Personal Agenda, Book Two – Page 6

To ignore what is obvious

SATURDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER 2003

Outside my former hiding place, as I was hanging the last couple of plastic bags filled with dirty laundry on my bike, I heard a young kid from across the alley shout something. Too busy to respond, I got on the bike and shakily rode away.

At the traffic lights I thought the kid probably insulted me, because the sounds he uttered were very similar (except for one word) to the words in the Taiwanese dialect for “fat, lazy woman”. For a moment I regretted that I didn’t have anything appropriately offensive to bark back. By the time I got to the next traffic light, I had dropped my regrets in favour of the idea that I ignored him, which I regard as a greater insult.

“Why so?” I wondered.

By ignoring someone, you deprive that person of your recognition of his or her existence. And who is so sure of him- or herself that they’re not just a little uncomfortable when they are among people who do not acknowledge their existence?

You could argue that people must see that you fill a particular space in their immediate surroundings, or that they have to know you exist, even if they don’t react to your presence.

The thought that someone should know, in theory, that you exist is not good enough. Who doesn’t get annoyed, at times angry and sometimes violent when your presence, and therefore your existence is not recognised?

We all need regular confirmation from other people (even from animals such as a dog or a cat) that we exist. It could be nothing more than a smile, the nod of a head, or an “Excuse me” when someone accidentally bumps into you, albeit without making eye contact.

Intimate contact – and even better, regular intimate contact – is the ideal suppressor of the latent anxiety (or uncertainty?) about our existence. Would this be the underlying motivation behind the desire (or instinct) to pamper a baby – to give the little person who had only recently become a separate physical entity assurance of his or her existence?

Being a Westerner in some Asian countries naturally give you more visible recognition of your existence as would be the case in your own country. One example is the insolent lout who insults you in a language that he thinks you don’t understand, just because he was an eyewitness to your effort, as a highly visible outsider, to balance your bicycle with half a dozen plastic bags hanging from the handlebars. Another example is the girl who hides behind her mother in the supermarket while she points her finger at you as if you’re a distant cousin of the Elephant Man. Also people who, long after you had passed them, shout “Hello!” at you like you’re famous. All these incidents confirm your existence at that particular moment and at that specific location, and in ways that are not necessarily the good (or bad) luck of the ordinary Taiwanese (in my case) with whom you share your street or supermarket aisle.

Would this perhaps explain the desire of some people to be famous or infamous – the desire for as many people as possible to nod their heads in recognition of your existence?

Another question: Why do strangers greet each other?

One reason is mutual recognition of their existence.

Why therefore, would someone not greet you?

One possible reason is that the person does not need your recognition of his or her existence at that particular moment, or in some cases may not consider it desirable.

Reasons why someone might not need your recognition? Other people in the immediate vicinity that already acknowledge their existence, like friends, or a child who is being held by the hand?

That they fail to greet you doesn’t necessarily have to be seen as offensive; it’s just that they already have what you would have given them, namely visible acknowledgment of their existence.

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The end of an address/Transformation

FRIDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2003

I’m sitting in a denuded apartment waiting for the moving truck to move me and my junk to a new habitat. Some thoughts have to be jotted down immediately.

First, as I have mentioned many times, my sense of where I belong is highly unstable at the best of times. This raises the question of whether I will ever feel at home somewhere. I mean, some people never fit anywhere, right? Is that not the meaning of the labels “drifter” and “loner”?

Contrary to the first point, I recently experienced a more developed sense of where I belong. I’m also sceptical of fitting in too well. Is it because you have to conform to sets of rules – which are usually never spelled out – to fit in? Such rules include what and how you should dress, how you should behave towards different people, what you should say and what not, what you should believe, which ideals are acceptable and which not, and what ambitions you should have. But what good does it do to be honest – to not conform to the detriment of who you believe you truly are – if you end up alone? What is the value of remaining true to yourself if that means you always walk alone?

The other related thing I want to mention is that I could consider transforming myself into a creature that fits in more easily. It can’t be that difficult – I do after all have friends! (Family doesn’t really count in this case. They have a moral obligation to accept you in their midst … that is to say if your clothing style, your behaviour, what you say, what you believe, and your goals do not offend your family to such an extent that they reach the point where they feel it would be better for everyone if you don’t insist that they satisfy your need to be part of their intimate circle. Fortunately, my clothing style, my behaviour, and even my ambitions are of such a nature that they don’t offend my parents’ or my two sisters’ dignity too much. It is naturally to my advantage to believe this to be true.)

