These are the health benefits of listening to your body

Fernand Leger, Progetto di sipario per skating ring, 1922, photo credit: Dansmuseet

 

— It’s more than a discomfort, but not exactly a pain. It’s tender 24/7 but when I start moving, it aches.

— On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate your pain?

— Six.

Coincidentally, it’s also my sixth visit to a different doctor this month. From the General Practitioner to the Family Doctor, the Acupuncturist, the Gastrointestinal, the Orthopedic and now the Family Doctor again. But I wouldn’t set the whole of the Haenam and Gwangju medical world on my heels for no reason.

My body is a world-class complainer. She spits out statements without any reservation, or the slightest guilt for the inconvenience. It’s heavy to be dancing all night long in Haeundae beach like a teenager, only to wake up the next morning with a piercing pain on your left flank (and a question in your head: “Did I push too hard for my age?”)

I lie down, and I can hear her: “Stay there, I am cool. Maybe turn a bit to the left.” I walk, and she will be like: “Slow down. Please don’t rush to catch the green light ahead.” I queue up, and she whispers: “Are we there yet?” The doctors call them symptoms, but to me are wholesome conversations with my body.

At my first visit to the doctor I was wearing shorts and a georgette shirt. Today, I saw the vascular surgeon — who talked me through my CT scan — in knee length boots and wool  jumper. It took two seasons, nine X-rays, two blood and urine tests, two ultra sounds, 19 dry needle sessions and a few acupuncture sessions to establish what my body was talking about.

Instead of one size fits all, now I can see why I am feeling the way I am — which also means doing the right thing to feel better. But the volume and density of pain a person can go through by bashfully ignoring it, is flustering. You would’t get on with a broken mobile, would you? But, why be oblivious to yourself? Listening to my body — I believe — is a form of self-respect.

But while you are doing your best, doctors can be deliberately obtuse —  the main reason I  turned to homeopathy ten years ago. Being in a country though, where homeopathy is unheard-of, I needed to build a rapport with these doctors — meaning, I had to be lenient toward their comments:

“No wonder you are in pain. You live in a boring town. You should move to Gwangju”.

“Women are complicated. It’s your stress and emotions”.

Some days I came close to bottling her up, and settle with whatever medical explanation I had been given so far: stress, muscle strain, all in your head type of thing. But I was determined to spend the time and money, for I knew she would feel betrayed if I didn’t.

It’s not the first time I treated my body with care and love. Nor it’s the first time I took on a prolonged fasting to give my body the extra energy it needs for the fighting-the-pain process. When we fast, there is more energy available for the toxins elimination and cleansing process — energy required for digestion otherwise.

But abstinence from food is a natural instinct observed in animals and babies, who refuse to eat when they are ill. I was just listening to my body.

Feeling any type of discomfort or pain, isn’t okay. Ignoring it, isn’t okay. Letting others to underestimate the way we feel, isn’t okay. Pain strikes as a signal, not a punishment we deserve to live with.

My body has to deal with a few internal flaws (I said internal, please leave my white hair, pointy teeth, knobby knees out of this), and as the doctor said they are rare syndromes. But for every pain and ache, she and I know that we are working towards healing. And we are grateful to have each other.

Best sellers

Art by Iotoff

A nation is having hallucinations, and it’s like a manic episode of someone who cannot position himself in real time and space. He will run outside and talk about conspiracies and superheroes, and will cry about a treasure chest that is laying at the bottom of the sea. But again, it’s not as innocuous because it’s a widely spread attitude, and the scattered healthy minds are desperate.

I read in a 4-page green report in LIFO free press, that Greek people are familiar with recycling, that they recycle and they do it per 30% more than 7 years ago. To prove its point, the report says that from 98,000 recycling bins in 2009 the country today has 140,000. The story is arranged in between a graphic design excess of nothing Greek: couples kissing on the grass, daisies happily growing outside the metro station and monuments rooted in a sea of grass. So, for the last two months I have been witnessing how the rubbish men empty the recycling bin in the same track where they have emptied the bin with the general waste, and I don’t know: Have I been wasted?

Education is another frentic episode of theirs. “It’s free” they brag “and this is what makes us a Democracy”. How hypocritical to talk about “free education” when the entry to the university has cost a student approximately 9,000 Euro all spent in what has becomemandatory evening tutorials. It might be cheaper than in other European countries, yes. But not free. Morning state high-schools are a microcosmos of a society of competition among best friends and of young people who are obsessed with answer books and high marks. Education in Greece is not about discovering knowledge but about reproducing it – and you see the impact of this on the students’ faces: fed up faces who haven’t been given the chance to make their personal statement. And only the hallucinated continue unharmed in a society where everyone is a bit tipsy from the lies.

