Category: Post Untitled, volume one

SUNDAY, 8 AUGUST 2004

The point and the twist

00:26

(Kuala Lumpur International Airport, forty minutes or so before take-off)

The point is if who you are, is not predestined, you can be who you choose to be (Friedrich Nietzsche: “Will a self, and thou shalt become a self”). The twist, however, is that who you choose to be or who you choose to become is limited to what you’ve been “given” – genes, socio-cultural and ethnic background, etcetera – as well as by particular time and place.

Still, to use what you’ve been “given” as an excuse to not become more than what you assume you’re supposed to be because of what you’ve been “given”, is to underestimate the extraordinary potential that humans have for personal transformation.

Confront the recluse

01:09

(Still waiting in the machine)

I can understand why some people choose to isolate themselves from the community – from other people. It’s not necessarily that they do not like people; it’s more a case of them having reached a point where they no longer want to be confronted on a daily basis with things that most people miraculously manage to ignore, or that most people simply accept without too much questioning.

The mood of the single traveller …

01:21

The woman in the pink sweater is sitting in row, I think 23 or 28. After I had talked to her in the minibus on the way to the airport, she waited for the next elevator to the fifth floor. When we were waiting to board, she sat down on the same bench as me, two seats away. I asked her, “Ni yizhi feidao Agenting ma?” (Are you flying non-stop to Argentina?) We chatted a bit, and when we had to go, she got up first, and walked fast enough to be several places ahead of me in the queue. When I walked past her on the plane (to my seat in the back, number 63D) she wasn’t specifically looking at me, but I was in her field of vision. I imagined she was ready with an English phrase if I were to say something in passing like, “Enjoy your flight.”

Have I mentioned that I am tired of travelling alone? Last Saturday evening in Number Nine I thought to myself: that is my next ambition – to not travel alone anymore. The woman in the pink sweater would have worked just fine …

We’re beginning to pick up speed. (Did the people in the front not hear the pilot telling everyone to shut up?) The jazz over the speakers are becoming jazzier, the people are talking louder, the lights of the airport are flashing past faster and faster, and we are … airborne!

It’s miserable being alone.

The homecoming

04:55 (South Africa time)

The land of my Given Self has been spotted. The timing could not have been better for the song in my ears: Juluka’s “Akanaki Nokunaka” (He Doesn’t Care, Even about Caring).

06:45

(Johannesburg International Airport)

“I was the only one / to witness my homecoming / so I asked myself / Brother Josef, how’ve you been …” (Lyrics from the song, Africa, by Juluka)

One Mail & Guardian, two cigarettes, six postcards – am I not a tourist? – and half a bottle of Orange Powerade later, and I’m sitting in front of the Bureau de Change, filling yet another page in a notebook that is usually lying on my antique cabinet in Benevolent Light.

In a quarter of an hour, I will give my old friend J. a wake-up call, and in about an hour or so I will make my dramatic reappearance in Bronkhorstspruit.

Are my opinions of the past few months going to change over the next four weeks? Am I going to gain new insights that will cause current plans to be reconsidered? Time will tell.

Time for a cup of coffee …

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SATURDAY, 7 AUGUST 2004

Thought number two: Identity has to do with the question of who you are. Understanding what happens during the process of identity formation may help to answer the question why an individual is as he or she is, why they do what they do, live where they live, with whom they live, how they appear to the world, how they earn money, and why these particular details and not any other.

Thought number one: It’s Saturday, 7 August 2004 at 13:10 in the afternoon. I am sitting on a plane over … the Indian Ocean.

On 3 May this year I stood for hours at a window writing in my notebook. What I wrote that day ultimately amounted to me having defined a self in Taiwan with which I am fairly satisfied. It was also abundantly clear that I was tired of saying, “I’m on my way … this is not my real life … I’m working on a few plans … probably in about six months I’ll have a life that I will be able to call my own with some degree of pride …”

On that Monday, I declared: I have a life. This life is in Taiwan. It is not a perfect life, but it’s a good life. And it’s my life.

I have sorted out an identity for myself with which I am comfortable, and in a place where I can be this particular “I am”.