So, with the moving truck drawing closer, what are the chances that I can transform myself to such an extent that I could more easily make an entry into groups and communities?

* * *

At 14:55 it was all over. I wanted to end the last part with the words, “So, as the villains in their blue truck draw closer …” but I thought I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. Rogues they were, all right, but friendly enough after they managed to extract twice as much money from me as I had hoped the whole operation would cost me. I wanted to argue, but they gathered together, with one of them lifting his T-shirt up ever so slightly to show his underworld tattoo. At that moment I remembered yet another one of the Important Principles of Survival: Restrain yourself from physical conflict with more than one villain at a time when you’re alone. This principle is of course even more applicable if the villains are of the type who carry sofas and washing machines on their backs up three flights of stairs, and even more so if you are, let’s just say, the scholastic type. (Is it necessary to add that it’s not a good idea to want to pull sheets of papers with notes on them from said sofa while the aforementioned villain is carrying the sofa up a flight of stairs?)

All in all, the process went by without much incident. Right now, I’m sitting outside my favourite coffee shop, quietly sucking on a cup of creamy Viennese coffee while I breathe in the sulphur-polluted air of this part of town.

In the hours that passed between the move and the coffee, I had to teach a class at the school where I’ve been working for almost five years. Here I was in the fortunate position to spot a Taiwanese colleague – who works in the office – out of the corner of my eye. Needless to say, her sensual beauty inspires me to make as many photocopies as possible, and to even enter into conversations with her in my distinctive Chinese dialect.

I heard her mentioning something about being single to one of the students. That forced me once again to contemplate my own reputation as a wandering wolf on the road between my house and … well, the 7-Eleven. A quick mental computation of the reasons for this sorry state of affairs reminded me how I have a problem with my place in the world.

This brings us back to my pre-confrontation with the tattooed movers question: Is it possible that I can transform myself into an individual who will have the ability to fit in more easily?

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End contemplation, part two

THURSDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2003

Is the issue of “exile” still relevant?

The end of this project is not only imminent because I have typed and written enough pages for the result to be called a “book”. I believe (perhaps because I really want to believe) that I now have a better understanding of how things work than was the case ten years ago. I have identified some principles I believe are valid for all people, and across all time. None of these insights or principles are original. It was nevertheless important that I sorted them out for myself, in my own time, and put them in my own words. I now have a more sophisticated appreciation of my own name (so to speak), and I have developed a vague idea of how I fit into the mass of life outside my apartment door.

Is the issue of exile, so central to the “story” of this project, still relevant, though? Is it still important that I go “home”?

This project has undergone an evolution. I did not originally undertake the writing process with the idea of a book as an end result. All I knew was that I wasn’t sure about certain things in my life, and that it helped to write things down. To write is also a good way to spend long days and nights productively if you tend to avoid the world outside your front door. Writing has been, and remains, my main source of entertainment, in addition to the fact that it takes me from point A to point B in matters of the soul.

Likewise, I did not force this second round of exile [after the first one in Korea] on myself for the purpose of finding answers to questions. This project began as scribblings in notebooks and on scrap paper, and as letters to friends and family. My journey to Taiwan began as the best route out of an office job and servant’s quarters. But what do you do when certain questions impose themselves on you, or even worse, when a book knocks on the inside of your skull, and “exile” turns out to be the only way to deal with them?

Am I, for the third time, still in exile? Do I still need to go home?

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End contemplation, part one/The ultimate hope

MONDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2003

I feel as if I’m reaching the end of what I can call in retrospect, my “book”. I did not ask all the questions (who can?), and I do not have all the answers (who does?). What I do know, or sincerely believe, is what life outside my apartment windows is about.

What’s it all about then, according to me?

At the most basic level, it’s a struggle for survival. From the miserable homeless guy in the back alley digging through garbage bags, to Bill and Melinda Gates, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the President of the United States, back to the baby who was born a minute ago in the slums of Kolkata, everybody is always, from the moment of birth until the moment of physical death, locked in a struggle for survival. This struggle is waged on several levels, and for a limited number of needs that must be met.

