DABOISASTRGLEDT – by Ivaniel “Ivo” Georgiev
DABOIS, there is something inherently dangerous about removing a protective layer – regardless of what kind of layer it is.
Earlier this month, I was watching an episode of Modern Wisdom. Chris Williamson, as usual, and in front of him today, Rick Glassman. They were being as funny as they were serious when Glassman dropped his “No Condom” concept – interpreted literally or metaphorically, it implies the removal of filters. A clash with raw reality. The rejection of mediation.
Many questions emerged within me, but one of them was the most striking: what happens when we stop protecting ourselves and start living with the consequences?
To explore it, I put three people in a fictional setting: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Roughly the same age in this telling. A Wednesday night. A fan club in Piraeus. Olympiacos vs. Barcelona, Champions League semifinal. The first time in the club’s history.
Philosophy didn’t plan to show up in this case, but this is what happens usually – it never does.
And just as tonight was solely about football, somehow, our protagonists will have to wrestle with another of life’s many debacles while trying to cheer up for their team,
A line of thought. A progression of doubt. And a single idea, like a spark in dry grass, and the raging fire that follows.
· · ·
Before we continue, thank you. (YES, I WILL NOT STOP REPEATING IT!)
I know time can’t be returned – NEVER – and I’m genuinely glad you’re spending part of it here.
If you’re new: this isn’t a place for preaching or selling. It’s a courtroom with no verdicts – only questions that open into more questions. My goal is to reveal what has not been revealed – or if it has been, to at least give a different point of view on it.
I point out the things that we accept, swallow or hide, and pretend daily that they don’t shape us – even though we’re under their control. If something here makes you feel uncomfortable, then you’re on the right path – discomfort is perhaps the best sign that we haven’t yet learned how to anesthetise it.
- Curiosity lights the match.
- Action keeps the fire alive.
- Effort is what everyone talks about until it becomes necessary.
I hope you stay until the end… but that’s up to you.
By the way, today’s loop on the DABOIS’ radio is: “Horse with no name” by America. It contains that “searching for something else” energy.
Now, let’s focus on the story.
· · ·
The Match – Olympiacos vs. Barcelona at the local fan club in Piraeus
It is Wednesday night. Wooden dusty tables, slightly scratched. Six backless benches. Four TVs, one in each corner. Metal chairs, some with cushions, some without. Warm lighting – no LED. White and red colours everywhere. Greek Gods on every wall.
The place has an old, nostalgic vibe that the regulars have chosen to preserve. A win here would mean the return leg at home with an advantage. Everyone knows it. The atmosphere is lively but not chaotic – the kind of room where conversations intertwine but rarely overlap, and when they do, it’s usually nonsense.
A modern agora. Not for truth, but for the thrill of performance.
Aristotle enters. He scans the already packed-up room and spots Plato and Socrates on a bench – no room left. He greets them, suggests they move under one of the TVs. He finds three empty chairs. Two without cushions. One with.
He doesn’t deliberate. He takes the one with the cushion for himself and brings the other two over.
SOCRATES
Aren’t you a little ashamed?
ARISTOTLE
Ashamed of what?
SOCRATES
Plato worked all day. I’m older than both of you. You’re unemployed and did God knows what today. Shouldn’t the cushion go to one of us?
Plato watches the exchange like a tennis match.
ARISTOTLE
No. There’s only one cushion, and I can’t choose between you, so I’m keeping it. If either of you asks first, I’ll hand it over immediately. End of story.
Silence.
Plato and Socrates both look at the TV. The teams take the field. The Champions League anthem plays. The referee’s first whistle. Barcelona applies early pressure.
Aristotle turns to them.
ARISTOTLE
Can I have a moment?
They look at him.
ARISTOTLE
Yesterday, outside the supermarket, two guys were talking about the difference between using a condom and not using one. I always use one. I’m not in a position to deal with the consequences otherwise. But the way they were explaining it to each other, I recognised something else. A pattern that goes beyond the scope of the topic they are discussing (without them even realising it). As if the condom is a symbol. Of incomplete candour. Of the inability to live fully.
