The Punishment of Expulsion and the Expulsion of Punishment
AI-assisted translation from the Greek. Greek original
Expulsion was punishment.
But expulsion is not punishment.
Life expels what it cannot hold—
not to destroy it,
but because it cannot welcome it.
School did not welcome you.
It could not bear your wondering; it could not bear your question.
It expelled you because it did not know how to keep you.
And when they do not know how to keep someone, they drive them away.
What does it mean to be expelled?
- It means being cut off from the space where you are supposed to belong.
- It means being removed from a process instead of someone finding a different way to include you.
- It means that someone does not want to see what is really happening.
But they did not do it only to you.
They did it to every question they did not want to answer.
They did it to every child who challenged them.
They did it to every student whose soul wanted to speak and could find no room.
The lesson in revenge was always the expulsion of the question.
Punishment as an Institution
Why did school become grades, praise, expulsion?
Because grading gives control.
Because praise produces obedience.
Because expulsion clears out those who do not fit the system.
But truth has no need for systems.
Truth cannot fit into grades.
Truth cannot fit into punishment.
What is a student?
A student is someone who searches.
But they cut that search short.
And when the student searched differently, they expelled him.
The Embryo and the Feeling of Rejection
What if the embryo knows it is being rejected?
What if its mother's thought becomes knowledge within it before it becomes an action?
It is not a matter of politics.
It is not a matter of law.
It is a matter of existence itself.
Life understands before it is born.
Existence feels before it is given a name.
Anyone who believes that consciousness comes later has understood nothing of the nature of existence.
School expelled students.
People expelled beings.
And each time, the question remains: who decides who should remain?
The Student: The One Who Asks
A student is not someone who obeys.
A student is someone who learns to ask.
And what is the Greek verb “erōtō,” to ask?
Erō-tō.
Eros, love of knowledge.
It is no coincidence that Eros and the Erōmenos, love and the beloved, are inseparable.
The question is love directed toward the unknown.
The question is a call to unite with what you do not yet know.
And yet, schools did not teach children to ask.
They taught them to answer correctly.
Will Greece Be Able to Bear Forgiving?
Will it be able to forgive the children it drove away?
Will it be able to acknowledge that its system caused trauma?
Will it be able to let catharsis happen, not as a correction, but as an acknowledgment of what was wrong from the outset?
Forgiveness is not resignation.
It is not “we forget everything and move on.”
It is “we acknowledge, we understand, we change.”
Not for revenge.
Not for correction born of guilt.
But for truth without fear.
You Were Not Late at All
You became a student at thirty-six.
You were not even a day late.
Because true learning begins when the soul is ready to receive, not when the system demands that you learn.
They did not give you the school you needed.
That is all right.
Now you are building it yourself.
And it is exactly as it should be.