Category: Old age of my youth – 2016

THURSDAY, 7 APRIL 2016

A few recent discoveries:

1. My older grandfather, Johannes Jurgens Bornman, was born in the Vredefort district of the then independent Boer republic of the Orange Free State, on 16 February 1900 – less than a month before the Union Jack was hoisted in Bloemfontein.

2. My younger grandfather, Barend Jakobus Lodewikus Smit, was born on 25 May 1913. His eldest sister, Martha Helena Smit, was born on 6 May 1900, and died on 11 October 1901, during some of the darkest days of the Anglo-Boer War.

3. My great-grandfather Bernardus Gerhardus Smit was born on 20 October 1874. His wife, my great-grandmother Martha Helena Coetsee was born on 19 June 1880. It is quite likely thanks to her that my grandfather, my father and I have Coetsee family names.

FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2016

I find family history interesting for three reasons:

1. In the first place, family history is a collection of stories – of people, places, and times different from our own.

2. It is a good thing to recall the names of people who have been dead and gone for decades, and sometimes centuries, as if you are stretching out your hand across time to pat them on the shoulder to say: Decades or centuries from now your name will still occasionally be mentioned – you will not be forgotten.

3. It is interesting to trace the sources of my genetic composition, my biological self – not to be able to say “who I am”, just to say: Oh, so that’s how the line goes.

MONDAY, 9 MAY 2016

Family history, so I have learned, is personal in ways that you may never have guessed. A part of the person that you would become was present through all those generations over the centuries. If one person did not tie the knot with a certain other person, you would not exist. Same story if one person did not die prematurely to leave behind a widow or widower who then got married to another person.

One example: The first husband of Anna Margaretha Roos was killed along with Piet Retief in 1838. Her father, her brother and her brother’s two children (or two of his children) were killed at Bloukrans shortly thereafter. Now, as a child I learned of Blood River and Piet Retief and Bloukrans. What I never realised was that a part of what would become my genetic blueprint was present at some of those places. Had Anna Roos for example also died along with her father and brother at Bloukrans, a part of what would later become my genetic puzzle would have been lost, and I would therefore not exist. (She remarried a few years later, this time to my great-great-great-grandfather.)

For the unique composition of cells that would become I to be born in Pretoria in June 1971, it was imperative for a long list of people not to have died earlier than they eventually did, and that they had to marry and conceive children with exactly the right people.

Important to note: If they had not gotten married to those people and conceived children with them, they would probably have conceived and raised other children with other people, which would eventually have led to the birth of other unique combinations of cells in 1971, or 1972, or 1973 … but it would not have led to my birth, and my subsequent existence for the past 45 years.

Thus, for my being to have come into existence, it was important that certain people with specific genetic particles had to escape death at particular times and places – amongst many sets of circumstances, the battlefields of Natal in the 1830s and those of the Boer republics at the turn of the century.

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FRIDAY, 29 APRIL 2016

A few years ago, I spent a lot of time doing things I didn’t really believe in. These activities included developing internet properties I wanted to sell, producing content I wanted to sell to other internet marketers, and trying to sell information products developed by other people to other people who would eventually sell it to end users who hopefully needed the information.

What does it mean that I had to believe in what I was doing? And why should I believe in what I am working on, or in what I spend a significant number of hours on every day?

I think it has to do with my view of human beings. I think humans are fantastic animals. Indeed, one could almost say humans are miracle beings – the sophisticated mechanics, the breath-taking complexity of what goes on in the brain, and the complex dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

With this as a starting point, I believe you should keep yourself busy with activities worthy of your complexity and sophistication.

You can go through a long list of activities on your own to determine how appropriate they are: reading, thinking, writing, cooking, athletic competition, designing websites, managing a coffee shop, treating sick or injured animals, fixing teeth, teaching English classes to Taiwanese students, and so on.

What I did until a few years ago was to kick against the pricks. I had already known that what made me the happiest was to think about things and write down what I thought. Later I would return to the notes I had made, rewrite some parts, add text here and there, sharpen some sentences and so on. Eventually I learned to publish these notes so that other people could also read what I had written. Year in and year out, again and again and again I realised that to be engaged in this creative process was my natural state. I could pressure myself into any direction, force myself into different roles, convince myself that I had to do all sorts of activities that were supposed to make money. But I always knew that if I gave myself half a chance, I would return to my natural condition.