SOCRATES
(eyes still on the TV) You’re starting philosophically. Watch the game. We’ll talk later.
A pause after a surprising counterattack from Olympiacos… and a miss. Then, quieter:
SOCRATES
But if you’re really asking – if a person is open and keeps their word, it doesn’t matter what happens to them.
Aristotle looks at Plato. Plato looks at Aristotle. Then Plato glances at the TV – just as a penalty is awarded to Barcelona. The room tightens. Everyone leans forward.
Barcelona scores. 1–0. Half the room erupts. The other half groans.
Plato stands. He surveys the room – the packed crowd, most of them more interested in each other than in what just happened on the pitch.
Socrates slams his fist on the table. Then he also stands. He surveys the room – the fans, Aristotle – and pauses. Age has made him rigid, but also sharper. His smile is the smile of a man who has already lost everything, or who is ready to.
SOCRATES
Let’s start with this. No condom, it is.
Plato raises an eyebrow. Aristotle leans forward.
SOCRATES
This isn’t solely about the physical act. Think about life without filters. Without barriers between you and the consequences. Look at everyone here – gathered for something greater than themselves, yet each sealed inside their own space. Like the match: everyone watching the same thing, feeling something completely different, performing their reaction for the people next to them.
PLATO
You mean life without illusions.
SOCRATES
Without the comfort of shadows. Breaking out of the cave, if you want to be obvious about it.
PLATO
(dry) How funny. That one was too obvious.
ARISTOTLE
Okay. So, what exactly are we exposing ourselves to? The truth or chaos?
SOCRATES
Is there a difference?
Socrates turns his chair toward the room. He nods toward a couple to their left – a man laughing too loudly, a woman rushing to speak before he finishes.
SOCRATES
They don’t respond to each other. They conform to how they should be perceived.
ARISTOTLE
That’s a serious claim based on very little evidence.
SOCRATES
It’s a pattern, not an exception.
Aristotle holds his gaze.
ARISTOTLE
And the woman in that couple – what image has she been given? You said they conform to expectations. But who set those expectations? She hasn’t chosen her role any more than he has.
Socrates pauses. This one lands differently.
SOCRATES
Fair. The filter is mutual. The lie is shared.
PLATO
This makes removing it considerably more complicated than one person deciding to be honest.
On screen, Olympiacos mounts a rare attack. The room rises slightly – bodies leaning, voices dropping. A strike. It hits the bar. The room exhales. Someone mutters something in Greek.
The match feels lost already. No one says it yet.
PLATO
If their connection isn’t based on truth, it’s a form of imitation. So, what replaces the condom? If we remove the illusion, what guides us?
SOCRATES
Nothing replaces it. That’s the point.
PLATO
That’s not sustainable. People don’t function in raw essence. Systems aren’t lies – they’re stabilisers. Without them, you’re not free. You’re overwhelmed.
SOCRATES
Or finally forced to see clearly.
ARISTOTLE
No. (a beat) Overwhelmed. Language is mediation. Logic is mediation. Society itself is a filter. The question is whether the filter brings you closer to useful truth – or further from it.
SOCRATES
(tasting the phrase) Useful truth. And who decides what’s useful?
Silence. Someone drops a glass at the bar. A few people cheer for no obvious reason – performing enthusiasm for a match that’s slipping away.
Plato refills his glass. Aristotle shifts in his cushioned chair, slightly self-conscious about it now.
PLATO
Let’s rethink this. Not as the complete removal of filters, but as awareness of their existence. Knowing when we’re protected, and why.
SOCRATES
That’s not the same thing.
PLATO
No. But it’s applicable.
ARISTOTLE
That’s the difference between philosophy and life. In philosophy, you can afford to take off the condom. In life, you can’t.
SOCRATES
A convenient distinction.
ARISTOTLE
A necessary one.
A brief pause. On the TV, the Olympiacos coach makes a substitution. The crowd stirs – hope, or the performance of it.
