You think everyone thinks like you do. That everyone agrees with you. That’s called a bubble. A bubble!

Back in (the distant) 2012, I wrote that word on a white sticky note.

“Imagine.” Inspired by my favorite song of the same name.

Other words followed, and that’s more or less how my first article for CyprusNews came about. I don’t remember if I intended to keep writing back then. Probably not.

But I did.

I started writing.

About the things that bothered me. About the things that made us laugh. Sometimes even cry. About the things that made us angry. About the things that hurt us. About our society. About racism. Xenophobia. Homophobia. Education. The Cyprus issue. Reunification. Corruption. Hypocrisy. Human stupidity, which, admittedly, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

I also wrote about Leo. The President’s four-legged friend. An entire diary’s worth. They took him away from us.

I was also writing about Archbishop II. Entire volumes. But the late Archbishop certainly provided plenty of material. At some point, I might consider publishing his Complete Works.

And at this point, we must recall one of the most important theological teachings of that era, which he took care to leave us as a priceless legacy:

God does not save anyone for free.

Respect.

So at some point, the posts started to get a little traction. Likes. Shares. Comments.

It feels good. Kind of like being rich in Monopoly.

And above all, you get carried away.

You think everyone thinks like you. That everyone agrees with you. That society is changing and that you, the underdog, are making a difference.

That’s called a bubble. A bubble!

Because on the few occasions I tried to step out of the bubble, I realized there was another world out there.

And—I confess—there were even more of them. So I’d return to my bubble.

Somewhere along the way, for various reasons, I stopped writing regularly. A hiatus. Longer than I’d anticipated.

In the summer, Marina popped up on Messenger. She’s the Editor-in-Chief here.

“Will you be writing for us?” she asked me.

She meant for Sunday’s Alpha, of course.

I hope, anyway.

And I thought: why not?

Tell me, you picked a great time to get back into writing. Now that AI writes everything perfectly.

And spelled correctly. And with their period marks. And with their dashes in the right places. And with those double accents we didn’t even know existed.

Per-fect.

Here are some greenhorns who, until yesterday, couldn’t even construct a sentence, but today they’ve become Plato and Aristotle. 

They’re funny, though. Especially in the world of politics. Some overly elaborate phrases that, when you read them again, make you wonder, “Wait, what did you just say, poet?”

Anyway. Let AI write them perfectly. We’ll talk about that sometime, too. In any case, artificial intelligence will “defeat” many things. Only human stupidity—I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

So I still count myself among the romantics—those who believe that writing and communication will always have something human about them. Something personal. A personal story. A smile. Emotions. A memory. A gem of a phrase you heard this morning and can’t get out of your head.

That’s why I decided to start writing again.

I struggle with formulas. I’ve made that clear.

I might start with a news story. A word. An image. A feeling. Something that made me laugh or got me angry.

Tell me, glorious field of glory.

Let it set us ablaze.

So we’ll keep in touch here as well.

From Sunday’s Alpha.

P.S. “You should write,” various other friends and acquaintances tell me from time to time.

“I don’t want to write,” I reply.

Imagine if we lived in a normal country. Imagine running carefree through the meadows like free-range cows, with no reason to write at all.

Just imagine.