Sometimes I envy their frentic episodes because they have a certain freedom. You can be whoever you want to be, and as it was said by Nietzsche and it was said by Freud, one must have one’s delusions to live and to be happy. For us, who look at life too honestly and clearly, let’s admit it: life is an unpleasant business.

The long way to equality

When I asked my father for one reason, which would justify the false hopes he and my mother had turned into certainty for the last month, my father replied: “How could I explain to my daughter who comes from an advanced and civil society that her dog is the victim of the terror this country purposely conserves?”

Roby lived a beautiful life because eight years ago, when we drove him home with half of his body outside the driver’s window, we were not looking into getting a dog, but we wanted a fifth family member. In the late night of the 21^st of February, when he was poisoned from unknown hands who had left toxic pasta Bolognese few meters away from his doorstep, he didn’t need to go out; he already have had the usual two and a half-hour walk for the day. But why not take him out to stretch his legs and get some fresh air before bedtime? This is the love he received; maybe still a small amount in comparison to the love that he was giving.

An apple was Roby’s biggest pleasure but he would only sit next to the fruit ball and wait to be offered an apple: respect. He would put his snout on your legs, under your armpit or would push your hands with his nose, and if you said: “Roby leave me alone”, he would lay on his side of the couch with his back turned on you, and would only react to your “I am sorry” with the edge of his tail, showing he has heard of you but hasn’t forgiven you yet: personality. When my Christmas card was put among others by the fireplace, he would go every morning and bring it down with his nose: memory.

There is no question that he could reason and talk; just not in the same way we can. And he could suffer too; he suffered more because of his limited understanding of why a mouthwatering pasta dish was causing him spasms, lack of breath, salivation and coma.

Impressed by Peter Singer’s philosophy, I will agree that speciesists like racists give weight to the interests of their own species when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of other species. Did speciesists murder my dog, and if not then who? They can be the people you say hello in the afternoon and you share the car parking with, or the people whose kid sang the Christmas carols on your door. And this is how a society of hatred is cultivated and it never ends; especially in a town of 33,000 people where since February 10 to 15 dogs have died in the same way.

Living with a dog has taught me to believe in heroes and to value emotions, simplicity and happiness. Roby is the story within my story, and in his eyes uncoils the philosophy of our ethics. If we elevated the status of animals and the status of our environment without fearing that this will lower our status, I would only then admit superiority of human beings.

The King of many worlds

Who killed Homer?*

Σκοποῦντι δή μοι ταῦτά τε καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς πράττοντας τὰπολιτικά, καὶ τοὺς νόμους γε καὶἔθη, ὅσῳ μᾶλλον διεσκόπουν ἡλικίας τε εἰς τὸ πρόσθε προύβαινον, τοσούτῳ χαλεπώτερον ἐφαίνετο ὀρθῶς εἶναίμοι τὰ πολιτικὰ [7.325d] διοικεῖν· οὔτε γὰρ ἄνευ φίλων ἀνδρῶν καὶἑταίρων πιστῶν οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι πράττειν–οὓς οὔθ᾽ὑπάρχοντας ἦν εὑρεῖν εὐπετές, οὐ γὰρ ἔτι ἐν τοῖς τῶν πατέρων ἤθεσιν καὶἐπιτηδεύμασιν ἡ πόλιςἡμῶν διῳκεῖτο, καινούς τε ἄλλους ἀδύνατον ἦν κτᾶσθαι μετά τινοςῥᾳστώνης–τά τε τῶν νόμων γράμματα καὶἔθη διεφθείρετο καὶἐπεδίδου θαυμαστὸν ὅσον {…}**

The above is an image of the Archaic written language, and I would be enraptured to know that it talks to each one of you, as a piece of Art does. Sadly, to the Greek people of my generation, or those who are currently in High School it triggers feelings of stress, fear and boredom. But most importantly; it is to them as dead as its once fluent users: Plato, Homer, Aristotle.

Have myself been studying Ancient Greek for six years at High School, I am very interested in the outcome of a debate that seems to break up at already intense times: Should we compulsory teach Archaic in schools? This time, as other previous times, the debate took the ridiculous form ofjoking insults exchange between the State and the omnipresent Church. The debate therefore should be (I believe): Should the Church have a saying in State matters? And is it the right thing for the Ministry of Education to be named as the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs? Isn’t that a bit Eastern? It is definitely not European. I am not saying that the former is bad and the latter is good; not to me at least. I am saying though that the Greeks have their identity confused.

