What makes the theme of Meeting ’83 credible and fascinating is looking at human beings not to analyse or judge, but rather with an attitude of profound and total sympathy for everything that man has been or could be. Sympathy that stems from no longer being scared of the present and future, of one’s history, of one’s work and not even of one’s mistakes. The key word of last year’s Meeting was ‘‘crisis’‘. This was contrasted by ‘‘resources’‘. Contrasting the word ‘‘sympathy’‘ this year are the terms ‘‘fear’‘ and ‘‘scepticism’‘. That is why, during the Meeting, discussions will centre on the origins of man, of our forebears, of what they have left us, of the history they made. But we shall also be talking about what we are building, of the boundless potential of modern technologies, of the future, of robots, of the world of tomorrow. Nor shall we be scared of talking about that field of human imagination which has always represented fertile ground for man’s thirst for research and, why not, his fears: science fiction. But only one chance exists of experiencing knowledge and imagination, every possible past and every possible future, without anguish and fear: accepting the fact that inside each fragment of human history the question on destiny is not cancelled. And the question on destiny is first of all this: in whose company does all this occur? "In whose company’‘ is the question that comes before ‘‘how’‘ and ‘‘why’‘. The question on destiny is above all the question of a company of the Being that becomes history. No human, existential, artistic or poetic experience can consider itself foreign to this experience of encounter with history as an encounter with Destiny. Once again, the Meeting re-presents itself as a great experience of truth and freedom.