Who am I? I am a man in his early thirties who lives in Taiwan, who writes, teaches English, studies Chinese, and who works on long-term business projects. Six months ago I would have attached specific labels to all these things I do, labels particular to the time and wider environment where I live such as “writer”, “teacher” or “student”. I have none other than Karl Marx to thank for the idea that you should focus on what you do and leave the labels for those who need them for a variety of reasons.

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“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

~ Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845)

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WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

Identity and the identity of God

For many who want to sort out their own identity, it is a prerequisite to first sort out the identity of God. God is the “head” of their religion; religion is a primary tool by which they answer who and what they are and what they need or want to do with their lives. If they are not sure about the identity of God, they cannot be sure of their own identity. Also, if they can be sure of who and what God is, they can find certainty about who and what they are or ought to be.

FRIDAY, 6 AUGUST 2004

I-am-who-I-was (even though we’re only related)

Notes from Stellenbosch 1994, Korea 1996 to ‘98, Johannesburg ‘98, and Taiwan 1999 to 2004 indicate that I am still the same person, but it also shows how this “person” has changed. It should instil confidence to know you can change environments and still remain the same … still be “me” … still retain the same identity … continue to function as a person who is essentially related to the “I” of yesterday, and ten years ago, in a half-dozen places on two continents.

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SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST 2004

Who’s that guy in the mirror? (And why is he looking at me?)

The challenge, as I have recited by now so many times that some readers probably feel their heads will start spinning at the mere sight of the words is … to appear as who and what you really are. (There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?)

My point at this moment is that we sometimes fall back on old appearances, no longer really valid, but which can be trusted for a good response. This type of situation usually resolves itself soon enough, in a natural way – or hopefully so, otherwise the self-denial will become an open sore.

It is important, though, if you do appear in a particular situation differently than how you see yourself, you need not seek out the nearest bathroom mirror to scream at yourself in sheer panic, “Who am I … or who are you?!” Know and understand that even if your perception of yourself changes with the passage of time you may still have to appear as your “old self” for the sake of safety, or positive response, or positive result in a specific situation.

The ideal is naturally that your current and hopefully credible self will develop sufficient confidence so you can appear as who and what you are at any particular time of your life.

MONDAY, 2 AUGUST 2004

To grow and to develop and to express – or to choose not to

You experience reality. It is possible to express this particular experience.

You also have an identity. It is possible to improve your grasp of who you are, what you are, and what you want to do with your life.

Your choice, right now, is whether to acknowledge these things, these possibilities, and to continue the process of personal growth and development, or not.

WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

In “Renaissance Man”, Danny De Vito’s character changes his primary work and living environment from a corporate office and suburban home to a military training camp. He finds out he’s not really an advertising guy but a teacher, suddenly becomes committed to what he does, and feels for the first time in years that he belongs. And, since the formula always works perfectly in movies, he also finds the love of his life.

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WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

If you did not have to appear, you would not need much of a so-called identity. Or maybe I should say the way you would think about yourself if you did not need to appear would not have required the approval of the community – meaning in everyday face-to-face appearances.

Identity that is recognised and to a degree approved by the community is therefore primarily required for APPEARANCE. Considering this relationship between identity and appearance at specific time and place, what would be the value of not appearing?

[Note on 10 August 2007: Identity is primarily needed for appearance? I am sitting alone behind my computer, and I need to know who I am at this very moment.]

[Note on 23 May 2012: I am alone behind my computer and I know who I am. Why? Because I appear to people on a daily basis, and between appearances I sit down behind the computer … where I can’t turn off a button to something that flickers who I am. Plus, perhaps the work I do, like this writing, requires that I have identity. Why? Because what I write is representative of me, and will be absolutely meaningless if “I” don’t appear to the reader as a person-with-identity. The reader won’t be able to identify with what I write, and as a result won’t take anything I write seriously. So, even though I am alone at the present moment, I still need identity because I remember who I was during my most recent appearance, and I need to have identity in case I have to appear at short notice – like if someone suddenly knocks on the door. And even when you are alone, you may be doing work that requires identity.]

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