Interview meme from Agatha S. - comment and I will interview you (if I can think of questions

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1. What is the most beautiful place in the world you've visited?
Venice. Beyond comparison, expectation, or belief. And then there is Villa d'Este in Tivoli.
2. Which magical object, spell or potion from the Harry Potter books do you wish existed in real life?
Goodness! The Time-Turner, probably.
3. Which languages that you don't know yet would you most like to learn?
Pahlavi, Persian, Hebrew, Aramaic, Accadian, ancient Egyptian. And among those I know a little, I would greatly like to improve my Classical Greek, Icelandic, Sanskrit, Old English, Welsh, and Old Irish. And why not a few Slavonic languages while I'm at it?
4. What would be more difficult for you to bear: living on a deserted island, or living in a permanently crowded place?
Desert island, unless it had cable and internet. I have always lived in big cities - Milan, Rome, London. I did my National Service in a small Italian town, L'Aquila, and nearly went crazy.
5. Which character traits do you see as most important in a friend?
I am not quite sure, because I am not sure why people become friends - why you choose one person out of dozens of people with excellent qualities to confide in and support and help and argue with and share experiences with. But once you are a friend, the most important virtue without any doubt is loyalty.

Comments

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I do not tink I have ever found myself in the sort of problem you outline. The institutions to which I am most loyal would include the Catholic Church, the Italian Republic, and to a lesser extent things like the University of Oxford and the United Kingdom. I have not found myself in any situation that demanded me to choose between a friend and an institution (which, at any rate, would ultimately always involve having to choose one person over another, since institutions are always represented by persons), although I have a few times experienced the horror of betrayal by a close friend. But that is a separate matter.

Besides, it depends what you mean. By being loyal to the Church or to my country, I do not mean that I have to put up with every action that its representatives, or even its leaders, take. Sometimes loyalty means protesting to their faces. On one occasion, I have protested in writing to Pope John Paul himself.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you never were stuck in that situation. I was thinking of war protesters with friends in the military, where personally you care deeply for the soldiers, practically you vehemently disagree with what they're doing, to the point where you'd be happy if they went AWOL, (which would not be in their best long-term interest) - that kind of dillema. Getting angry at family (and I consider churches family structures), is too standard to be a problem for me. But I'm fortunate to have no issues with the way my family fights its little battles.