worthy" or "aspirants of equality" in some sense, as a creation of a perfect God, then letting them stay would be tantamount to an erroneous way of learning -  that of spiritual tyranny.

Conversely, then God gave mankind the greatest gift, having made sure that mankind had everything needed, true freedom. Freedom from all bonds (God included?).  What was needed then for humanity to able to handle its freedom? Could it be what was described as temptation, as the serpent, as something negative: Curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge without limits. The technological pursuit, the experimental pursuit. The exercise of a unique possession: freedom, without true knowledge of cause and effect.

Perhaps going a bit further we could consider the return of God to the forefront - as a triad - and the presence of the Godson and the destruction of the serpent, as the destruction of a dam which was the original sin - loss, so that the river of knowledge could flow again, in such a way though now as to forward humanity and quench its thirst for knowledge without  drowning her and destroying her at the same time.

Varikas: "His egotism is removing him from love ... Karyotakis with his whole generation is distinguished precisely by the most unhealthy skepticism. The abstract thought, the effort of calculating even the most minimum details of our every movement, the obsession of our every effort being in vain, with which he is approaching events, does not leave him free to enjoy this energy in itself, out and away from its results. (...) The skepticism hopelessly narrowed his inner world. Drained him of all vital fluid. Between himself and the outside world always interferes the dark spectrum of his skepticism and pessimism which deforms his images and eliminates the wealth of his variety. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kostas_Karyotakis

Q: Are Greeks lazy?

A: No inhabitants of any country can share in totality one trait. Whether that trait is positive or negative.

Q: Is Greece corrupt?

A: A whole country cannot be corrupt. But, well, yes. There is a great deal of corruption in Greece. Not the kind of corruption that is easy to see, like drug cartel violence or dictatorship corruption. It's more akin to Star Wars, Chancellor Palpatine corruption.Underlying, permeating, vast.

Q: Is Greece a good tourism destination?

A: Yes, it is. All countries actually are, to be honest. Every piece of land and culture on this earth is unique and beautiful in its own way. You will not be assassinated or assaulted or sold for parts. Some people will try to take financial advantage of you. Small minded persons living in the now and disregarding the tomorrow.

Q: Greece hates X, Y, Z, country/

A: Greece is a country and countries cannot hate, only people. People of Greece have an avid dislike of people insulting or threatening them at a country level. For example, Germany threatens and insults us, we dislike Germany. We do not and never will dislike Andreas, Frank, Jörg, Jürgen, Klaus, Michael, Peter, Stefan, Thomas, Uwe, Andrea, Angelika, Birgit, Gabriele, Heike, Martina, Petra, Sabine, Susanne, Ute.

Q: Who is to blame for the corruption Greece?

A: The one bribing and the one taking the bribe.

Q: What happened to the Ancient Greek Heritage?

A: Slavery from 146 BC (Romans) to 1821 AD with a brief and debatable enlightened break around the Eastern Roman Empire time. At 1453 slaves to the Turks. Afterwards, two world wars and a civil war. In 1974 "Democracy" returned. In " " because I am bitter, heh.

As stated in my first post here, I live in Greece so I have a unique perspective on, well, Greece. I am sure - if someone thought about it - that someone not living in Greece cannot, in good conscience, have a valid opinion of the inner workings of the country. Even someone who visited once. It is as if when I visit the zoo, for instance, the tiger cage, I can immediately judge the prowess of the tigers, the inner working of their mind, their feelings, their pain, how their loss of freedom affected and affects them. How their grooming habit could be better, in what way eating in a different way and a different food could provide fewer expenses to the zoo. Or even have the hubris of calling them lazy, because in that cage all they do is... sit.

The truth is malleable. The truth is primarily about trust and less so about facts. We trust someone, we believe them. We don't ask our father when he says something favorable about a politician for example, "Why do you like him? Why do you believe him? Are you capable of infiltrating the mind and the soul of that person and judge him honest and righteous? Are you a psychologist? a behavior analyst? Are you God?" Of course not. Because it's not about facts. We "feel" the truth, and "believe" in trust rather than wondering, questioning, thinking!

The same mechanism which served us well in passing down generation to generation verbal traditions, myths, legends and stories designed to protect us and to guide us, is now our downfall. There was no need for critical thinking at that point. You only had to remember and repeat the absolute truths passed down to you so you could pass them on to your children. Now we pass on loyalty to religious ideals and political parties, to our children as absolute truths and we think ourselves superior to jungle-dwelling savages.

Read the news and watch television but not to learn or educate yourselves. Do it so as to know what our political "masters" want to impress on us. What they want to make us believe, what they want to make us feel. All the mass media globally are there to serve yes, but not us. The persons that pay them to think. At least they get paid -we, the viewers- are made to think what they want for free.

Be critical, be kind and always follow the chain of information.

My name is Alexandros Karmiris. I live in Athens, Greece. I decided to create a blog in order to record my thoughts for the benefit (whatever that may be) of all - including me. A look at your beliefs written down helps so often to elucidate matters.

Welcome.