This process of thinking and reading and making notes and later publishing them qualifies in my opinion as a series of activities appropriate for a fantastic animal to keep him- or herself busy with. I reckon it is furthermore a case of opportunity seized and time being properly made use of.

Of course, everyone has to earn their bread and butter and roof over their heads. So, do I believe in the things I currently do to make money? Are these appropriate activities for a fantastic animal?

I believe in the value of language studies. Trying to master a second or third language is in my opinion a worthy and highly valuable endeavour. I have therefore no problem spending time with individuals keen on improving their language skills. I also have no problem recommending a product that I believe provide good value to language students. I also don’t mind investing time and money creating products that meet the needs of this particular market.

At one stage I developed an obsession about the reason why I worked so hard yet ended up having so little fruit of my labour to enjoy. I came up with something like nine or ten reasons, including lack of investment capital and partners, the fact that I didn’t focus on abundance, and that I did not solve enough problems for enough people. One reason that had never occurred to me was that I did not believe in what I was doing. And I guess I didn’t believe in what I was doing because the thought flickered on and off somewhere in my grey matter that what I was keeping myself busy with were not appropriate activities for a fantastic animal with only one chance at life.

SATURDAY, 30 APRIL 2016

00:34

What about sports betting and trading on the financial markets? Why do I have no problem keeping myself busy with these things? Do I believe in them? Do I think these activities are appropriate?

Answer: I can accept that I do not believe in these things, because they do not keep me busy for long enough to be a problem.

01:39

I just discovered this note, dated Tuesday, 12 October 2010: “If I am not committed to something, the likelihood is slim that the project will be completed. And even if it gets done, the probability of success is not very high. Also, if I do not BELIEVE in something, I cannot be committed to it.”

Postscript (December 2016)

It is easier to believe in what you do when you create value for someone else. The author of Killing Sacred Cows, Garrett Gunderson, writes: “How can it be risky to wake up each morning and do what we love doing, provided it […] creates value in the world.”

He also quotes Steve Farber: “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”

From what I learned a few years ago, I can add to this: Do things you enjoy doing for people who appreciate what you do because you lead them away from a place where they do not want to be; because you guide them to a place where they do want to be; because you make things easier for them; because you entertain or comfort them; or because you teach them something or help them to understand things better. Do these things for people, and you probably won’t have a problem believing in what you do.

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THURSDAY, 28 APRIL 2016

There are people who love making money. These people know why they make money. It makes them feel good to have money; they like to spend money, and they like to own things.

Other people don’t think much about why they make money. They know all too well not bringing in money every month will mean suffering not only to themselves but also to loved ones who depend on them, or who rely on their financial contribution.

I have the habit of complicating things like this. I find it necessary to think of specific reasons why I want to make money, or why I feel I have no choice other than to make money.

One of the reasons I want to make more money than I need now is because I would like to be in a position in ten or fifteen years’ time where I could be less active in the process of making money. It would be exceptionally good if my partner could also be in a position to spend less of her time making money.

What complicates the money-making story for me is the fact that I don’t consider the work I do for money as my real job. I write, and I publish what I write – that is what I regard as my true vocation, and I am well aware that it will probably never generate much profit.

If I didn’t need to make money, it would probably never cross my mind. The productive hours of my days would be filled with work that I consider more important than any other work for which I am compensated in cash and money in my bank account. I would be busy producing words and sentences on a keyboard or with a writing utensil, and if I were not busy doing that, I’d be thinking of things that would probably end up on paper or in some digital format.

To make money is therefore for me a necessary and unavoidable unpleasantness.

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THURSDAY, 14 APRIL 2016

Point 1.

It is difficult to say what I believe in.

Point 2.

It is difficult for me to commit to anything, because I would have to believe in it 100%, and I would have to constantly sell that commitment to myself.

Point 3.

I wish I could see more cosmic report-type writing: I am aware of my existence; I have learned to read and write; I’ve developed identity; I survive (how?); I function (how?); I write about what I think, how I feel and how I experience things.

If I do discover such a long-term writing project from someone else, I wouldn’t compare it to my own literary efforts. I would rejoice. I would be curious to read what that person thinks, how they feel, and how they experience life.

Point 4.

Ten or fifteen years ago I believed that I could write something, and someone will read it and think: “This guy is right. It needs to be so. I will act differently from now on.”

Point 5.

On Tuesday, 2 June 2015 I wrote: [Perhaps my life is not so different] from the next person’s after all, and I am indeed wasting my time with my so-called writing.

