Church Vs Art

Dear Future Historian,

I am passing by your pages to ask you if at your time things are still the same.

I returned yesterday from an art program that managed to help my mental health more than all the years of therapy I've ever done.

More on that on a less busy day. Today I want to focus on what happen after.

Returning home, I found Mormons in my house telling to my 83 year old mother--that is in the early stages of dementia--that the devil is making her not convert to their dogma (or whatever it is). My very Greek -Orthodox mum was having a panic attack. She felt very vulnerable, and unable to defend her self and her faith. I had to ask to talk to their supervisor on the phone to manage to get them off my house, and when they stepped out they asked my nephew (that happened to be with us) to come out with them to ask him a question privetly.

Their question was for him to confirm if the house is mine!!

When they left my mum did her Greek-Orthodox cross sign and blessed me from saving her from these preditors, as she saw them.

Conclusion: 

Church is making people in need have panic attacks.

Arts make people 'fly'.

I hope at your time, my dear future historian, people are safer from house attacks by imaginary devils.

West: Wake up

 25/08/2023

Dear contemporary westerners,

What’s the matter with you?

It’s like too much McDonald’s mushed your brains, or something.

Today, in the Greek news channel, they said that a bunch of not-so-west-friendly-countries came up with a union between them. I did not hear anything about that on the BBC.

It’s like you people never heard any story ever, or ever played a single videogame. Do you not see what is happening? They have most of the energy resources and they seem to be more determined to cooperate with each other than we are.

Trapped in my brain, or safe in my mind?

 05/08/2023

Dear Future Historian,

I fell in a coma for a moment.

Or—to be more accurate—I dreamed I did. It was a bit spooky in the beginning. I kind of lost time for a moment. I knew I was not awake. I found myself running among white abandoned corridors with high ceilings. How very institutionalised my subconscious has become!

Spoiler Alert Black Mirror

 Dear Future Historian,                                                                                 06/07/2023 Canterbury UK

I am so depressed today. Let me rephrase that. I feel so depressed today. The attention to detail in language, especially the written one I suppose, is crucial. I do not identify with my depression. Thus, it is not that I am, me personally, depressed as a state of being. Depression is an add-on. Something that I feel, but it’s not me. Like a smell. Like a thought. This is what meditation and mindfulness are teaching. Detachment from negative thoughts and feelings. You cannot make them disappear, you cannot pause them, you cannot mute them. Still, when you realise that you can just let them be as a noise in the background, then you can just continue your life—almost as if—they’re not even there.

However, you should never try to shut them up. There comes a point where, you realise that the background voices aren’t your enemy at all. They are just super anxious and over-conscious guards. Warning systems. But, not like a bot (no offence my dear Bots). Or, if like bots, then like the ones in the Black Mirror episode, the one that you got a conscious and sentient bot version of yourself, to set up the thermostat in your house and make your toast.

Fighting for a medical appointment

Dear future historian,

I am, as I’m writing this, number 18th in the medical centre's phone queue. I'm waiting 45 min already. I was number 30 in the queue when this call started.

Let me introduce you to the story:

Finally today is the day

 Dear future historian,

I know I have been missing for months, but we both know that (time gaps in the past) for you is not even a thing; at least not a thing that has time separating my last post from this one. For you it's just a turn of the page, or a keep-scrolling kind of thing.

The distance to walk between the Parthenon marvels and the Benin bronzes in the British Museum. (Are these still there? A topic for another day, maybe).

Back to us. Is there a 'we', my dear future historian?

Am I just imagining a relationship, a dialogue, between us, all these years? Or am I facilitating (creating actually) a Parasocial relationship, * in which our time distance makes the possibility of our relationship ever becoming a two-way one impossible? And, if that is the case, is that OK, or not?

Questioning History

Dear future historian,

I missed you.

Lots of stuff since our last 'talk.'

Finished uni exams (still waiting for results,) went to Greece for 5 days, to visit family and friends, and today I fought the dragon of Chaos in my front yard.

