I have been falling into the sin of column writing for almost forty years now (with small breaks) in "Vima". Why? I confess therefore: a) the passion to expose myself to multidisciplinarity - ophthalmologists of the left eye must not be very happy, and b) the feeling of participating in the common affairs (even if from the window), so that the worm of "privatization" does not eat me away with guilt.

But why this current (even if rearranged) re-publication? Answer: It occurred to me that the combatant pessimism of a large part of my column writing over the last thirty years, (which did not coincide with the endemic affectionate populism of this period), pointed out now and then our evident national decline.

From this perspective, I thought that this re-publication might contribute somewhat to the acute demand of our times: the acquisition (even if retrospectively) of our missing self-awareness. Here, I have only gathered the columns from the last 15 years. With only one exception: My reference from 20 years ago to the monstrosity of the then public debt, which I present first...