Starting from zero got nothing to lose.
Tracy Chapman, Fast Car

‘Fast cars’ and ‘nothing to loose’ often align. Tracy Chapman and Janis Joplin are just two singer songwriters who cover that in their songs. If you’re busted flat in Baton Rouge or have an old man who’s got a problem you gotta make a decision and leave tonight or live and die this way.

I’m lucky that Pádraig is generous and tolerant.

He did pick a fast car but he didn’t drive away. He picked it in a fantastic video game, Forza Horizon, in the An Saol Foundation Centre’s new Gaming Room. And we all had serious fun.

It was liberating. For a few moments, we forgot that we were all pretty much cramped in a small room in Santry, the Centre’s former store room – and not in Mexico’s magic Sonora Desert. The cheers and encouragement to get out there and drive that fast car along the race track, the spectators shouting out their advise on how to pass the other drivers, the recognition and sense of achievement when he passed the finishing line – all that transported Pádraig into another world.

Not all technology is useful . But if I compare this racing game with its challenges to many of the ‘therapeutic’ very clinical old-fashioned cognitive ‘games’ offered by more traditional Rehah specialists, I wonder why gaming is not used much more in settings like that of the An Saol Foundation to help people concentrate, strategise, plan, and move.

Pádraig was out a few times last week. One evening with his friends in a nearby pub, having a bite to eat, a bit of a drink, and a good time.

Yesterday, he went out to vote on the two referenda put to the people of Ireland. For once, I suspect he went with the majority – although that was not what he, and certainly not the Government, had expected. I wonder how politicians feel like tonight. All parties in the Irish parliament, the Dail, except for a small, one T.D. party, had advocated for a ‘Yes’ vote.

About three quarters of the voters voted ‘No’. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister or Taoiseach, said on TV that, clearly, the Government had failed to explain the referendum well enough to the people. It didn’t look like as if the thought had crossed his mind that the people had understood what the referenda were all about and decided that they didn’t like it. How out of touch can you be?

Pádraig continues to stand up for his rights and opinions.

He also stands on his feet for a while most days. Sometimes, I think back to the days when I was nearly desperate trying to explain to staff that standing brings a long, long list of benefits and is something that all of us have to practice, including Pádraig and all of the clients in the Centre.

Back then, I felt we had nothing to loose. There were days when I was looking for that fast car, fast enough so we could fly away. – Not anymore.

We have come a long way.

Next stop: Teach An Saol, our very own “House of Life”. We have the plans and the proposal. We have the professionals who are ready to get on with it. We have identified the perfect plot of land.

Somebody still has to cut the knot. Remove the barriers. Somebody has to thumb that diesel down before it starts raining.

We will not be busted flat in Baton Rouge, nor anywhere else.

Because, unlike Tracy and Jane, we’ve got a lot to loose.