But going back to the debate on the usefulness of Archaic for the young generation, I can think of one reason that the current (and any government in power) wouldn’t reduce the teaching hours of Archaic or its definitive role in entering the Higher Education: the frontistiria. For those who don’t know about the Greek education system, frontistiria are schools after the school. Frontistiria are teaching at late evening hours (until 11 pm), when students should be resting; they are very expensive (approx. 3,500 Euros per year) and they debilitate the school, which has become an arena where the best frontistirio wins.  

Maybe British’s second (after the weather) favourite topic for discussion with foreigners is language. The fact that someone can speak more than one language fascinates them; as well as the fact that a non-native English speaker understands the grammar and syntax rules of their language better than they do, and knows the meanings of adverb, definite article, noun, pronoun, adjective, preposition etc. In Greek primary schools the study of English as a foreign language is compulsory from grade 3 (8 years old students). In High School Ancient Greek is added along with a second foreign language.

The teaching method of Ancient Greek in Greek schools is wrong, and we can understand that by the indifference that students show towards the subject and the hours and hours of frontistiria they do in order to learn something that will be forever forgotten after the exams have passed. Yet, due to the complexity of Archaic in all its forms: writing; reading, speaking and comprehending, the young learners of it are developing a more constructive and methodological way of transferring their thoughts and ideas to second and third parties. 

The Ancient Greek should be taught in Greek schools as what it really is: more than a language. It involves mathematical structure and it has contributed many words to English vocabulary. It used to be the expression tool of those who built the Acropolis and were standing at Dilos, Epidavros and Delphi. And it explains the origins of the West. The aim should be through the teaching of Archaic, our kids to see the universe with the Ancient Greek’s vision, and for them to feel what a minuscule detail they are in this universe.

Notes:

*Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom is a book (2001) by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath.

**As I observed these incidents and the men engaged in public affairs, the laws too and the customs, the more closely I examined them and the farther I advanced in life, the more difficult it seemed to me to handle public affairs aright. For it was not possible to be active in politics without friends and trustworthy supporters; and to find these ready to my hand was not an easy matter, since public affairs at Athens were not carried on in accordance with the manners and practices of our fathers; nor was there any ready method by which I could make new friends. The laws too, written and unwritten, were being altered for the worse, and the evil was growing with startling rapidity.

The Little Prince, The Alchemist and Oliver Twist

Painting by Iotoff

Unemployment in the South; unemployment in the East, and now unemployment is extensively discussed in the Northwest; within groups, on the TV and newspapers, in the parliaments. But Europe’s iniquities, as every nation’s sins, should be researched in the way they do or do not educate their children.

There are 4,000 universities in Europe as a whole, and an obsession with degrees obtainment, which passes from generation to generation. Because our parents believed that education will brighten our future up, now that we see this is not true, we are convinced that more education is needed. And we will force our children into it, increasing therefore the graduate un-employability.  

I am 27 years old, with an undergraduate degree, a Master’s from the world’s 82^nd best university, and a multicultural CV full of volunteer work, overseas experiences and professional achievements. I want to do humanitarian journalism; change the world through writing. But what I am doing instead is admitting wealthy Asian kids into prestigious higher education institutions in the UK. In other words, assisting couple of thousands students per year to join the graduate un-employability club in a four years’ time

My job requires basic administrative and customer service skills and nothing higher than A-levels. However, I had to be accredited by four interviewers in two different interviews with a gap of three weeks from each other. During those hourly sessions, I also had to persuade my future manager and colleagues that my journalism oriented studies and all the hours of unpaid reporting and writing don’t mean much to me anymore. It was just a phase of me being young and naïve, whereas now I am a grownup who wants to save money in order to buy a two bedroom flat with her partner and be promoted within the enterprise.

I was offered the position, and since then my worst nightmare, which repeatedly wakes me up in the middle of the night, is me actually believing in this forcefully promoted profile, and killing the little Alchemist inside me. As soon as I change my soaking sweaty top, I grab the pencil and the diary, which are always lying on the dusty floor under my bed, and I start writing reminders in the dark – sometimes one on the top of the other: “Your fate is only controlled by your heart”, “Do not hold on to what little you have”, “Do not die of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon”.

In the office I am working with philosophers, historians, dancers,politicians, educators. Altogether we create a big white cloud above our heads, while processing applications and payments, which takes the shapes of our suppressed dreams. From time to time, when the landing of our fingers on the keyboards produces intense distracting noises, the cloud disappears.

