If I had been happy in Stellenbosch in 1994 and ’95, happy in Korea in 1996 but especially ’97 and ’98, happy in Johannesburg in 1998, and happy in Taiwan in my first few years – and with happiness I mean more money, initially, and later also regular female companionship, I wouldn’t have produced as much text as I ended up producing.
To write had for a long time been a mechanism for me to cope with loneliness, stress and boredom. It was only since 2003 that I seriously started thinking of myself as a writer who may have something to say. I had spoken and written about my ambition to write before 2003, but I think if I had experienced more sensory happiness in the middle to late nineties and the early years of the new decade, my ambitions to write would have faded.
The last few weeks I have once again been editing and translating material that I had written in the mid to late nineties and early noughts. As I was riding back from work this afternoon, I thought about some of the themes that had repeatedly popped up in the material. I also thought that I am still a little embarrassed about the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life in my twenties, and even my early thirties. I did not have a proper plan of action, I didn’t know what kind of success I was supposed to pursue, and my understanding of life wasn’t comprehensive enough to guide me through the decisions I needed to make.
As I continued on my way home, one thought made room for the next. I pondered my solemn intention from yesterday about taking a nap this afternoon after finishing my usual tasks on the computer, and then after the nap to start on the new book that I had bought recently for my Kindle (about the unsolved murder of a twenty-year-old British woman in Peking in 1937). That reminded me of the long article that I’m still working through on my reading device, and I wondered for a moment if I would finish that article first before I start with the new book. It’s mostly theory, I thought to myself, and it’s both difficult to read and a bit boring.
The article – actually a lecture given years ago at a conference – deals with Leon Trotsky – revolutionary, writer and political theorist of the early twentieth century. I thought how Trotsky, Lenin and other Bolsheviks like Nikolai Bukharin were “next level” smart. In between planning and attending conferences and hiding from police and arguing the fine points of ideology they also found time to write articles long enough to fill an entire notebook on the theory of political revolution. And because there was significant competition in the field of political revolution theory in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first two or three decades of the twentieth century, you couldn’t get away with flimsy arguments. Once someone had published a new piece, it was carefully studied for historical errors, inconsistencies and poorly formulated arguments. Only the writings of party leaders and political activists who were intellectually gifted and who had some degree of writing talent were taken seriously when decisions on policies and plans of action were made.
Boom! it hit me: Those revolutionaries who had wanted to take over political control of the old Russian Empire, who had actually managed to do so by November 1917, and then were left holding the bag, so to speak, did not know what they were doing! Not only did their plans of action change as circumstances required, there were also serious disagreements amongst the leadership on which theory should be followed when deciding on political, economic, and social policy. The world view and understanding of how human life was supposed to be conducted that had applied for centuries were also unceremoniously cast aside. The new leaders in the Kremlin paid homage to a radically different idea according to which they believed people’s lives ought to be managed. To determine policy, make decisions, and formulate and implement plans of action they needed more than a radical idea, though – they needed theories that merged understanding of human nature and politics and economic principles and a few other things into a coherent whole.
Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev (1920)
An overview of political theory in the time before, during and after the 1917 revolution is enough to either make your head spin or lull you to sleep. The old Social Revolutionary Party, for example, believed in the socialisation of land – that farmland should be distributed among the peasants, while Lenin and the Social Democratic Labour Party (from whose ranks the Bolsheviks came) believed in the collectivization of farmland – that is, to put it under state control. The SDLP defined class membership in terms of ownership of means of production, while the Social Revolutionaries defined class membership according to the surplus value that could be extracted from labour. According to the first definition, small farmers who practised subsistence farming, did not make use of any wage labour and owned the land which they tilled, were members of the petite bourgeoisie. According to the second definition, they could be grouped together with others who supplied labour rather than with people who purchased labour, and could therefore be seen with industrial workers as part of the working class. (This difference might seem like a mere academic point to some people today, but especially in the 1920s and 1930s it was a matter of life and death.) The rift that developed in the Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 was also largely due to a difference of opinion regarding principles and theory. One of the main points on which the two factions differed was the definition of party member. Lenin and his supporters (who later became the Bolsheviks) insisted that candidates had to be a member of one of the party’s organisations, while their opponents reckoned it was good enough if the person only worked under the guidance of a party organisation. Finally, there was the difference between Leon Trotsky and his supporters in the 1920s who believed that the revolution should at all costs be exported to other countries, and their arch rival in the party, Joseph Stalin, who was of the opinion that socialism had to be established in one country first. (Again, it may look like a debate between nerds today, but Stalin felt strong enough about the matter to send an assassin who smashed an ice pick into Trotsky’s skull to end the argument.) Trotsky also subscribed to the idea of Permanent Revolution, which according to Wikipedia, is “the theory that the bourgeois democratic tasks in countries with delayed bourgeois democratic development can only be accomplished through the establishment of a workers’ state, and that the creation of a workers’ state would inevitably involve inroads against capitalist property. Thus, the accomplishment of bourgeois democratic tasks passes over into proletarian tasks.” (So much for the idea that a revolution is simply a matter of which side is better armed.)