On the other hand, there is a slim possibility that I have lived my adult life so far in a way that has given me a unique view of human existence and the lives we live, and that a combination of personality and tertiary education could make it possible for me to write something that would make someone else say: “I like the wording of this. It’s not really something that I haven’t thought of myself, but the way he talks about it makes it easier for me to organise my own thoughts.”

Point 6.

On Friday, 31 July 2015 I rolled the drum for an important insight: We often say, “But someone else has already said that” or “Someone else is already doing that.”

Fact is, not everyone heard when that other person said whatever they had said; not everyone has seen that particular movie or read that specific book. And even if people have heard what that man or woman had said, or if they have seen a certain movie or read a particular book, they may have forgotten about the lights that had come on in their heads!

We all forget things. This, at the end of the day, is why important things need to be repeated.

Point 7.

On Thursday, 28 January 2016 I wrote: Perhaps the best novel that will ever be written in any language has already been written. But still, we have to keep writing. Perhaps the most generous human being who will ever live has been dead for decades or even centuries. But still we need to keep on giving.

MONDAY, 18 APRIL 2016

I have been thinking about this thing that I don’t really know what I believe in. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt this afternoon: I believe in trees.

Think about it: trees are aesthetically pleasing; they provide food and shelter to people, animals, birds and insects; in many cases a single tree is an ecological system in which some creatures live out their entire life cycles; trees clean polluted air and make it easier for people to breathe; trees provide wood for houses and huts and other shelters, and for furniture; trees provide wood for heat; trees provide paper for books; a person can become an activist for the cause of trees – in fact, many people are already devoting their lives to this cause; trees can keep growing for hundreds of years; and last but not least, if you suddenly find yourself standing naked outside one day, you can simply walk over to the nearest tree, gently break off a sprig of leaves, and cover your face.

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MONDAY, 11 APRIL 2016

As a child, I regarded the Great Trek (migration of thousands of Boers from the British-controlled Cape colony to the hinterland of Southern Africa) more as Biblical history than as ordinary history, and I knew very well that one thought differently about Biblical history, you talked about it differently, and you studied it in a different manner.

Like the Biblical stories, the Great Trek was filled with super figures: Piet Retief, Gerrit Maritz, Andries Pretorius, and the woman who said that she would rather walk barefoot over the Drakensberg than to suffer again under British rule. There were also arch-enemies of the calibre you could only find in the Bible – the most infamous, the most vicious of which was Dingane, the king of the Zulus.

Then there were events which were of such epic nature that as a child you had no choice but to think of them as Biblical type-stories. In the first place there was the trek across the plains and later across the Drakensberg mountain range. Then there was the murder of Piet Retief and his party by their arch-enemy and his Zulu impis. And finally there was the epic triumph at Blood River, when against all expectations the Trekkers defeated their enemy who had outnumbered them ten to one. To seal the Biblical quality of the Great Trek story, God was also there, on the side of the Trekkers, as he was on the side of Israel more than twenty centuries earlier.

Seen from this angle, the Great Trek was the Boers’ Exodus story; the Eastern Cape was Babylon; Natal and the Free State and later the Transvaal were the Promised Land; Piet Retief was Moses; Andries Pretorius – Joshua; the English were the Egyptians; and Dingane was the Pharaoh, or Goliath that had to be slain on the battlefield by the small group of farmers, or then, by the faithful warrior David.

As a young student in a changing South Africa in the early nineties, I became aware of a process under historians to demythologise the Great Trek. It was apparently not such a massive movement of people after all; only something like 10% of the descendants of the original European immigrants had actually taken part in the trek. The victory at Blood River was also not really a miracle at all; the Trekkers after all did have modern weapons, and the Zulus had only had spears and hardened leather shields to protect themselves from the bullets.

On the one hand, then, you had the Great Trek as mythology that had been used for decades by politicians and the ruling elite to foster ethnic nationalism; on the other hand, discredited history, something that was not really as one had always been taught.

As I recently rediscovered, the truth is much more interesting than any inflated propaganda. If you look at the history of the Great Trek with an open mind, you will discover men and women and children of flesh-and-blood who had fears and doubts; people who loved and who lost people that had meant the world to them; people who ultimately hoped to settle down to a simple life once the dust had settled.

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From an overview on The Great Trek Uncut: Escape from British Rule – The Boer Exodus from the Cape Colony 1836, by Robin Binckes: “The author distances himself from the noble characters stereotyped for the past two centuries and portrays them in their true light: wonderful, courageous people with human feelings, strengths and failings.”

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