Vasilios Theodorakis – An Online Author

The Australian author David Malouf once said that Australia’s national day only happens every 3 years, and that day is the day of our federal election. Why? Because it epitomises all that is good about Australia and being Australian. i.e. That people can show up in an orderly fashion at polling booths and peacefully re-elect or change the government that is controlling the nation. In this country no one is abused, wounded or murdered when they try to vote. No one is threatened and forced to vote in a particular way, and people feel it’s safe to talk about how they’re going to vote while lining up to collect their ballot paper. I’ve always found the day to have a festive feel about it – where else in the world does that happen? An excellent example of this occurred yesterday at my mother-in-law’s polling booth, where voting was accompanied by a sausage sizzle. :)

Like Mr Malouf, I believe this defines us. There are few countries in the world where elections occur in a stable and safe way. So few in fact, that we are almost unique – especially when you factor in that every adult is obligated to vote. Our compulsory voting system ensures the elected government is a genuine reflection of the view of the people. Not even the US or the UK can match how our parliament is a true refection of the wishes of “all” its citizens.

Yet in spite of this, we will always have the wingers and those who think that voting is an infringement on their “right to choose to vote” and an inconvenience on their time. If these wingers had to swap places with citizens in Rwanda, (where people risk having limbs hacked off while trying to vote) I’m sure they would quickly appreciate what we have here in Australia.

As for me – I look forward to revisiting the cardboard booths and voting in three years time again. It’s the one thing about our nation that continues to fill me with pride.

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

There are many temporally challenged people in the world. People who sit back and wait for help to show up in the form of money, strangers, friends, family, God, love or politics. People who’ve made themselves overly dependent on others, and people just like you and me who wait and wait – then wait some more – hoping that others might solve their problems!

Unfortunately, in using this approach, life can pass you by and leave you wondering what in the world happened to a big chunk of your time. The problem of course is that self advancement doesn’t come in the form of a package, a pill or a person – it is a process initiated by oneself, carried out by oneself and fulfilled by oneself.

In my experience, genuine movement forward often emerges out of tragedy, desperation and finally, an understanding that only the self can help the self. We are ultimately alone in the world as no one can walk in the shoes that we already occupy. Those of us who learn this, usually get ahead, and those who don’t usually fall by the wayside.

Like many others, my greatest error in judgement (as a young man) was waiting for external help that never arrived. Needless to say, I was shocked when no one approached me and offered to address the issues that had buried me in a temporal ditch. Neither friends nor family tried to alleviate the problems that had developed – and why should they? The ditch I was in was my own and all those close to me had their own issues. To be given absolution without being able to systematically deconstruct, identify and address each aspect of a burden, does not lead to growth and personal evolution – it leads to a stunted existence. You have to remove as many obstacles obstructing your path, as is possible, before life can progress again.

In my case, once the core burdens had been removed, the things that did came to fruition, happened because I made them happen. This is a difficult truth to swallow, especially for someone who grew up thinking he could depend on others. I wish I could offer examples of how life might function differently, but I can’t, and unless you lead a particularly charmed existence, you will always have to do things for yourself. Either that, or you’ll have to accept that most things you’d like to accomplish, just won’t happen.

So – as the lads I grew up with used to say – “Get over yourself and get on with it!” You might just find, trying rather than hoping, accomplishes more than you could’ve ever imagined!

Dedication (For my whinging Gen Y brothers and sisters.)
Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

For over ten years my Grant Family name has been – the “only if you’re having one” lad. I’ve taken great pride in this badge of honour given to me by Pop – Jack (John McKinnon Grant) – the only man I’ve ever looked up to and tried to emulate. Until I met Pop, who is my wife’s grandfather, I had never had any real male role models. All the men I had come to respect, lived in the pages of biographies and autobiographies – there was no flesh and blood in my life worth emulating.

The label was not only a sign of fondness for the crazy grand son-in-law – who did everything far too slowly, it also summed up how Pop could get to the crux of a personality. He had a knack for finding a word or phrase that perfectly captured what someone was all about. In my case, how I couldn’t handle imposing on anyone. Pop’s long term advice in regards to my hang-up? – “Just relax Vas…, my food is your food…, just leave the money on the table after you’ve eaten!”

God bless you Jack, I’ll miss the banter! Until we meet again, look after yourself and Nan. Save me a piece of her sponge as the rest of us will be there with you soon enough. I look forward to that next pot of tea and our ongoing deliberations on how unnatural it is to rush anything – especially work!