I have a job, and they are telling me that I should be happy with it because my fellows in Spain and Greece wander all day from one room to another in their parents’ house only hoping for a way out. But whatthey deny to see is that this job enhances my sense of vulnerability and inadequacy, which leads to social and personal ills. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work” Aristotle has said. Doing what your soul is meant for makes you efficient, brave, generous, charming and wonderful. And you don’t want to live a life with anything less than being satisfied with yourself. If you do though, the result is a constant internal fight: depression.

Universities have become businesses themselves, where I was just another client. But don’t our chancellors feel somehow guilty for kicking us out of the campus warmth with a feckless piece of paper? Education has always been introduced by the developed world to be the solution to the problem, but it can be the problem itself. Unless universities reduce the number of programs they deliver, and remove degrees such as “Enigmatology” from their curriculum, and unless they start cooperating with organisations, graduate un-employability will torture young generations, and will create unhappy beings with complexes.

The truth about love

Baby dolphin in womb by National Geographic

If you are reading this, I am hundred percent sure that you know how babies happen. It all starts with a game for grown-ups calledsex. But what you might not know yet is what a gift a baby can be for you as a mother, a father, a grandparent, a friend of the parent or as an auntie from somewhere far; like England for example.

At the beginning, you wonder how an unborn soul in the shape of a tiny human body has more power over you than any great author you have read, any inspiring speech you have heard, and any person you have touched, kissed, hugged. Birth – the same as death – triggers selfish generalities, such as “I will become a better me”.

The first sign of your development is you acting responsibly because you want to see the baby’s future getting brighter than your present is – another selfish anticipation. You therefore, write your mistakes and misfortunes down, and accept them for ever. Then, you think of stories that will make your past sound like an appealing narrative with a happy ending.

Another step you take is forgiving the world and yourself for not being perfect because you are now convinced that behind an unexpected failure there will be a growth opportunity. This being will make its dreams come true only if you give it the option to see as many as possible worlds: of those who have more; of those who have less; of those who have nothing, and those who have it all.

Through this baby you come closer to nature and biology; you might be even recycling more now than before, and you might feel you understand your dog’s behaviours better. You enjoy the rain and the wind, and you admire the ocean; you don’t blame it anymore for not being the Aegean Sea.

This baby has changed your existence without even knowing its.

26-week chimpanzee by National Geographic

Ήρωας με παντούφλες

An angry nation is a dangerous nation. It shuts its ears and eyes, opposes to communication and diminishes democratic values such as freedom of expression, security and development.

Loud but meaningless shouts, physical violence, hypocritical statements and the invention of enemies control both angry politicians’ and angry citizens’ behaviours.

Greek society at the time being is as insecure as an abandoned newborn with the only difference that Greece is completely conscious of the dangers.

Aristotle had said: “Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy”. With whom are the Greeks angry? Why now? And what will arise from this emotional overflow?

We are angry with the government which approved the austerity measures as dictated by the IMF. We are also angry with the Germans who treat us as incapable to handle ourselves, and we are angry with the foreign media for propagandising a false image of our national identity and country.

Crisis is not the result of Angela Merkel but it came with years of continuous stasis in creativity, production and inspiration. The ΧΑΟΣ that the Liberation had recently covered is chronic due to corruption, bureaucracy, an inadequate educational system and due to an illusion that we will be saved by the bell.

****

Cartoon from The New Yorker magazine

Anger makes us fearful and suspicious, and fear makes us weak. We develop conspicuous theories and create enemies where there are not. The Greek who lives abroad is a betrayer; the Nigerian who passes by has to be extinguished. The English, the German, the French – they are all the same Other.

It is easier to face the Other than look at yourself. How do you admit your complete failure and say to the world that life had been easy for the last 30 years because of your hustling skills and of a State based on clientelism? You don’t. Instead, you devote one third of the national news coverage to the coverage of Greece from the foreign media, and let them speak about you.

Are we ready to change? No, unless we stop reminisce the recent past and put away feelings of jealousy at anything which is better.

Probably there is not a better sun than the Greek but being favoured with a natural gift should trigger us even more. If you had a talent in playing the piano, you wouldn’t stare at it saying to your audience how good you are at playing it. You would sit and play the piano instead.

It is still early (really?) to discard old habits.

As long as we call each other malakas They will treat us as such.

Forever gone

Every morning, my first move after I have opened my eyes, is to stretch my right hand, drag my laptop on the floor and bring it close to me. I turn it on and I am automatically tuned in a Greek news radio station. I usually catch up with nonsense talks about the crisis, and if I am lucky enough my day may begin with an all time classic song that brings memories from different times.

