Athens 2022. From the huge detached houses of Kifissia to the stylish apartment buildings of Glyfada, the stylish or ramshackle houses of the city centre that you pay gold for, to the unsightly semi-basements in the «slums» - which once were not slums at all - an Athens that deepens its contrasts as it goes on.
Desperately in Athens, you are no longer looking for love. In Athens you are desperately looking for a job that can offer you a life even within the limits of dignity.

750 euros net and if you find it you will be happy. That's what my prospective employers told me, me with my «scary» skills.

750 euros with rent if you're lucky at 350 if not at 550-600, add in the fixed costs, add in the transport, metro-taxi, gasoline; in the end you pay to work 8 hours without (paid) overtime.

This is the #olistic, as one soul says, reality as I have experienced it for the past three weeks or so looking for work alongside my studies and everything else I am involved in. And if I «slammed my hand on the table» and left because in the end in «2-3 years I will open an office not, live off them» I am surprised that these people, so many people! have seen their lives turn into a daily survivor or are forced to live at 30 and 35 with their parents and yet they are not massively on the streets, massively in their trade unions, massively demanding their self-evident right to dignity and life; because I didn't tell you we weren't born to live in galleys, we weren't born to survive. We were born to create science, art, experience, joy, life.

I don't know if it's all the fault of capitalism, I've never been much into that kind of theory, or human compromise in the face of the instinct of self-preservation, but I do know that unless something changes drastically the fate of our generations is determined. It is not possible for so many people for so long to sit «fatalistic and unthinking and expecting a miracle» as Varnalis used to say, and watch our Kyriakos or whoever in his place drink coffee, take selfies on his trimesters, watch NBA games with a ticket for thousands of euros and talk about a holistic approach to life by the man who pays for everything out of the pockets of the Greek people.

You have to do something, I have to do something, we have to do something.

PS: I seldom remember myself being so alarmed by the disparate images of Athens, which existed and have always been the object of observation, perhaps because it was the first time I saw their flames licking so menacingly «my parts» .... And perhaps somewhere in there is the fault of most of us. We think it's none of our business. And yet! It concerns us all...or now or in the near future...what does it matter? Every day and a little more we realize that we and our children are becoming the lost generations...let's not allow it.