A rainy weekend in Bilbao with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

December 22, 2025 | Bilbao

I spent the weekend in my dearest city, Bilbao. Or better, rainy Bilbao. The grey sky did not invite long walks, which turned out to be perfect, as I had to complete the compulsory compliance courses I had been postponing for months. They are important, I know, but I find them dry and uninspiring… As every year, I had left them until the very end. Not my proudest habit, I admit…:(

And yet, since the Basque weather offered little temptation to escape outdoors, I found myself dedicating my compliance breaks to something altogether different: returning to Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, one of the most profound scientific revolutions of all time, the one that transformed our understanding of space, time, and gravity.

What began as a simple refresher soon drifted elsewhere. Almost naturally, I moved away from physics and toward its philosophical echoes — you already know my weakness for Philosophy. In my imagination, relativity cannot remain confined to the scientific or cognitive realm alone. This is, of course, a personal standpoint, offered without any pretence of truth.

Yet, the analysis of knowledge has always stood at the very heart of Philosophy. I think of the Stoics, for instance, and of their three great pillars: physics, logic, and ethics. Understanding how the world works (physics), and learning how to read it correctly (logic), were never meant to make one sound clever or win arguments. They were conditions sine qua non for the third and most important task: ethics— becoming the best possible version of ourselves.

And so, as I reflected on relativity, a few insights about life began to surface in my mind. The first that came to mind was polarisation, or rather, how a new relativity-inspired standpoint might help us heal a fractured world.

Although Einstein was not a philosopher by profession, he was deeply philosophical by nature. Physics was his language, but Philosophy was his horizon. Relativity is not just a scientific theory; it is a new worldview. It reshaped our understanding of time — no longer universal, but lived differently depending on motion and gravity. Of space — no longer a passive stage, but an active participant. And of objectivity itself — no longer detached from the observer.

Einstein removed the idea of a fixed observer from the universe. Before him, science largely assumed a stable centre, a privileged standpoint from which reality could be measured “as it truly is”. Relativity revealed that such a place does not exist. There is no centre, no absolute frame, no universal point of view. Every measurement of space and time depends on the observer’s position and motion.

This insight carries a powerful philosophical implication. It challenges absolute perspectives. It dissolves both intellectual and moral arrogance. Instead of saying, “I see reality as it is”, we are invited to say something far more humble, honest and human: “I see reality from where I stand.” Truth is not weakened by this shift. It is humanised.

This kind of intellectual and moral humility feels so necessary in our increasingly polarised world, where extremes are hardening and genuine listening is becoming rare. Polarisation today is not only a political or social problem; it is an anthropological and spiritual one.

For most of human history, tension between opposites was understood as natural and even fertile. Think of Heraclitus’ unity of opposites, or Aristotle’s mesotēs, the patient search for the mean. Instead, today we no longer tolerate ambiguity or gradualness, nor do we easily inhabit the other’s standpoint without immediately defending our own. Our ego rushes forward to protect its identity rather than to seek what is true or just. We react before we examine. We defend before we understand.

Disconnected from ourselves — from silence, from reflection, from sustained attention — we begin to experience the world in binary terms: friend or enemy, right or wrong, us or them. Nuance feels threatening. Complexity feels exhausting. And so our ego, seeking safety, retreats into rigid identities. Polarisation thrives where empathy is absent and a narrow, egocentric perspective takes hold, where we mistake our ideas for absolute truth.

Our systems amplify this tendency. Social media rewards outrage rather than understanding, easy slogans rather than slow, complex thinking. Algorithms privilege extremes rather than bridges. Public discourse is framed as combat, not dialogue.A polarised world, in this sense, is the symptom of a civilisation that has forgotten how to cultivate inner depth, ethical attention, shared meaning, and respect for others — a civilisation that has come to believe in the illusion of separation.

This is where Einstein’s relativity can come to the rescue. Polarisation cannot be healed only through better policies, better communication strategies, or better institutions, important as all of these are. Einstein himself warned that we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. At its root, what is required is a re-education of attention and perception — the very kind of intellectual and moral humility that the theory of relativity invites.

Relativity also carries ethical implications. Einstein believed deeply in responsibility, compassion, and justice, yet he rejected moral rigidity. He distrusted ethical systems imposed from above, detached from lived reality. His ethics were contextual, grounded in responsibility rather than obedience. Values, for him, had to be inhabited, not enforced. Rules alone were insufficient without moral alignment.

Here, the recent disillusionment with ESG investingcomes to mind. Too often, it has been experienced as an obligation to comply with ever-multiplying rules, rather than as a genuine opportunity to innovate, to align values and value, and to contribute meaningfully to a fairer world.

Relativity can also reshape our understanding of leadership and power. In General Relativity, mass does not pull by force. It curves. It shapes the space around it so that other bodies move differently within that field. Leadership works in much the same way. True power does not coerce, impose, or dominate. It reshapes the environment through presence, allowing others to move freely and responsibly within it.

Whether we realise it or not, our presence always has an impact. Our values bend decisions. Our fear distorts space. Our calm widens it. The best leaders do not pull, they reshape the field instead. Very much like the sun, whose presence gives form and direction to the motion of the planets around it. Authority may be vertical, but true leadership is gravitational.

Einstein described a universe that mirrors a mature human life — dynamic, relational, and profoundly ethical. Relativity does not make life easier. It makes it truer. It asks more of us: more humility, more listening, more responsibility, more inner work. Perhaps this is why it feels so close to me, and to the work I care about. There is no outer transformation without inner repositioning. Now, back to my compliance test.