I did not expect this book: it was written as a parenthesis on demand. In November 1994, a daily newspaper persistently requested a long-term Sunday collaboration with topics of my choosing. I agreed on the condition that the articles would be printed in Greek - that is, using the polytonic system - which the management accepted, so I began writing and delivering texts.

The start of the publications was scheduled for New Year's Day 1995. However, when the time came, the publication was postponed and continued to be delayed, while I kept delivering material, until I requested in mid-May for the situation to finally be clarified, and I was informed, without further explanations, that the collaboration with the newspaper was canceled.

Meanwhile, the series of articles, except for the last one, was ready and I could not bring myself to leave it incomplete. But now I was no longer concerned with the broad audience of the newspaper, and the article turned into quite a demanding and extensive study: I found the opportunity to explain, to some extent, the character of individualization.

This "opportunity" perhaps lasted longer than I had anticipated; nonetheless, the series of articles on present-day Greece as a spiritual issue, albeit unevenly, was completed. In these, I added three notes on painting (the first from 1983, and two subsequent ones from 1995), a lecture on education at the College of Athens (1991), later published in the "Economic Courier" (November 1992), and I submitted the book, with minor additions and corrections, for printing.

[...]

(from the introductory text, "Retrospective")