If generosity is one art to admire in Athens, music is another one. The secret to Greek music is conviction. To love without shame, to love to the brink of madness, to love for the sake of love. You will wish you were horribly lovesick at least once in your life in order to fully enjoy, in order to fully revel in Greek music. Love is beyond romantic, sex is beyond physical, it is a way to touch the heavens. Love becomes a sacred pilgrimage, and I believe this is what they call érota. Being betrayed by érota can turn men into wounded soldiers, singing swan songs for their loved ones. Proud women try to contain themselves and turn into flames instead, or a dignified silence.
But érota is not just for lovers, it is also for life itself. To have persistence, to love life so much as to never give up, no matter what fate is throwing at you. In the middle of shit, to see and create as much beauty around you as you possibly can. Greeks have a faultless beauty radar. In a park, in a city, they always know how to track down the most beautiful spot, with the most comfortable shade, the most scenic views and the most splendid flowers. There may be an ugly office building–or a hotel, more likely–right next to it, but Greeks do not care about that. They remind me of my great uncle, who said playing his vinyl records: “You shouldn’t listen to the scratches but to the music.” A Greek man does not listen to the music, he makes the music and brings in his own scratches to play as if his life depends on it. Here, mastering the art of music is mastering the art of life.
It may be both Greece’s blessing and her tragedy that “the Greek knows how to live with his rags”, as Henry Miller once put it. The bare necessities of a roof, food and clothes seem to suffice for many to be satisfied and shun change. The young who want more from life feel forced to leave, their ambition running into the marble walls of the past, an overshadowing family, the importance of connections, the lack of a middle ground, between anarchism and elitism, between rebellion and tradition. They dream of a career in academia, starting a business, having a house of their own, some money to spend, to develop and be free.
Freedom is what I saw in Athens, freedom to love, to get angry, to dance, to get lost.
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