In a society that leaves no room for silence, we learn that the absence of attention is equivalent to annihilation.

Nektaria Karantzi | October 17, 2025

 

 

Perhaps there is no greater illusion than that of the conviction that what we do, what we stand for, what we believe ourselves to be, is important. So important that everyone ought to listen to us, to share our vision, to respond to our ideas. Those marvelous ideas, the decisive ones, as we think, for the survival of our precious little world—that of the self.

Era of the influence of the small self. Profession: influencer, life coach, spiritual advisor, and all the related roles... often accompanying individuals who derive value simply from the ability to become objects of observation, attention, or admiration.

Does everyone truly deserve to speak?

This violence of trying to convince that who we are has worth never truly accompanied, in history, those who actually marked it by changing it. And that should be the first warning bell.

All of us, sooner or later, are at some point called to a more open-minded way of thinking that includes the whole world. It is not easy to respond to this call. And if you are fifteen or twenty years old, it's not the end of the world. But if, in the decades that follow, you still do not listen, then the illusion is no longer innocent. It turns into an anguished spiral that swallows you and makes you disappear like a black hole. In the effort not to lose what you think you are, what you believe you offer the world through your presence, you deprive yourself of the possibility to get to know who you are.

And then, denial leads you with mathematical precision to diminished accountability. Neither the negligence nor the quaint naivety of your excessive effort to “speak,” to “convince,” to “inspire” is attributed to you anymore, because it seems you lack full awareness of how and how much you are exposing yourself. You pretend to be something you think you are, but never were. And the more you believe it, the more you become its prisoner. You make one blunder after another, and the worst part is that you don’t realize it. That’s why it was wisely said once that before the era of self-exposure, only those close to us knew our foolishness—whereas now, everyone learns it, from us ourselves.

An era of intoxicating delusion. The self we never sought has ceased to trouble us. It lies in a coma. We settle for the simulation. We have not toiled for what we so eagerly impersonate, yet we demand that our faux be priced as gold. And the stronger the simulation, the more intense the projection: the letters of our name larger than our head, on the big screen of our small mind. And it is so easy to deceive and be deceived. We build small or large groups of mutual affirmation, exchanging compliments and clichés. Mutual caresses of weaknesses.

It is the fear of invisibility. The terror of “not existing,” if no one sees me—especially if no one sees that “I’m worth something.” In a society that leaves no room for silence, we learn that the absence of attention is equivalent to annihilation. You are worthy when you convince others of it. You exist when you are seen.

To feel that we deserve what we are not, to believe that we profess great prefab truths of life, to so hastily adopt the role of mentor—this may resemble a form of bliss: a naivety that balances out our deficiencies. It may even be a way of surviving, a psychological defense against the bare truth of existence. But this delusion comes at a price.

All of the above would be charming and harmless in the face of the vastness of the universe—if they didn’t reflect the larger picture of our collective life. Because all of us, more or less, participate in this theater, at times as spectators, at times as protagonists. Often with the best of intentions. We feed both sides, observing and being observed, in so many different arenas. But most of all, in those under the spotlight. The noisy, tragically fake spotlight, which—strangely enough—we forget every time that it consistently attracts flies.

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The photograph comes from NASA / Event Horizon Telescope (2019): the first image of a black hole, M87*, in the galaxy Messier 87.

In the years we have been projecting our false light, true darkness was captured for the first time.

Greek source:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4103473746539672&set=a.1375128386040902