There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same
Malvina Reynolds

I always thought Pete Seeger – the man who said at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Dylan used an electric guitar to play Like a Rolling Stone “If I had an axe, I’d cut the cable right now!” – had written Little Boxes. Until I listened to the man himself clarifying that, in fact, Malvina Reynolds had written it.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there’s doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

I listened to the song again because I believe it might give the answer to one of the fundamental questions I haven’t got my head around yet since Pádraig’s accident:

Why are those with a severe Acquired Brain Injury (sABI) left behind?

Last week was one of those brilliantly busy ones with some really incredible ‘firsts’ and some equally brilliant confirmations of Pádraig’s abilities which I want to share with you.

Here is Pádraig playing music.

First the tin whistle.

Then the pipes using the ‘enhanced handscupe’ for the recording of an RTÉ radio programme to be aired early next year.

A group of UCD researchers joined in for the recording. One of them had set up a company manufacturing “The Next Level of Adaptability and Customisation”, the award-winning super cool Proteus Controller by ByoWave. And guess what? – They left one in An Saol for our soon to be set up accessible Games Room.

The real “first”, however, Pádraig stunned us with was a much more low-tech, but quite tricky, paper-based exercise which he had attempted some time ago. Back then, he hadn’t managed to complete it successfully.

Have a look yourself.

The task was putting these six sentences into the right order. To be honest, it took me a while to get this right. There were a lot of different steps to go through. Reading, re-reading, remembering, checking and double-checking. Final check. Pádraig got it right.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same

At the end of the week, it had become blatantly clear that doctors, lawyers, and business executives need to move out of the little boxes they ended up in. Urgently.

Of course, I know this is an awful lot to ask for. It might almost be as impossible as wishing for World Peace. We won’t give up just yet. On either.

Although, these days it can seem, at times, that we’re running very low even on hope – for both, world peace and those guys moving out of their little boxes.

What then if we failed in this world?

Malvina Reynolds has another song I discovered recently that is definitely worth listening to: I Don’t Mind Failing.

I don’t mind failing in this world
Somebody else’s definition
Isn’t going to measure my soul’s condition
I don’t mind failing in this world