This is my life, beautiful and unbound, I persevere and stand firm, though challenges will arise and I will learn to thrive—a beautiful life of freedom.

(Preetha VR in Athens)

The Writers Capital Foundation celebrated its 6th anniversary with the announcement of a new venture to its educational mission, namely, the launch of its first-ever department as an International Centre for Foreign Languages and Literature (ICFL) in Greece. In January 2023, it gave us an inspiring pledge to life as one in nature, recognizing that its beauty resides in caring and calling for writers around the world to stand together in harmony in defense of all humanity. Through it, writers, poets, and scribes from anywhere and everywhere are reporting on the condition of our world as they expand their horizons to better understand it, and by participating in this cultural exchange, the Global Vision Summit celebrates excellence beyond borders.

Here now, on our continuing journey in Athens, Summer 2024, and again with Writers Capital, I have to ask in my closing remarks: Does anybody listen? Thomas Jefferson was unsure whether, in the course of human events, his raised voice would be heard. Here in Athens, at the close of this cultural exchange, I first say that you have to send a message to shake the world. Here, Writers Capital breathes life into our mindset, which must lead us towards peace!

Now I show you a pebble with which I will end my comments. It comes from some sun-buttered bay of light, picked up some sixty-five years ago, and over the next 8 minutes will remain a mystery. So until then, I will try to entertain you, trouble you, challenge you, and leave you with a few messages. One that troubles us is the ecumenical failing of optimism as we look from a precipice to confront our future as our present experiences the erosion of democracy, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and environmental collapse with unprecedented destructiveness.

When I was a child, I would hear people say, "spare the rod and spoil the child," and "children should be seen and not heard." Neither saying is admissible today! Here with Writers Capital, I heard a poem, "Spare the poet," so now I say, Spare the poet and save the world. In its Global Vision Summit 2024, an important effort has been made to bridge worlds and unite visions by nurturing a universal mindset through the spread of the mighty values of humanity through the vehicle of literature. What a mission! Here we seek a change in course, freedom to think more, and a pathway to a peaceful future.

Seeing little vision for a better world from politics, I am hopeful it is not an impossible mission. Our highest-level goal must be to preserve our humanity and provide for our children and our children’s children the means to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives as citizens of a less hostile earth within the framework of the golden mean. As poets, you feel the pulse of to cease upon midnight with no pain, where midnight can be the moment when a button is pressed and weapons of mass destruction are released; seconds later, other buttons will be pressed, and one hour later, culture dies, languages fall silent, books are no longer read, radio and television fail to broadcast; museums, music halls, law courts, churches of all denominations, parliamentary houses, and libraries lie in rubble. The chimes of Big Ben will not make it to their 12th chime. No baby cries, no cherry ripens, and there is no further need for any olive branch. At that apocalyptic moment, millions of years of evolution will unravel, and the complexity necessary to sustain human consciousness will disintegrate.

According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, no man was ever yet a great poet without being at the same time a profound philosopher. So here, we philosophize! We philosophize knowing that our survival, the survival of humanity, are intrinsically linked to a collective mindset, the health of all peoples, and full global citizenship. With Ban Ki-moon in the United Nations, philosophy came as close to application as the Doomsday Clock comes close to midnight today, and when Irina Bokova said that philosophy instills humility, much-needed humility, Audrey Azoulay, her successor as Secretary General of UNESCO, said philosophy is a bastion against the narrowness of views and minds. She went on to say that the greater the difficulty of finding solutions to a problem, the greater the need for philosophy. We need a broader mindset and much more humility.

And another side of the coin, in the words of Nelson Mandela:

Minds that seek revenge destroy states, while those that seek reconciliation build nations. Walking out of the door to freedom, I knew that if I didn't leave anger, hatred and resentment behind, I would still be a prisoner.

