"De Vita Ferenda"

In the title of today's post I am paraphrasing the latin legal expression "de lege ferenda", which is an expression used to argue how a law should read vs. how it actually reads (i.e. "de lege lata"), if we wanted it to be more just. Same goes for our lives in general, I guess. There is a more or less abstract idea as to how our lives should be, if we wanted them to be more just vs. how they actually are, which is by default always lagging behind perfection.

I admit that I got my inspiration from a Legal Congress that I attended this weekend on the subject of media and IP law, privacy and data protection. I got a sniff of what is coming our way in the next few decades from a technological point of view and I was exposed to the legal challenges that these changes will bring by. I must also confess that it was quite refreshing to enjoy a panel of elite academics, who demonstrated such formidable forward thinking in the conception and resolution of possible challenges ahead. It was refreshing also to see how legal thinking is required to become the scout of future facts that ideally should be regulated "a priori". And suddenly, the entire atmosphere filled me with such an emotion of contention and happiness, also probably due to the fact that legal theory is so much more liberal and creative compared to legal remedy. And then, there were also the small things that one learns to appreciate over time, such as the proper and impeccable use of language or the exchange of constructive arguments. I guess these things are caviar for our spirits, which we are obligated to feed from time to time, in order to enable our minds in turn to produce great ideas. And these ideas we then store in a different compartment within our brains, just like our digestive system is storing fat in other parts of our bodies, with a view to consume them once we encounter a "brain threatening" situation from which we need to come out harmless. Think of it just like a video game, where the player has his three lives to spare, in order to get to the objective.

Among a weekend that was filled with academic substance all the way to television trash and several attempts of unsuccessful art, visual effects and a sunshine with increasing temperatures, I particularly enjoyed the few moments of abstention. You know, those moments, where you actually manage to take a distance from everything and sit back and reflect on the true meaning of life, if you will. True meaning as opposed to purposeless existence, which is threatening to take over and render most of us into passive forms of life on this planet. I then try to reflect on life's pluralism and attempt a deep dive into the minds of everyone around me. I was so delighted to listen to new expressions of the legal world (such as "privacy by design" or "privacy by default" or "data mining" etc.), which I kept reiterating in my mind as I am usually amazed by the re-invention of language, to the same extent that I am truly amazed every time I see for example a new painting style or a new dancing style, just about when I thought that we have seen it all and there is no room for innovation.Truly comforting to know that there are these special creatures on the planet that manage to amaze us at new and to expand the limits of our virtual and actual realities and it feels like we are being given last second breaths to avoid mental suffocation. I would cordially like to pay tribute to all these people for providing their aid without even knowing it and for making our unbearable lightness of being more bearable.