Pop and Nan (Mona) had 7 children, 18 grandchildren, 18 great grandchildren and countless hangers-on like me. Not bad for a family that’s descended from Scottish immigrants who started out life in a tent on the beach at Port Melbourne (Victoria – Australia) in the 1850s.

Eternal be, his memory. Pop was born on April 1st 1919 and entered his repose on June 7th 2010.

My condolences go out to all the Grants in regards to his passing. Pop will be missed by each and everyone of us. He leaves behind countless wonderful memories and set the standard on how to live and what it means to be a gentleman.

Pop’s Eulogy (Text – PDF / 60kb)
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2010

“Did You Ever Exist?” is a poem written in 2009 and has seen many rewrites over the last 10 months. It’s finally in a form I’m happy with so I’ve uploaded it for this week’s piece.

My highlighted author for the week is: Octavia E Butler – a brilliant American Science Fiction writer who’s given us some amazing predictions about the future and some extraordinary alternative realities. Her death in 2006 was an absolute tragedy for the written arts.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – June 2010

It’s 2010 – a name like mine should be recognised as a “good Australian name” by now, just like Kerry O’Brien and Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Its form was born into this land and has belonged to this country for over 43 years. If individuals don’t understand that a non Anglo-Celtic name is as Australian as an Anglo-Celtic name, (or an Aboriginal name for that matter) then they’ve missed the whole point of this country.

Why do I still have to explain such a simple thing to supposedly “educated people”! Frankly, if they don’t get it – it’s their problem, not mine!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

Following on from my commentary about what we experienced on Good Friday in 2010, is this week’s piece – originally written almost a year ago. It has a similar theme to the Good Friday commentary, highlighting how inappropriate it is to systematically prevent people from worshiping in the language in which they think. The piece is called – “Take A Look Around, This Is What We Are!”

My highlighted author for the week is: Raj Patel – a writer with deep convictions to social and environmental justice. His latest book is – “The Value Of Nothing”

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2010

The keyboard may not be mightier than the sword, but pounding it hard enough can  make a lot more noise than steel cutting through flesh!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

This week’s piece was written during Easter. Its a personal commentary on how in 2010, an English speaking Orthodox Christian still has to deal with the Church’s inability to differentiate between the Faith and its parishioner’s ancestral nationalisms.

The commentary is called: Good Friday 2010

The highlighted author for the week is: Henry David Thoreau – a poet, environmentalist and activist of the 19th Century.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2010

This week’s poem was written at the end of March 2010. Its a response to my father discovering that our family’s olive groves were sold (in secret) years ago by my father’s sister. This relative, who I’ve only met once, managed to also squander the proceeds from the sale.

The saddest part of the discovery was that the person forced my grandmother to sign over the rights to the land just before the matriarch of the family died! One has to wonder, what sort of character badgers a 93 year old woman on her death bed for the family’s inheritance! Instances like this, make me glad that I had very little to do with these people over the years.

The poem is called: Olive Grove

The highlighted author for the week is: Chrissie Hynde – though technically not a full time writer, her genuineness, song lyrics and written material on animal rights qualify her as an inspirational person.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2010

After more than six months of harassment, abuse, assaults and vandalism by a psychotic neighbour, the terror seems to have slowed down (for the time being at least).

The creative down side to all this, is how much time, energy and resources were needed in order to deal with this idiot. Unfortunately, the ongoing drama took me away from editing and uploading material to the blog and left me feeling quite bitter about the whole situation. On the up side however, we now have a secure boundary to our property and the level of safety is substantially better. We also seem to be moving forward again and “baring any unforeseen circumstances” I should be returning to a weekly upload.

Before I forget though, I’d like to thank the people who have continued to read the back catalog of postings and poetry on this site. Without your support (and traffic), the site would not have maintained its search engine ranking over that amount of time, and ranking (for better or worse) is everything in regards to readership on the web.

I’d especially like to thank my readers in the great city of Moscow. My server logs show that the Moscow readership maintained a great interest in the audio versions of the early poetry I uploaded to the site. Please rest assured that I will be uploading additional audio material as soon as I can – thus increasing the repertoire of what you can listen to over time. Your patronage (and bandwidth usage) also allowed the blog to briefly take the top “Theodorakis” ranking with Google (for one week at least), bumping “Mikis Theodorakis” from his number one spot. Mikis’ wikipeadia entry has since regained the top spot, as it well should, considering his artistic legacy. ;)

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – May 2010