One of these needs has increasingly aroused my interest over the past few years. The more I look at my own life, and observe the world outside my front door, the more the importance of the need, the longing, to belong somewhere is confirmed – to know how your life is linked to other forms of life (and even inanimate objects), in terms of the past, present, and future. This includes understanding how you fit in between other species on this planet, and how you fit in between the screaming masses of people, and between conflicting religious traditions and diverse histories of humanity.

All mammals – to take the group of animals under which humans are categorised – instinctively know where they belong. That is, all mammals whose natural life and habitats have not been disturbed or altered to such an extent that they, too, suffer from the same affliction as so many people in the modern world.

To be confused about your place in the world – to not know where you belong – is usually the result of a variety of causes. One of these is alienation from the environment where at one stage of your life you knew in what ways and to what extent you belonged. This disposition is in turn caused by, amongst other things, disillusionment with what previously defined your identity and determined your place in the larger world. An example of the latter is the alienation that takes place between an individual and the religious community of which he or she had previously been a devoted member – alienation brought on by personal experiences and/or intellectual exposure that sometimes erode the credibility of truths handed down from previous generations.

When this happens, when you are confronted with the reality that you do not know anymore how and where you fit into the Larger Landscape, you will find it difficult to commit to anything other than what provides you with immediate comfort in the face of a world that you will find increasingly hostile.

Identity – to know your own name, your nationality, personality, preferences, talents, interests, fears, strengths and weaknesses, and your ambitions and dreams – makes it easier to at least have a fair idea where you stand with others, and thus to enter into relationships. It is through these relationships that you eventually obtain membership to groups and communities; a factor that will play a significant role in reducing your vulnerability as a single individual. Membership to groups and communities will lessen your anxieties, which will improve your confidence, which will increase the likelihood that your physical and emotional needs will be met. If these communities include a religious community, you may even find it easier to explain to yourself and to others how you believe you are part of a reality that stretches beyond this time and place.

The above description is the ideal of positive and constructive relationships. Negative and destructive relationships also satisfy the need to belong somewhere, but in a way that does not reduce fear and anxiety. Such relationships also sometimes prevent more positive and constructive social interaction. However, even “bad” relationships emphasize the importance of the need to be part of something bigger than just a single individual.

To actively participate in groups and communities, you need to know some basic things about yourself and when necessary to confirm these things (your name, your personality, interests, talents, beliefs, and other things that have already been mentioned). You also need basic knowledge and understanding of the world in which you find yourself on a daily basis.

If your intellectual development exceeds the boundaries of a handed-down understanding of “how things work” (in the community in which you find yourself), or if this understanding loses credibility as a result of certain personal experiences, or after exposure to an alternative philosophical frame of reference or comprehensive view of existence, you will inevitably ask certain questions. Principles will also need to be identified (or redefined) to facilitate your understanding of human existence. These principles and the corresponding understanding of things will be highly conducive to the process of identity formation (or then, the redefining of identity). This process will enable you to know, or discover anew, how, where and with whom you should cultivate relationships.

Ultimately, the hope will be to have a better understanding of how you form part of all that is, was, and may still be, and to continue with your existence, but as someone who does not feel alienated on a daily basis from everything and everyone around you.

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On the technical aspects of belonging and membership

[At the beginning of September 2003 I was informed by my landlady that she wanted to sell the apartment I had been renting from her for almost five years, and that I had to be out of the place by the end of the month. This essay was written after a few weeks of packing and preparing the new place for habitation.]

THURSDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2003

It was an exceptional experience at the end, this business of moving to another place. It cast an interesting and illuminating light on things I had been contemplating before I got the call to pack up and move. I refer of course – no surprises here – to the issues of identity and belonging. The difference is the experiences of this month have been concrete, with the academic value a boring sideshow.

I was confronted this month with the very real fact that I no longer belong – for the time being, and relative to a particular environment.

