On The Unhappiness Of Being Greek - Plot & Excerpts
Yet we desperately try to fit in somewhere. Why is it that we feel our uniqueness to be a failing? Why are we ashamed of it? Is it because we are not big enough or powerful enough to make a banner of our singularity? Or perhaps because we are not sure enough of ourselves? 67 (This lack of self-assurance – and not our size – always led us to seek ‘guardians’. There are other small nations – but they don’t allow themselves to become dependent on bigger ones …) 68 We never had any wish to clarify or understand our singularity. We were always doing our best to belong somewhere and not to be who we are. We tried to become the ancient Greeks again. We strove to prove the purity of our race, fanatically declaring war on every ‘Fallmerayer’13 to come along, but we never calmly investigated its actual characteristics. We disliked and destroyed our language because it didn’t happen to be exactly the same as that of our ancient ancestors. We disliked ourselves because we weren’t tall or fair and didn’t have a ‘Greek nose’ like the Hermes of Praxiteles.
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