MONDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2014
A name, this everybody knows, is more than a sound that is uttered when someone specifically wants to get your attention. It is more than a drawing of lines and curls on paper for administrative purposes. A name connects you to people, and to relationships. I am not just “Brand Smit” – I am “Brand”, son of “Barney” and “Adriana”.
This connection gives you an indication of how and possibly where you should position yourself. For example, are “Barney” and “Adriana” figures in the Russian criminal underworld? Are they Inuit living in a village in northern Canada? Are they wine growers in Chile?
As it turned out, my parents are potters and business people of mostly European descent who speak Afrikaans and who grew up in predominantly Afrikaans communities in Southern Africa. This gives me something to work with, or it gave me something to work with starting a little over forty years ago.
There is an important point that I suspect many people overlook or misunderstand. This information about my cultural, ethnic and linguistic origins did not tell me who to be or what to do, it simply told me where to look for ideas on what to do or who to be. It does not say: Be this. It says: Search here.
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