Life Lessons from a Psychoanalyst: Matheos Yosafat at TEDxAthens (Transcript)

TRANSCRIPT:

I am happy to be here today because I see a lively part of Greek youth, which at this moment is not very animated in an energetic and active way.

I returned to Greece because I thought I could offer a few things in my field. Unfortunately, my generation disappointed my country a bit, so we expect from you, the new generation to do something for a worthy nation because it has offered a lot, but still has dormant powers.

The country is in a state of crisis, as you know, but I will not get into the economic and other matters. It is also a deep crisis, social and psychological.

The social one is that the country is essentially destroyed as a society. As a collective human condition. Everyone is pursuing their own self-interest.

The politicians are doing the same. We want our own, so we elect them. There is a situation that you all know, we are all thieves to a small extent. Few people try to contribute something for the common good.

Maybe this gathering and TEDx are very hopeful examples. And every attributes people had in the past in this country, have been partially disappeared.

There is a lawlessness, as you know. There is a hyper-consumerism, which everyone showed us that it’s the purpose of life. There is no team spirit.

And we know from psychology and psychoanalysis that man is happy only inside a network of relations and when he offers things. In a very substantial language, we call this love. It is not only romantic love and so forth, but the possibility to coexist with people, in this short trip we make through life, and through them to give and receive.