But today it was a very different experience.

“A-smash-and-grab robbery at the museum of Olympia destroyed part of a 3,200 years old heritage” said the spokesman, and while my palm was instinctively covering my wide open mouth, he continued: “Pavlos Geroulanos, Greece’s culture minister, submitted his resignation after the incident, but it is unclear whether it has been accepted by Lucas Papademos, the Greek prime minister”. Then, the two producers on the radio begun to argue over the minister’s resignation and what is the hidden meaning behind it in a pro-election period.

But who cares?

65 – literally priceless – artifacts were stolen by two men who apparently were desperate amateurs.

I had to leave my bed and pull myself together.

I didn’t feel like eating this morning.

Images from my last visit at the British Museum in London came into my mind. A huge amount of the Greek history is in there; safe. And it is also in an environment equal to its splendor. A space that stands out for its majesty.

Today I didn’t read in anyone’s Facebook angry comments about those two thieves. I was not invited to join any group such as “bring them back”.

For a reason, the today’s robbery hurts the nation less than Elgin’s robbery.

On Sunday I found myself in a random talk about jealousy and its forms. The most dangerous expression of jealousy is not when you want to have something that someone else also has, but when you waste all your energy wishing for the other side to lose this something even if you will never obtain it after all.

Fight the cause, not the symptom

The Parthenon under the full moon

Greeks are lazy parasites who only care about bouzoukia and belly dancing; they are irresponsible, and it is time for them to face reality: no money no honey. Everyone around the world has been familiarised through the media with more or less this kind of “advertising” for a nation that naively believes (overlooking centuries of mixtures) it is descendant of Socrates and Plato, Pericles and Alexander the Great.

The number of those who start developing feelings of anger towards the Greeks rises, but only because they cannot feel the money inside their pockets as heavy as it once used to be. I am asking now those Perfect Europeans who are badly surprised to discover that Greece is neither Belgium nor Switzerland: “Why did you accept Greece as part of the Euro zone in the first place? Because you were acting as Mother Teresa or because you smelled an opportunity?

I am upset with you Perfect Europeans and I am asking again: “Why you didn’t make any effort back then to input in Greece your organisational and hard working skills? Why you didn’t come with measures and plans at that time, when there was some hope for the Greeks?” This is the least I would expect from a Union. But you would rather come straight as an enemy to remind those Greeks how small and weak they are on the global scale, yet so contagious to destroy the Economy of the world.

In 2004, Greece was in the first position among the 15 European Union countries, as the most corrupted country (poll published by Transparency International in December 2004). Furthermore, 17% of the Greeks stated that they themselves or some member of their family had bribed within the last year an employer of the public sector in order to successfully arrange a case and 70% affirmed that Greece has a huge issue of corruption (opinion poll published by Transparency International in 10/09/2007 for the year 2006).

The above numbers were internationally published, but you, Perfect Europeans, simply chose to ignore them and you were instead praising the Greeks for what an amazing Olympic Games they had organised. And now you appear shocked like you never knew.

I am telling you, Greeks will not stop going to the bouzoukiabecause this is what they know to do the best. And this is culture. You cannot change someone’s culture; this would be against human rights. But you can show someone a different aspect of things and let him decide.

Greece’s struggle has never been financial; it has always been cultural.

During the years of the Ottoman Empire, Greeks were not only scared of the State which was an actual enemy, but they also experienced the threat of distinction of their cultural and ethnic identity. In order to defend their language, traditions and religion, Greek people organised themselves in very small communities, usually formed by families.

The aversion of the Greeks toward their State continued in the 1830s, when they were officially liberated from the Turkish, but foreign administrations, appointed by the protector powers of Perfect Europeans, abolished the traditional institutions ofcommunities and local self administration. The feelings of happiness accompanying the freedom from the Turkish were very soon followed by depression; Greeks were again feeling enslaved. Greek people “replied” to this psychological confusion by an opposition to the correspondents of the power and to the laws and institutions forming the new State and its bureaucracy. Since then, the family has been Greeks’ mere concern and the only institution they could trust. On the other hand, the State has been alien and hostile.

Therefore, until today the Greeks do not consider themselves as part of the State, and they are not conscious about the effect their actions have on the well or bad being of their country. Greeks believe that the 300 representatives in the Parliament do actually form the State.

So, let’s not pretend we are all part of a financial crisis. For one more time, Greece is struggling with a deep inside crisis; a cultural crisis; a new civil war.