Category: Post Untitled, volume three

MONDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2010

18:37

The conversation with myself started as a contemplation on my bicycle on the way to my usual dinner place. I thought about how I constantly second-guess myself these days: Was I supposed to say that? Should I have acted differently? Should I respond differently because I’m almost forty?

I reckoned that I had always thought one outgrows these insecurities.

“Maybe it makes a difference if you have children,” I thought to myself. “You have more important things to worry about, so you have little time or inclination for ridiculous age-related insecurities.”

“Imagine,” came the response from the other voice in my head, “I suddenly say I want to have children.”

“That’s the problem,” I immediately retorted. “If pregnancy is the natural consequence of the being-together of a man and a woman, then so be it. I’ve been saying this for a long time. But if you plan pregnancy … it’s too selfish. I want a child – no matter what suffering the child would have to endure in this world.”

“Are you saying planned pregnancy is a bad idea?”

“No, I’m just saying that personally I have a problem with a planned pregnancy. This means I would have to look my child in the eyes when he or she is going through pain and suffering, and I would have to say I’m sorry, I needed to become a father, so you’re just going to have to suffer the consequences. If my wife should become pregnant, then we can say, okay, it was the natural consequence of a natural act between two people who love each other, a normal phenomenon in a healthy relationship: Sperm fertilised an egg; the fertilised egg grew into an embryo, then a foetus; and nine months later a child was born. Okay, let’s do our best. Let’s make sure this child has everything he or she needs and that he or she gets a good education. We’ll give him or her all the love and support we can. We’ll create opportunities. We’ll teach him or her how to seize opportunities. We’ll protect him or her as much as we can against the onslaughts of this world. In this case, the child is the natural consequence of a man and a woman being together.”

“But the woman can still choose to terminate the pregnancy. Not to end the pregnancy is also a choice. In that case, you still say: We want to have a child.”

“Fair enough, but it will be an unnatural interference.”

“What you’re saying is that if the child results from a natural process, that’s okay. If a person says, I want to have a child, or I want to be a mum or a dad, it’s no longer natural. Then you are forcing the process. If a woman becomes pregnant, and she gets an abortion, she is once again interfering with the process. Once again, it is unnatural.”

“Right. If it is natural, if the birth is the result of a natural process – relationship, togetherness, sperm and egg, nine months, child – you’re covered, so to speak. Then you would never have to look your child in the eyes and say, I am sorry for the suffering that you, my child, must go through, but I really wanted to have a child. You can say – even though you’re still deeply distressed to see your child suffer – that the child’s existence is the result of a natural process.”

“What if the man or the woman uses contraceptives? Isn’t that also interfering with the natural process?”

Silence.

Post-conversation thoughts:

What is the difference between the unnatural interference to create a child and the unnatural interference to arrest the process that would otherwise lead to the birth of a child?

Hormone treatment, sperm count, test tubes, abortion, too many children to care for, incompetent parents, contraception, adult men and women’s emotional needs. Can the ball of wool still be untangled?

21:50

It is not a matter of RIGHT or WRONG, it is a question of where on the spectrum.

There is the extreme of unplanned pregnancy: an addict who exchanges sex for drugs and gives birth to a child who is addicted to drugs from the very start of his or her existence and who has almost no hope and no future.

Then there is the extreme of planned pregnancy: the bored adult who figures they are in the mood for a new role, or who thinks a child will give him or her something to do, or fill a void that cannot (currently) be filled with anything else. Dissatisfaction with the Current Self, and the belief: “I need a child.”

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THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY 2010

This morning I saw a large wooden table on a sidewalk, tipped over on its side, legs pointing stiffly forward, like a cow that had suddenly dropped dead.

What a waste, I thought.

Earlier I passed a Cadillac parked by the side of the road – covered with dust, a few scratches, tyres a little flat, “For sale!” sign in its windshield like all the other abandoned cars on that stretch of road.

What a waste, I also thought.

This morning on the way to my apartment I thought about how much I have learned the past few years. I am good at research, following clues, collecting material, sorting material, weighing opinions, formulating opinions – but when it comes to implementation, I can’t stick to one thing for long enough to make a success of it.

So, with this issue, too, I cannot help but think, what a bloody waste.

TUESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2010

Who is this 20-foot bully before whom I kneel in submission, before whom I prostrate myself in the dust? Tell me the name of the monster whose servant I am, and probably will stay all my life. Tell me in whose name I suffer. In whose name do I still wear the same clothes as five years ago? In whose name am I broke? In whose name do I borrow and beg and worry about money? Tell me – what is the name of this monster?

THURSDAY, 28 JANUARY 2010

Why, starting in May 2006, haven’t I tried harder to get more teaching jobs to make more money? Why haven’t I tried harder to work with other people?

