For this year’s Valentine’s Day, TEDxAUTH decided it’s time to look for its own Valentine. As a modern Penelope, we won’t deny it – because, above all, we are humble – there were many prospective suitors. Our heart, however, does not belong to Odysseus from Ithaca, but to the one and only Mr VALENTINE Tselio from Larissa, born and raised in the Thessalian Plain, a retired teacher and soon 91 years old, if you please!
So following the advice “always ask questions at your date, to seem that you are interested” and equipped with the essentials, a bouquet of red roses, a box of chocolates, and a giant teddy bear, we invited him to a Valentine’s– but at the same time not a Valentine’s– interview…
HE SAID YES!!!
Do you believe that true love exists or is everything ephemeral?
As long as people exist, there was, there is, and there will always be love. Certainly, we meet ephemeral loves, but we can’t consider it as a rule. There is indeed true love, which lasts until old age. I imagine you will have seen older people still in love, for 50 and 60 years. It’s not a habit, as many like to call it. It is real love.
Do you think that two people who became close through matchmaking can eventually fall in love?
Two people who became close through matchmaking can of course fall in love; we have many examples in life. Little by little, they appreciate each other’s qualities and remain in love for life.
On the occasion of all this, in many cases, we see or hear that today’s relationships, in contrast to those of another era, tend to not make it through time. If you could give young people advice, to make relationships last, what would it be?
Today’s relationships are not necessarily the opposite of other times. In all eras, after all, there were different cases. As for the advice to young people, I would tell them not to enter into relationships at first sight and with some superficiality, but with some thought and a deeper acquaintance of the person with whom they will establish the relationship.
So, with which 3 words would you describe the current new generation?
People and the new generation cannot be described in 3 words. There are a lot of people, as well as young people, and they are all different. Some are frivolous, some are responsible and some are irresponsible. Therefore, the whole generation does not fit into one mold.
Tell us one thing you didn’t know in your 20s, but you do know now.
One thing I didn’t know in my 20s, was that by opening a device I could see what is happening around the world. However, in terms of my daily life, probably nothing changed dramatically, I was just working in my 20s and I had no thoughts about the future and so on, I was just preoccupied with the present back then.
In your times of difficulty or great sadness, what was it that mainly helped you to overcome it and move on?
The truth is that I went through such difficulties and sadness, especially during my childhood. When I was nine years old, I lost my mother. The love of the father and the sympnoia between the brothers – imagine that the five children left behind were between three and twelve years old – made us go on with our lives. We, the older ones, helped the younger ones. That, viz the love between us and our faith contributed to overcoming these difficulties because later came even more, such as war, occupation, long-term hunger, but even these, little by little, were overcome by the sympnoia of the family and the help of our father and stepmother.
Answers like this disarm and definitely put you in thoughts. They force you to look at life from another angle. How is it possible for a child to experience the untold pain of such a loss and then be deprived of the basics, and still manage to flourish as a human being? We may realize, once again, that what we perceive as a datum, is not so solid. Maybe we need to reconsider the way we deal with everyday life, the way we define it ourselves, hoping that we will not forget it again. “Sympnoia” is the word that Mr Valentinos chooses to describe how he managed to stand up straight. Sympnoia <syn + pnoe (breath). Collective breathing and care. That’s how they marched and survived then, and it has a lot to teach us.
In the modern world, where we take everything as a datum, what do you think is what most often makes us humans forget to be grateful?
We do not have all datum in the world. The saying “τὰ πάντα ῥεῖ” -meaning “everything flows”- is always valid. For example, the blissful life of humanity – if it ever had it – was disturbed by the appearance of the coronavirus. Alkis’s murder also shook the datum of his family. A car accident changes the life of a family. People often forget to be grateful for those who support them. This is a matter of education.
And now the big question, does love after all pass through the stomach, or do we, that we only know how to cook spaghetti, also have any hope?
Love has nothing to do with material things, it is a spiritual state. Therefore, the loveable person, the person in love, is patient to constantly eat spaghetti, because as the Apostle Paul says “love always endures, always dries up and never fails”, but also the partner who only makes spaghetti, if they love them, their partner, they should also make the effort and slowly, from the spaghetti, with the help of their partner, to get to the point of making a complex stew and the wonderful moussaka and the wonderful pastitsio.
Mr Valentine clearly sees mutual respect as the basis for starting an equal relationship, while, at the same time, he places camaraderie and mutual support as the main pillars of its maintenance. Wow, but how did the time go by like that? With so many interesting things to tell us, we completely lost the sense of time! However, it is probably time to say goodbye.
Is there any last thing you would like to share with us?
In closing, I would like to make a wish to you, and as a teacher who has been occupied with children for years, I recommend you to fall in love deeply and sincerely, and I wish you everything in your life to go well and to always be happy.
We would like to thank Mr Valentine for his time! In some points we may have agreed, in others, we may not, but it was certainly a very interesting discussion, and it is clear that we could not have chosen a better Valentine.
We should leave you somewhere here. Influenced, whether we like it or not, by today’s mood, let us paraphrase Shakespeare:
This bitterness of separation has such a sweetness that… happy Valentine’s Day we will tell you until dawn, whether you are with your partners or not – because we have a good time on our own as well!
With lots of love,
TEDxAUTH 2022