Back to my own modest struggles of my twenties and early thirties. I did not have a country that fell into my lap like a ripe peach, but I did have my own life that stretched out before me. Like the Bolsheviks who had to work out in the 1920s (and of course the decades after, but that’s another story) how they would go about forming a government, set policies, and manage infrastructure and services that would affect millions of lives, so I had to decide how I would go about sending my life in a particular direction, and maybe do a few things that I could later look back on with more pride than shame. And just like the Bolsheviks rejected the ways of thinking and doing things of what had been the established political, economic and social order in Russia up to 1917, so I realised that I had to work out why I had to do one thing and not another, why I couldn’t simply follow in the footsteps of other people, and why what worked well for many of my contemporaries wouldn’t necessarily work for me. I couldn’t just set off and start “ruling” my own life. I had to work out why things were the way they were. I had to work out plans of action that would be consistent with what I had worked out, and with the “policies” that I had decided on.
Anyone who has some knowledge of twentieth-century history would know the Bolsheviks’ experiment ultimately failed. Smart people can explain where the theory that had been developed by Marx, Trotsky, Lenin and others was wrong, and where it might have worked had it not been for the destructive policies and senseless violence perpetrated by bloodthirsty thugs like Joseph Stalin.
After spending all that time trying to figure out how I wanted to live my life and why in such a way, where I had come from in the broader sense than just looking at my father and mother, and how I fit into the mass of stimuli outside my skin, I can say in all honesty that my life is working out quite well. I know what changes I can still make to make it better. And if I have to, I can explain everything to someone who asks the right questions. Which, if I think about it, is not too bad, considering that I am very far from “next level” smart.
As I’m brushing my teeth, I think of an episode of a series on the crime channel about a man who had mysteriously fallen to his death while on his honeymoon on a cruise ship. Perhaps it was an accident. Or, perhaps it was a group of Russian-American men who had helped him in his drunken stupor to his cabin at four o’clock in the morning and then decided to rob him of the $17,000 in cash which he had boasted about, and threw him over the balcony when he tried to resist.
Whatever happened, one thing is certain: The man unfortunately did certain things that had increased the probability that something bad would happen. He had after all been very drunk when he staggered back to his cabin, alone – except for the group of men who were certainly not his friends.
I thought how he had passed one red-flag situation after another, and unfortunately for him he did not take the appropriate counteractions.
The idea of red-flag situations reminded me of my rules for pre-race trading on the UK horse racing market. I realised that these rules can often be applied to life in general.
The rules are as follows: 1) carefully consider a situation before you enter it; 2) manage red-flag situations in a calm and controlled manner; 3) if things don’t look good, get out as soon as possible; 4) do not be greedy (don’t take unnecessary risks when your actions have already produced a decent result).
In the case mentioned, if the unfortunate man had indeed been a victim of foul play, it could be said that there were a few aspects of his final ill-fated night that he had probably not considered; when he found himself in red-flag situations, he either took no countermeasures or he was incapable of doing anything about it; at some point, things had definitely not looked good for him, but for various reasons he could not extricate himself from the situation (anymore); and seeing that he was actually in a very favourable situation prior to this series of events, being on his honeymoon on a luxury cruise ship, it could be suggested that it was an unnecessary excess to drink so heavily on that fateful night.
Rules certainly make for a boring life at times, but it cannot be denied that they can save you from financial ruin, and occasionally keep you from getting into trouble you may not be able to get out of.