It was full of thorns (berry bushes) up to my height and I had to go fully in to cut them. How do they grow so fast?

The Power of Keep-walking

 Dear Future Historian,

I met a miracle engineer.

He popped up at the park, I was sitting with my friends in. We had a portable speaker playing Jazz. It was my first day out after a long time and after I asked from the universe that day for it to be therapeutic. I felt kinda drained lately.

New book. Dear Future Historian: Winter 2022

Finally. Smaller and later than planned. But, at least, it is ready. New Dear Future Historian!

Get your copy here:

Dear Future Historian: Winter 2022

Amazon UK link

Amazon US link

New writing club anthology

Hello :-) 

New anthology from my university's writing club.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to participate in this amazing collective project.

This is going to be a real treasure for the dear future historians.

You can check my entry here.

And, you can order your copy here. 

Thoughts in a nutshell-loop

 27 January 2022

Dear Future Historian,

I finally gave another assignment and I realized—again—that this is not winter 2021, but winter 2022. So, I need to gather material for the next book in the ‘Dear Future Historian—weird timeline—something.’ For the new ones here, I’m making a four-books series. Summer-Autumn-Winter-Spring. However, I had the ‘brilliant’ idea that it would be cool (what was I thinking, and who says cool anymore?!) to have them be Summer 2020, Autumn 2021, Winter 2022, and then next year publish the Spring 2023. Winter has not much left before spring comes, but I’ve only written six posts so far.

The Drama Triangle

 Dear future historian,

 

I wrote about Gaslighting last time.

Very difficult matter to comment on.

I’m still struggling to put order into the Chaos of the so called ‘female hero myth,’ as Jordan Peterson puts it. The frog/Prince. The brainwashing of narratives that you can transform a narcissist if you love him enough. (Tried that. Not working.)

The argument from design

Dear Future Historian,

I haven’t managed to keep my latest goal of two posts per week, to have enough material for ‘Dear Future Historian, Winter 2022’ but I won’t be too harsh on myself because, among other reasons, it really doesn’t help.

Next assignment at uni is on Philosophy of Religion. We need to talk about David Hume’s objections on ‘the argument from design.’

I'm back

09 November 2021, around 10:30pm

Dear Future Historian,

I’ve been silent too long. I missed you. I missed me.

It’s like I meet myself when I’m talking/writing to you.

I’ve been lost in the surrealistic realm or what people call reality.

New book! Dear Future Historian: Autumn 2021

Do you wish you could touch it? Hold it like a teddy bear? Put it under your pillow? Offer it as a precious gift to your loved ones?

Do you get tired of reading from a screen, and wished you could have it on paper?

My ancient history

(I wrote that story about 20 years ago. Soon I am turning 40 and I thought it's a good time to return to my-ancient-history, so I translated it from the original Greek to share it with you, my only-English-speaking dear future historian and contemporary reader.) 

The Death of My God

Dear Future Historian,

I was about six or seven, I think. It was Christmas. I was backstage, in the amphitheatre of the church I was ‘going to’ (or was dragged to) back then. I was wearing a costume, but I’m not sure if I was an angel or a sheep. I guess I was a sheep because I remember that it was making me very itchy.

Inner Dialogue

Dear Future Historian,

Today I was informed indirectly, by her psychologist, that I don't exist cause she's not crazy enough! I believe the way it was phrased was: It’s time you admit the fact that even you know that she does not exist… because you aren’t schizophrenic; you're just autistic with big imagination. 

2021 Still Together: Another Anthology of Shorts

I proudly present: 2021 Still Together. Now available to order here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08PJGDZLT/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1

‘Writer’s Block’

Dear future Historian,

I could swear that I won’t make it. But why would I ever swear such a thing? It is funny what words are coming out of people’s mouths. Heavy words. Words that fall down on them like sticky honey, only to attract bees and… what am I even saying? (Have bees survived in your time?)