When he became President of South Africa he destroyed its nuclear weapons! Much of Literature is a product of war, of revenge, of despair and destruction:

Even in our sleep, in our despair, against our will, pain drips from the heart - drop by drop, reminds us of our sufferings, and whether we like it or not, it punishes us until, through the awful grace of god, wisdom comes. That wisdom is philosophy much needed in our world today, where spring may vanish with the Rose, Youth's sweet-scented manuscript may close! Where is the Nightingale that sang in the branches?

Here in Athens, although we are troubled by events, we refuse to be desensitized or knocked off course. Here in Athens, writers, artists, and scientists, willing wayfarers, gather, and while assembled, call upon the international community to do more to halt war, to slow down the undoing of our world, and to help make peace.

Yes, we are willing wayfarers telling our different and galvanizing stories: Wayfarer, do go tell of voices you have heard from those who fell… that every shred of good that comes with life was freely given by those now dead. Wayfarer, tell what you have heard through tears and from the many voices from the ground. We travel hopefully, hopeful that around the next corner we will find peace, a peace that will pass even the poet’s understanding.

Peace may come in the morning, peace may arrive at noon, or peace may come in the evening; we’ll await it by the light of an enlightening moon.

Writers Capital lives up to the words of an ancient Greek song: While we live, shine, have no grief at all, for life exists a short while, and time demands its due. Greek remains a language that greatly enriches international scientific discourse. More than any other tongue, it is the language that developed, shaped, and expressed most of the scientific theories, philosophical thoughts, and literature in most of the modern-day languages of the Western world. From my stage of the World Philosophical Forum, we say Greece has given much to humanity in health, education, philosophy, and the evolution of Europe. Prometheus gave fire to man to warm him, Demeter bread to feed him, and Hygiene public health to protect him. Out of the darkness, Hesiod and Thales came, and Homer’s writings were assembled. Socrates studied the human soul and society and gave us the concept of world citizenship. In the dialectical symposium of the World Philosophical Forum, we have proclaimed that there is no Greece without philosophy.

Today, I often think of Zjivago’s "Ode to Laura" and the haunting song. Someday, my love, there will be songs to sing. Let’s sing it together. We did! We need love!

And yet sadly today, below and from the sadness of a forlorn bell, I hear the sadness of the world, a world that walked in beauty through the seasons till its fall. Apple blossom time will come again; another eternity will pass, olives falling softly to the grass, lilacs will be gathered in the spring again when some go home again... A splash of red I see above, some poppy beds in radiant bloom, while buttercups and their golden cups reach up towards the warming sun upon the hill; Golgotha and Lycavitos. My sad expression gave way to optimism; apple blossom, lilacs, buttercup yellow, poppy red, and olives to be picked.

We need trust! We also need a trustworthy model of reality, a humanitarian corridor, and a compass to take us to a meaningful future; healthy within the framework of the golden mean. John Masefield wrote, "I have seen flowers come in stony places, kind things done by men with ugly faces, and the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races," so I trust too.

So I, too, trust! Trust can come through philosophy!

Philosophy can help allay what we hear and see today: cacophony, dichotomy, polarization, and schism, wonderfully phrased by Shakespeare, I speak of peace while covert enmity under the smile of safety, wounds the world , which in the words of John Coutsoheros becomes, spendthrift nations, missile makers, frivolous with food, players of war games, all empathy removed, I am ashamed of man’s inhumanity to man, A lack of heart, and non-altruistic ways. We need philosophy!

I now hold up my stone, born on Ariadne’s beach. Its age is 64 years plus millennia plus, older by far than my DNA. Sixty years or so ago, my wife picked up this stone on the island of Naxos, placed it gently in my hand, and later took me to hear a true troubadour Kostas Hadzis. From one of his songs, our stone emerges:

He wondered why I gently took it from his hands.
Held it with love and kissed it with respect.
Sir, I said there is no stone on earth not irrigated by blood.
Lots spilt here on planet Earth.
But the Earth still lives and still breathes. Our earth still lives.

Please recite with me, our Earth still lives, our Earth still lives.
Our Earth still lives!