Some people arrange their lives according to systems they believe will increase the likelihood that they’ll survive and at least half of the time feel good about themselves. Other people have goals they pursue. Regardless of whether you prefer systems or goals, or a combination of both, I think everyone aspires to what I can only describe as a point. Sometimes you are aware that you are striving for this point, sometimes not.
This point for many people is an ideal lifestyle – a specific way they would like to spend their days and nights on earth.
Some people’s point is to have a family, to play the role of mother or father to children of their own.
Then there are people who want to reach a point of almost inexhaustible financial means – to know they can buy whatever they want and do whatever they want, the well will either never dry up or the money spent today will simply be replaced tomorrow.
My point is to have the ability to get lost in an activity – it may be a writing project, or a book, or research on a topic that interests me. I want to get lost in an activity without needing to remind myself that I’d have to go out later in the day to sell something (usually my ability to do some or other activity) or do something else that is supposed to make money.
Most people don’t think about it on a daily basis that the real purpose they are pursuing is to survive that specific day and night. And if you survive, you do what you have to do to make your survival worthwhile. To have a point you are aspiring to is more than just a goal you hope to achieve. It is the inspiration that propels you forward; it helps to make your survival today worthwhile.
Going through a few pieces from 1999 and 2000, a theme takes shape: I was an ordinary man who just wanted to get married, hold a regular job, buy a house and raise children, but then something scrambled my programming. Since that time, I was lost and confused and unsure of what to do with my existence. I was between a rock and a hard place, as I explained: I wanted everything and I wanted to do everything, and I knew very well I could end up with nothing.
19:40
Personal Agenda is no longer “My collection of writing” that has to include every piece of text I had considered good enough to show other people at one point or another. There is text in the original Personal Agenda that I do want to publish, like “Thirteen minutes on a Saturday night”, but I also reckon Personal Agenda has a broad theme, right? (I especially realised this when I read the “Preface to the complete project”.)
To put it differently, there are pieces that are currently part of Personal Agenda. These pieces are only part of the project because they were written between January 1999 and February 2004, because I thought at some point they were good enough to show other people, and because I only had one book project at that stage (namely, Personal Agenda) it made sense that all the pieces should be included in that project.
Fact is, I have since developed two internet properties with hundreds of pieces of content on each site. If I wrote something in 2000 or 2002 that I would like to share with other people, it no longer needs to be part of Personal Agenda for me to do that.
TUESDAY, 17 JANUARY 2017
01:25
Personal Agenda is about certain issues: to be alone; self-imposed exile (why? where? how long?); identity; family and friends and life partner; language and culture as part of a theme about place and belonging; experiencing meaning in life; understanding life well enough to be able to function outside a mental institution (including dealing with the religious beliefs with which you grew up, either incorporating them into your worldview as an adult, or rejecting them; if the latter, why?); creative ambition (in my case writing) as something that gives value to your life, something that gives you a sense that you are doing something with your existence that is appropriate considering what magnificent animal you are. It then follows that only pieces dealing with these issues should be included in Personal Agenda.
09:36
A new day has brought clarity: Personal Agenda is indeed “My collection of writing” of the period February 1999 to February 2004. Certain themes do stand out as mentioned in this note last night, but in the first place it was and still remains my collection of writing from that period, just like Post Untitled, volume one is my collection of writing from March to December 2004, Post Untitled, volume two is my collection of writing from 2005, and so on. To take out certain pieces because they do not touch on particular themes is to say the book was planned and written with those themes in mind. It was not. I just wrote whatever I felt like writing. Only later did I start collecting all the pieces.
Bottom-line: In 1994, I started taking notes on topics that interested me. In 2003, I started bundling together notes in a single project, and continued writing. Then I conjured up a title. I cannot now look at the title and say, “Wait a minute, this title seems to indicate that the book is about certain themes, and these 12 or 34 pieces aren’t about those themes, so they’re out.” Each compilation, starting from Where you are nobody to the collection that will contain the 2017 material is a collection of my writing – in the first place of a particular time period, and then if you look closely you can identify specific themes. BrandSmit.NET and Assorted Notes are just new platforms where I can share what I have written. The material, as I wrote it, remains my writing from a particular time.
