theodorakis.org is a digital repository of all my written work (in text and podcast formats)…
While we’re on the topic of quotes, another saying I created for myself (in order to make sense of reality) was the following:
“Why are we here?”
“We are here to add a new shade of colour to the rainbow of life.”
This was written and shared with friends and family in the late 1980s.
Between 1980 to 1984 (while I was aged 13 to 17), I lived my life according to a saying I had formulated for myself. The origins of the mantra are somewhat hazy, but I know it came out of my need to redress “an education label” I had been given early on in my schooling i.e. that I was slow and/or retarded (intellectually disabled). Looking back, the fact that a 13 year old could come up with such a saying seems a little odd, but in hindsight, it was quite an accomplishment for a child who was permanently in survival mode.
The saying was part observation (of past circumstances) and part motivation (positive self talk and encouragement). It was obviously hobbled together by a child, when you look at its grammatical structure, but it worked and worked well. At the time, the mantra helped me excel in whatever I tried to do, despite my dysfunctional environment and against all odds.
The saying went something like this:
Nothing comes easy,
Yet nothing is impossible!
If you correct for the use of “nothing”, it meant…
No accomplishment comes easy,
Yet no accomplishment is impossible!
Something so simple, yet it placed me on a magic carpet of self confidence which lasted a full 5 years. Damn all the people I encountered from 1985 onwards who convinced me to abandon my own mantra! Shame on you, and shame on me for allowing you to take away my hopes and dreams!
Truth be told though – by the time I got to Uni, I fell into the same trap I had witnessed most of my high school friends succumb to, and that was, wanting to do well without actually doing the work! I forgot the first part of my own mantra, i.e. that no thing comes easy.
Unfortunately, what often follows a desire for reward without effort, is blaming everything and everyone when things don’t go your way. Once I got into this mode of operation, I became the consummate victim. It’s so easy to go from success to failure, if you start to think people owe you something. Looking back, it’s a shame I wasn’t able to maintain the humility of that 13 year old who never did learn that he couldn’t accomplish something. And why? Because he was always far too busy working towards that accomplishment! ;)
It’s back to working on my old anthologies and this week’s poem dates from Christmas 1989. It was written for a work colleague at David Jones who was a great support to many people. Its called: Warmth
The author of the week is the great American poet: Walt Whitman.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – October 2010
I seem to be on a role with commentaries about everything and anything at the moment, so I’ll keep uploading them and hope the material doesn’t get too boring for people.
This week’s pieces include two very recent commentaries and one short poem about the industrial and inhumane slaughter of domestic animals in Western countries.
The poem is called – Oceans Of Misery
The commentaries include – Am I An I Or A We? and Living In The Grey.
There’s no author of the week for this site update but I’ll have one again next time.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – October 2010
We are a collection of cells working in unison, but what does that mean? Each cell is a life form and can exist separately, but does each cell therefore have our personality and soul? Or does the personality only become apparent and is only an expression of the group of cells that makes up our bodies? To think of ourselves as these separate living cells can get very confusing! Thank goodness for the discipline of metaphysics. :)
The Golden Bridge was written just after I was physically revived in the P.A. Hospital in 1991. The initial version was written on the 29th August of that year. Its based on life’s link between the invisible and visible world – the living and the dead. i.e. our minds.
Its subject matter is an imaginary encounter with my childhood role model – my great grandmother – Malamati, and talks a lot about fundamental hopes for the future.
The author of the week is the 70s and the 80s TV scriptwriter Glen A. Larsen who developed stories like Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – October 2010
In 1995, a friend who had the flu, unintentionally gave me an ear infection that lasted for months – I should also add that being pharmacologically immuno-suppressed didn’t help matters. Once the infection passed I was left with residual noise – a whooshing sound tied to the beat of my heart. Thinking nothing of it, I lived with the noise for a year or two then started to worry. By the late 1990s, it was finally diagnosed as an Arterial Venous Fistula (AV Fistula). A trauma – the infection maybe? – had caused a clot to form in the main artery of my brain which in turn created a syphoning vessel – the fistula – that ensured the pressure didn’t build up to the point where I had a bleed. The fistula syphoned the blood directly into the main vein, taking blood away from my head, but travelled so close to my left ear that I effectively heard my heart beat 24 hours a day. My brain’s left hemisphere was now receiving far less blood than the right hemisphere because of the syphoning action.
