Vasilios Theodorakis – An Online Author

theodorakis.org is a digital repository of all my written work (in text and podcast formats)…

July 30, 2010

Privilege Is The Western Lifestyle

Filed under: Culture And Society — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 4:53 pm

Unless one has travelled or is aware that their ancestors were also displaced by war, poverty or persecution – it’s hard to imagine that the rest of the world doesn’t live as we do. i.e. that most of the world’s people aren’t immersed in a safe, stable and resource rich context.

Even the poorest of the poor (leaving aside our indigenous brothers and sisters who’ve had to live in 3rd world conditions since Europeans arrived), in the worst suburbs of our cities, live better than your average person elsewhere in the world.

The pitiful federal election campaign that’s occurring, and the petty policies both parties are running, has yet again highlighted how ignorant Australians are in regards to how good life already is in this country!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

July 23, 2010

Window To The Invisible World

Filed under: Religion And Theology — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 10:30 pm

In Orthodox Christian Theology, icons are not merely religious works of art. They are very literally windows to another time and/or place – its not hard to see why as a child I hoped my bedroom window would also take me to other places. (Please see last week’s post on – “Window To The Visible World”.)

The mysticism of iconography describes how the icon is simply a barrier that separates us from the person that resides in the invisible world (the world at the end of time), a previous moment in time or a place that may no longer exist.

If you accept this premise, observing people kissing icons starts to make sense. The people on the other side of the icon’s surface are literally there with the people greeting them – just like a living person would be. And just like the living, those in the icon can be greeted with a kiss – all that separates us is the pane of glass or the surface of the image. Just like all that separates us from the invisible world is death.

This notion however, is almost impossible to grasp by the Western mind which can’t cope with things existing outside of time and space. It also doesn’t help that Western thought no longer includes the invisible world in its interpretation of reality.

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

July 16, 2010

Window To The Visible World

Filed under: Culture And Society,Science And Technology — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 7:29 pm

As a child I used to dream of being able to look through my bedroom window and seeing what ever I could imagine appearing on the other side of the glass – a person, a scene, another world. As an adult, I can now ask my computing devises just about anything and up will pop a digital window which will display what ever I hoped to see. Not quite as romantic as what I imagined as a child but it does give me access to information, sounds, pictures and moving pictures almost instantly and all in the palm of my hand. The dream of the naive child has almost become the reality of the adult.

And to think, that as a child and adolescent, I would take a thousand questions to bed with me, each and every day. Questions that no one and nothing could answer and which are now resolved within a matter of seconds – minutes at most! For example: How old is the musician I just listened to? Where was that actor born? Is a company independent or owned by a multinational? How many bees in a beehive? What does a red gum look like? And does anyone know what happens after death?

I don’t know if this ability to see, hear or answer things instantly is a good or bad thing for our youth. I do know however, that I sleep easier now – not haunted by questions I haven’t been able to answer or by facts I haven’t been able to access. :)

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

July 9, 2010

Xenophobes Are Not Racist?!

Filed under: Culture And Society — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 5:44 pm

Politics is the art of targeting the lowest common denominator. If that denominator proves to be an immoral or unethical “stance on an issue” then societies go backwards and become indictments of themselves.

Just take the current political discussions on asylum seekers. During the course of a week, the Labour Party and its new leader – someone that most people had come to believe was a moral individual – decided to take the line of absolving the country’s extremists and racists. These politicians publicly proclaimed that the “average” Australian – whatever that might be – were not “bad people” despite their heartless attitudes towards displaced individuals and the atrocious treatment of non-Anglo Australians!

Shame on you PM – any semblance of hope people like me had in people like you was instantly dashed! All of us will be voting “Green” from now on!

How will this country ever be guided and encouraged to become the nation it can be, when the only thing politicians care about is appealing to the worst of society – and doing so, just to get re-elected!

Unfortunately, as a country we have a long way to go in order to become a global role model – especially with the ongoing suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act. Then again, it probably doesn’t matter – by the time we get our act together, nationalism will have become obsolete anyway!

Copyright © Vasilios Theodorakis 2010

July 2, 2010

Where We’re Up To

Filed under: General — Vasilios Theodorakis @ 12:12 pm

This piece was written on the 1st February 2010, but was never uploaded to the blog due to all our time going into dealing with our psychotic neighbour. Now that we’re finally back on track and that I’m able to upload regular postings, I thought it might be relevant again.

In 2007 this blog was started as a vehicle to spotlight the back log of poems, commentaries, short stories, etc,. that I’ve worked on since 1983. Despite a series of serious derailments I have managed to get a number of commentaries online as well as 88 poems in the last 3 years.

Its time to review the road map for the blog and identify what has worked and what hasn’t worked. Commentaries and poems – yes; short stories and novel material – no; audio versions of poems (when I’ve had the time) – yes; audio versions of everything else – no; links to favourite authors and websites – yes; commentaries and track-backs (pings) – no – spam has been a major issue throughout the life of the blog.

I think the format I’ve settled on, of at least one posting a week is well worth sticking with – it’s realistic and works, whether it’s a new commentary or a site update linking to an edited version of an old poem. I believe short stories and novel material will have to be left for print or ebook versions but I do think donations, poem sponsorship and major patrons will work with the material being uploaded. I hope to have the financial aspects of the blog up and running during the course of this year. Tied in with this, is my hope that the first anthology will go to print (via sponsorship and donations) during the 2010/2011 financial year.

What I do need to do is streamline the focus of the site and lose the grandeous idea of hugh numbers of categories such as: cartoons,childhood pieces,drawings and designs, scripts and songs. This should also make it easier for sponsors to pick clear pieces that link back to their own sites and tighten up the blog’s focus.

There are still many years worth of poems to upload, but a conservative aim of completing one anthology every 12 to 18 months is looking realistic. Once online, each anthology will be opened up to sponsorship and in turn the creation of a print version.

All things going well, the hope is to also offer print versions of short story anthologies and the novel I’ve been working on – sold via this blog.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – July 2010

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