NECESSITY — EVEN THE GODS YIELD
By Konstantinos KonstantinidisAmphiktyon
Any attempt to revive the world of the past is ultimately futile. The arrow of time moves inexorably forward, never backward. Philosophers are often captivated by idealized conditions of former epochs and strive to restore them; yet the world unfolds according to its own internal dynamics. Toward what end does it move? Along one trajectory toward Evolution, and along another toward Destruction. The values of Hellenism were capable of delaying destruction, but never of abolishing it altogether.
Humanity indulges in distraction while the planet seethes with unresolved crises, many of them poised to erupt. Ultimately, Heimarmene (Fate) knows all and determines all within the cosmos. The ideal is rarely attained. Yet once it did flourish, so that future generations might behold it as a luminous paradigm. This occurred with the flowering of Greek civilization. It appeared, bestowed its radiant light, and fulfilled its historical role.
Nevertheless, distorted and barbarous spirits came to hate it. Empires subjected it; fanatical religions dismantled it; even its very name—Greek—was replaced with Roman. Its temples were demolished, its religious worldview altered. Like common thieves, they stripped it of its treasures and appropriated whatever noble elements it possessed—democracy, the Olympic Games, letters, science, the arts, culture—clumsily donning them like masqueraders in order to enrich themselves. Through successive acts of extermination and oppression, Hellenism was exhausted.
Yet they failed to become kaloi kagathoi—that is, beautiful in form and pure in soul. They remained irrational, incomplete beings. The essential difference between them and the Greeks lay in the primacy of rational thought.
[One need only observe how the irrational masses rise today in support of so-called “third-world invaders” arriving daily in our country by the thousands. Would an Ancient Greek citizen have accepted such a condition—submission to a foreign invader?]
Just as hyenas are drawn to blood and carrion, so modern humanity is drawn to money. “They will sell even the rope with which you hang them,” Marx once observed.
Why, then, were our ancestors different? According to tradition, the seed of our race originated from distant Sirius within our galaxy and descended upon the Earth. Perhaps therein lies the cause of our distinct DNA. This may sound extravagant, yet nothing is truly impossible. Might this account for their exceptional spiritual maturity?
Many ideologues sought to transform humanity through coercion and violence. All failed catastrophically and ultimately became worse than what they sought to overcome (Hitler, Lenin, Marx, among others), with the sole exception of Mao Zedong.
As pigs delight in wallowing in mud, so contemporary humanity immerses itself in consumer society, polluting the Earth. This corrupts the soul and engenders frenzy. Consequently, all modern creations bear the mark of excess, of lost measure, and of the absence of beauty.
And yet you—the dreamer, the metaphysical wanderer—attempt to speak to them of individual responsibility and philosophical maxims such as “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess.” Speak instead of stock markets, predatory politics, and plunder if you wish to be understood.
In any case, who is deemed right—the few eccentric individuals or the many? According to democratic convention, the many prevail.
Thus the world has always been. Had it wished to change, it would have done so already. You—a mere momentary spark within the universe—do you imagine you will transform it? Because you yourself emerged from the cave late in life and suppose that the prisoners will follow you? One swallow does not make a spring.
Such was the world, and such it shall remain—or it may degenerate further, following a nuclear Armageddon or an inevitable environmental collapse. Only under the compulsion of necessity, when standing at the very brink of the abyss, might it alter its course.
“Even the gods yield to necessity.”
(30/12/2025)
WITH HEALTH AND HAPPINESS FOR 2026
Amphiktyon
Lieutenant General (ret.) Konstantinos Konstantinidis
Author – Member of the Society of Greek Writers
*Amphiktyon Major General (retd) Konstantinos Konstantinidis
Author, Member of the Society of Greek Writers
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