In addition to identifying what was going on, it took many years to find a local specialist that I trusted and who might be able to do something about the situation. My next problem was that I didn’t like the sound of injecting titanium coils or glue into my brain in order to block off the fistula. Especially, since no one could guarantee the toxic side effects of the glue. And so, I lived with the noise for almost 15 years – which probably did more damage to my mental health than any glue would have done to my body.
In January of this year though, under extreme hot weather conditions and while clearing rubble at our fence line, I developed another clot which thrombosed within the fistula and blocked off the vessel. For the first time in 15 years I could hear silence – it was magical and a small miracle considering the clot hadn’t travelled elsewhere in my body.
Fast forward now to Tuesday 7th September 2010 and yet again I had to defend myself, my wife and our property against the neighbourhood nut job. This time he decided to use his roof to terrorise my wife over the fence! Fortunately the situation was yet again addressed by the police, but not before I had to raise my voice far too loudly, maintain my blood pressure in a raised state for far too long and experience adrenaline surges that continued for many days after the incident.
Within 48 hours of defending our home, the therapeutic clot blocking off the fistula had been dislodged and the vessel had reopened. So now I’m back to listening to my heart beat 24 hours a day! After so much silence though, I’m really not coping with the noise and my wife and I have decided to move forward with the artificial embolism. There are many medical risks involved with the process but after experiencing the stillness of silence for 8 months, I cannot go back to listening to and waiting for my heartbeat to stop!
So wherever you find yourself, try to contemplate the nature of an individual whose sole purpose in life is to traumatise and derail other people’s lives. Watching this individual in action, has reminded me of how capable our kind is of pure acts of evil. So much for us being children of God – agents of Satan maybe – but children of God? I have my doubts.
In spite of this, my wife and I continue to move forward as the assaults are again extended to our physical selves. Wish us well in the battles ahead and if you’re a religious person, keep us in your prayers.
Regarding this blog I’ll leave a final posting when I head into hospital. All things going well, I’ll resume the postings as soon as they let me out. If anything goes wrong however, my wife Helen will post a closing commentary to this site. In the meantime, I’m finally back to editing and hopefully completing the upload of my first poetry anthology – “Growing Up”. There’s a handful of poems to get through still and I’m only 12 months behind schedule. ;)
This week’s commentary talks about the day Australia matures as a nation. Its simply called Maturity. The author of the week is another Science Fiction great – Edgar Rice Burroughs who wrote the Barsoom Series about civilisations on Mars. People might better know him as the author who created Tarzan.
And finally, I can’t let the digital day pass without wishing my wife a happy wedding anniversary. Its been quite a journey but one I can’t imagine having shared with anyone else. All my love Hally.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – September 2010
This week’s upload includes my last outstanding post which deals with the notion of reflection. The piece touches on one of my medical conditions and how anyone can get on with life no matter how bad the circumstances – that is, as long as one doesn’t give up. It’s called: Beaten And Bloodied We Crawl Forward.
Two other commentaries written this week include:
Contact From The Future and
Creating A Nest
Finally, the author of the week is the Australian poet – Judith Wright. An incredibly passionate person, she was also a strong environmental and aboriginal rights advocate. Judith Wright died in 2000, and like Oodgeroo Noonuccal I had an opportunity to meet her but never followed through before she died. Yet another example of me not seizing the day!
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – September 2010
Having fallen behind in posting material to the blog, this week’s update includes a backlog of nine pieces which have now been uploaded.
Special thanks go out to my friends John M. and Sofronios E. who’ve repeatedly contacted me, checked I was OK and enquired as to when my next posting would go up – the prompting, my brothers, did get me moving again – thank you. :)
The site now has the following additions:
1 – Save The Planet – 7th May 2010
2 – A New PM – 25th June 2010
3 – Where We’re Up To – 2nd July 2010
4 – Xenophobes Aren’t Racist – 9th July 2010
5 – Window To The Visible World – 16th July 2010
6 – Window To The Invisible World – 23th July 2010
7 – Privilege Is The Western Lifestyle – 30th July 2010
8 – The Sacrament Of Story – 6th August 2010
9 – Helen’s Blog – 13th August 2010
My highlighted author for the week is – Sun Tzu, who wrote the “Art Of War”. Historically his writings are sometimes attributed to his descendant as well as himself – his descendent being Sun Bin. Irrespective of who really wrote the military treatise, its approach to strategy is not only useful for war but human social life as well.
Cheers – Vasilios Theodorakis – August 2010
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