As I wandered through my apartment during the past few days, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I no longer belong in a place that has become synonymous with the daily reality that I belong, for now, on this island. This structure, these dilapidated walls, the four windows that never allowed enough fresh air in my life, the front door that scrapes against the dull, unpolished marble floor, the front porch with old cigarette butts and unopened mail in one corner, the familiar path between the front door, my “office”, the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and back to the front door, was where I belonged for the past nearly five years. I did not belong at the neighbours’ house. I did not belong at the 7-Eleven, or in any other place in this city, this country, or in this world more than I belonged in this stuffy, dimly lit apartment. (Perhaps I exaggerate the “dark apartment” thing a bit for the sake of dramatic effect. Natural sunlight did sometimes penetrate the interior. I also had several electric lights, which did make the well-trodden path visible. And did I not experience many moments of intellectual enlightenment in this place?)

The fact remains I don’t belong here anymore. And it has nothing to do with identity, religion, or a vague understanding of the universe. (Or does it?)

Needless to say, an unpleasant sensation has gotten hold of my throat because of this suspended sense of belonging. And I suppose that’s where understanding makes a difference. If someone rushes at you and complains of an unpleasant sensation in the part of his anatomy where you know his stomach is located, it will be a pleasure for you to explain to this fool that he only needs to stuff his mouth with deep-fried calamari: Hunger is the problem, food is the answer. (Unless of course you’re wrong, and he’s actually complaining about a knife wound in his lower abdomen.)

In the case of my own unpleasant sensation, I could reassure myself with the explanation that I’m only experiencing a reduced sense of my place in the world, and that it is a normal reaction to a temporary situation. I could go further and say that I already have another place; that my sense of where I belong, will be restored promptly.

Still, there was no way I could allow such a rare, concrete manifestation of uncertainty to get away without milking it to the last drop of anxiety …

MYSELF: “If you say another place you obviously refer to the apartment in Benevolent Light New Village, right?”

ME: “Yes. You’ll move all your stuff there tomorrow, and next week you will feel completely at home.”

MYSELF: “Why?”

ME: “Because all your stuff will be there! And you’ll have your own front door again, and more windows than you can count!”

MYSELF: “There are sixteen windows. I counted them.”

ME: “Well, there you have it! Your sense of where you belong shall be restored before you can say existential angst. You’ll even have a view of the neighbour’s kitchen.”

MYSELF: “It’s not my apartment. It belongs to someone who’s doing my employer a favour by renting the apartment to me.”

ME: “Yes, I know. But it will be yours for all practical purposes, at least for a few months.”

MYSELF: “But I don’t belong there. Not like you belong on your own patch of land, where you can sleep between the cabbages if you like.”

ME: “It’s true … But do we ever belong anywhere for an indefinite period of our existence? Or are we strangers most of the time, running from one place to another – belonging here, not belonging there? And at the end of the day we rush ‘home’ because that’s where we think we belong – amongst our own people? What happens if that doesn’t work out? What happens if the relationships at ‘home’ are dysfunctional to such an extent that we feel we don’t belong there either? Do we keep roaming like the animals we are? Do we just keep fighting for our daily survival, for our right to a dignified life? Do we keep sniffing around in a desperate attempt to pick up a vaguely familiar scent? We are defenceless animals, for crying out loud! What more do you want?”

MYSELF: “Maybe I just wanted to hear that. Maybe I just wanted to hear it doesn’t always work out. That one should be grateful when things do work out, and when you indeed feel as if you belong somewhere. Because you know nothing lasts forever, and if you can just enjoy the good things of life for one day, and then another … it’s better than to never have had it at all. Love doesn’t last forever. Neither does life. At some time or another in your life, you will inevitably experience loss, and a reduced sense of your place in the world. How you handle it when it comes your way … this, this is what gives you a sense of security.”

ME: “Make the most of what you have while you have it?”

MYSELF: “Yes. I guess that’s what it comes down to. To hold collar against the wind. To fight for survival, and if you survive, to continue fighting for the best you can get. And when things work out for you, to share the good you have with other people. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

ME: “And never forget life is fragile? That death in the end conquers all? That all of us will eventually return to dust?”

MYSELF: “Well … if you view human beings merely as a collection of meat and bone sniffing around for a place to lay down its head at the end of the day, I guess you can remind yourself of all of that.”

ME: “And … you should also try to find a mate with whom you can make a contribution to the survival of this wretched species, or what?”

MYSELF: “Hmm … aren’t there a few boxes left we can shuffle around?”

And so another few drops fall in the pail …

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