Aristotle leans back. He’s been watching the room as much as the match.
ARISTOTLE
A good relationship isn’t one where every thought is expressed. It’s one where actions align with virtue – honesty, respect, balance. If I filter what I say to avoid unnecessary pain, am I insincere… or virtuous?
Socrates goes quiet. This is the first real challenge to his position that he hasn’t immediately deflected.
PLATO
A person can imitate a higher form until they embody it.
SOCRATES
So we justify masks – if they lead somewhere desirable?
PLATO
Yes.
SOCRATES
And if they lead nowhere?
Actual silence. Not the conversational kind. The kind that follows a question no one can answer quickly.
SOCRATES
Imagine that couple. He pretends to be more successful than he is. She pretends to be less demanding. They’re attracted to each other’s pretences. Then reality arrives.
PLATO
The illusion crumbles.
ARISTOTLE
And the relationship adapts… or ends.
SOCRATES
(quietly) How many relationships are built on foundations that cannot withstand reality?
No one answers. They watch the match for a moment – the same game with different eyes. Just kike everyone else in the room.
PLATO
If most relationships remain performative, so does the city. Leaders act how leaders are supposed to look, not how they are. Citizens behave as expected and not as they believe.
This I shall call “the city of masks.”
ARISTOTLE
Even the city of masks can function – if the roles are played well. You assume revelation leads to clarity, Socrates. But often it leads to confusion. People need frameworks to interpret reality. Without them, they don’t become enlightened. They get lost.
SOCRATES
And yet frameworks are the most famous prisons – and we build more of them every year.
ARISTOTLE
Yes. But they can also be homes.
That lands harder than anything said so far. Socrates doesn’t respond immediately. He looks at the room – really looks at it.
SOCRATES
So the problem isn’t that people perform. It’s that they stay there.
The first point of genuine agreement. No one marks it. They let it sit.
On the TV: five minutes left. The score hasn’t changed. The fan club has grown quieter – not because people stopped talking, but because the performance of confidence costs more when defeat is close.
SOCRATES
I have lived without protection. I questioned everything. I accepted the consequences – even death.
PLATO
And yet most people are not you, Socrates. Most are just fans – not omnifans.
ARISTOTLE
(actually laughing) That was funny, Plato.
A brief moment of warmth. Then it passes.
ARISTOTLE
What I seek is balance. Life is meant to be lived, not only studied.
PLATO
I try to build systems that make truth accessible. Without them, it is overwhelming. That’s why you also need this – sport, humour, company. And you must share them.
SOCRATES
(closing his eyes for a moment) Three positions. Complete openness. Structured interpretation. Practical application. Each of us understands something the others don’t, while missing something they do.
He opens them.
SOCRATES
So, which leads to the best life?
At that moment, Olympiacos missed a chance to equalise just before the final whistle. One last corner. A cross into the box – bodies rising, the room holding its breath – and the goalkeeper catches. Clean. Final. 1–0 at Camp Nou.
The question stays unanswered. The match ends before anyone has to try.
The fan club empties slowly. The three of them are the last to leave. They watch the TV until it switches off.
The conversation ended not with a decision, but with an admission.
Everybody in that room watched the game while they themselves were playing – even our protagonists.
That’s what the fan club was. That’s what most rooms are. People performing presence, performing opinions, performing certainty – and somewhere in the middle of all that performance, occasionally, briefly, telling the truth by accident.
The match was lost the same way most things are lost: not dramatically, but quietly, while everyone was busy managing how they appeared to each other.
Life without any protection is chaos. A life entirely protected is a comfortable lie.
The art of the barrier is knowing when to remove it, when to keep it – and learning to sit with the discomfort of not always knowing which is which.
· · ·
No morals. No poem this time.
Just sit – like me – and think through the details.
BOIS and GALS, see you next time.
Sincerely yours,
Ivaniel “Condomless” Georgiev
p.s. In case you missed the post and you’re interested, you can check it out @The End of History and the Beginning of Next… (oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to my daily newsletter for more interesting and fibre-rich content).
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