When the Christian morals of my childhood home came into contact with 1960s student activism, the consequences were inevitable: I was utterly swept away by the revolutionary student movement. The feelings of injustice, social inequality, the problems of the third world – everything could be resolved by banding together behind clearly defined common goals. The fact that the answers were simple and the methods were clear-cut was a source of relief to the insecure young person in question. Not to mention that there were a great deal of extremely smart and talented people involved. It did not take long for me to become the head of the Academic Socialist Society’s language division, and soon after I had a seat on the board as the secretary of agitation and propaganda.

No wonder my studies lost out. I was translating by day and sitting in meetings by night. I only went to the University to sell magazines and hand out flyers.

But all things come to an end. I was neither the first, nor the last, to realise that the answers to the world's problems were not quite as simple as we had believed and hoped. Above all it was the lack of discussion and the status of women that started to get to me. Then, when I “came out” in 1979, it was clear we had come to a parting of the ways.

I found a new political home in SETA (LGBTI Rights in Finland), defending gay rights. My search for an ideology led me to the Orthodox church in the 90s.