The answer to both questions reminds me of the old saying: “Be careful what you wish for.” And it confirms what I have read someone said about the subconscious: that it is like a powerful genie, yet at the same time like a 3-year-old child.

One of my earliest desires was to be left alone, to stand on the side observing the world from a distance.

It seems that the fulfilment of a desire has impeded the realisation of a dream.

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TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2009

Everyone is on their own journey. Everybody’s struggle is different, and equally real. Everyone knows something, or is fighting something, or struggling with something, or trying to survive something, or trying to pursue something of which you know nothing. (The same can of course be said about you, to someone else.)

Before you compare yourself with other people, ask yourself: Do you understand the complexity of the other person’s life?

THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2009

If you accept the premise that you are never truly free, you stand before a choice: you either choose your own chains, or chains will be forced upon you.

A reasonable question follows: If you do end up in the relatively fortuitous position to be able to choose your own chains, how do you choose?

THURSDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2009

To be less judgmental, and less critical of others, is a good thing.

The last forty-plus months of struggling have made me humble. And less keen to point out other people’s weaknesses.

SATURDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2009

The Christian church is a socio-cultural institution that helps facilitate the development and maintenance of personal identity. The church’s theology [religious beliefs and theory] and ideology [system of ideas and ideals] provide many people with purpose and meaning to life, and it provides a moral framework to distinguish right from wrong.

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SATURDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2009

The question, “How can I make money?” is problematic. It focuses on the one who is supposed to make money, and how can you expect to make money with something that focuses on the one who needs the money?

A better series of questions can be suggested: In what ways can I give value to someone else’s life that will also put money in my pocket? How can I contribute to an increase in someone else’s life quality in ways that will also bring me some profit? In what ways can I add value to something that someone else is producing or has produced that will help me pay my rent?

This is not the first time I think along these lines, but what happens every time is I open my eyes after a few weeks or a few months to see that I have once again lost track, that I have once again started asking: What can I sell? How can I make money with this project?

Unless you have the ability and the means to speculate with capital, the answer to the question of how you can make money will always be by providing value to people willing to pay for it.

MONDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2009

20:46

I only need one thing when I go to South Africa in three weeks and five days’ time, and it is not a lot of money. My only request is that I manifest calm confidence in myself.

It is true that money is usually a source of superficial self-confidence. Many people’s heads also spin from sheer confusion if you are calm and confident even though you don’t have or make a lot of money.

The question is, can you respect yourself if your wallet is on the thin side? Can you really manifest calm confidence in yourself if you have to pinch your coins before you spend them?

There are ultimately many reasons why someone isn’t rolling in the money, or why they don’t have easy access to credit. If other people find it difficult to respect you if you don’t have money, that is their problem. If you can still respect yourself even when you’re broke, cash flow is your only problem.

21:41

Animals can smell fear and react instinctively to it. Likewise, most people can sense a lack of self-esteem in another person. Again, the response is involuntary.

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MONDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2009

In the words of a popular Afrikaans poet: “I presumed so much, I believed so much, and yet, I proved so little.” Or, to quote Steven Wright: “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”

Well, I did believe a lot, and propagated much. I did try a lot of things and I am still trying, and what might be called conventional success eludes me still – just about, I might add. I always believe I am hot on its trail.

Finally, I wear my failures and my embarrassments like a boxer wears his scars – it isn’t who I am, but it does say: I’ve been in the ring. I don’t hide the proof, and I do not wear a mask.

FRIDAY, 16 OCTOBER 2009

Why I do not make more money, explanation number 78:

From the beginning, in May 2006, I focused on the short-term; I never focused on developing online brands and online properties and monetising them for long-term income. I worked on things that I thought would quickly make up for lost income from classes that had been cancelled during my visit to South Africa in April 2006.

Also, as I noted at some point, I had underestimated some things, and I made other things more complicated than they were.

And it probably doesn’t help that I am the kind of person who wants to find his own way rather than to listen to what other people who have already achieved a measure of success in a particular area have to say, and then to follow neatly in their footsteps.

THURSDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2009

A lot happens in two years – in other words, many things change, and the consciousness develops that two years were a long time. Little happens in, say the last 41 months – that is, there is little or no change in living and working environments, few or no new friends, routine stays more or less the same, and the consciousness develops that “the last few years have simply slipped by”.

Mark the passing of time with change, or feel time slipping through your fingers. One example: Leaving the city for a weekend every few months usually works like a charm.

FRIDAY, 30 OCTOBER 2009

A problem in many communities in far too many countries:

– X-number of people with no money, no roots, no hope, and no interest in the welfare of the community.

– Drugs are freely available.

– Weapons are easy to get hold of.

– Plenty of vulnerable targets.

SATURDAY, 31 OCTOBER 2009

I have a bit of an obsession with the Springsteen lyric that says, “Down here it’s just winners and losers and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.” [from “Atlantic City” on the Nebraska album]

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