Category: Post Untitled, volume two

MONDAY, 29 AUGUST 2005

10:40

What do you do if the spectrum of self models with which you are faced is insufficient – if you cannot find a suitable match for you proprium*?

[Proprium: “The centerpiece of personality serving to help give the individual a sense of self.” The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research, and Applications, by Bernardo J. Carducci]

17:29

Fruits of my labour. Fruit of my existence.

21:01

I feel good about one thing and there is one thing that bothers me.

I feel good about an Afrikaans poem of mine [translated title: “Day full of civilisation”] that I rewrote, or radically revised. The thing that bothers me: So what? It’s not like anyone is going to read it any time soon! A collection of poetry? Two volumes of poetry? How many people are actually ever going to read any of it?

Another idea is already jumping up and down trying to get attention (“Pick me! Pick me!” it would have yelled if it were a child): money, and more specifically the pursuit of financial wealth. What would I say to someone today, Monday, 29 August 2005 if that person were to throw a card on the table that says: one hour spent on making money is better than ten hours spent on creative projects for the sake of being creative, with financial gain a secondary motivation and slim possibility. Also: any personal project, any study project, any skills that are learned only have value if you end up with more money in your pocket as a result. Also: you live in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you do not recognise these facts of life, and if you spend precious time – time you could have spent earning money – on writing poetry … I mean, come on! Poetry?! Are you serious?! And the trump card: money is an immediate fruit of your labour, an immediate result of time spent that can be used to buy food and fruit juice and coffee and tea and clothing, and to pay rent, and to travel, and to buy other things that will increase the quality of your life.

“You understand this, don’t you?” the person will say. “Almost immediate fruits of your labour! But you spend your time on, what? Literary projects with profit as a slim possibility in the distant future? English textbooks, okay. But poetry?”

What I would say to this challenge to a life I have chosen for myself, to beliefs that I consider as crucial to my existence?

TUESDAY, 30 AUGUST 2005

15:52

When I teach, I know what the fruits of my labour are – it is expressed in exact monetary value, and I have a good idea what the concrete, tangible value of that money is.

The tangible, usable, edible, visible fruit of conventional labour, in my case English classes, should be taken into account when I mention “money”.

20:20

I am currently struggling with the fruits of my labour. For example, I spent six weeks reviewing material from FINAL CHAPTER. Are the fruits of this labour visible? On my computer screen, yes. Is it tangible? No. Can I share it with someone? Not at the moment. Can I show it to anyone? Sort of – on my computer screen.

On the other hand, I teach an English class for an hour. I know what the fruits of that labour will be: NT$700. I know when I will pick this fruit: next Wednesday. Will I be able to see the fruits of that particular effort? Yes, in a cinema for example. Will I be able to eat the fruit of that labour? Yes, as breakfast cereal and yogurt, and lunch and dinner. Are the fruits of my teaching job tangible and concrete, for me? Yes. Are the fruits of my creative work concrete and tangible? They will be after a few more weeks or months of additional work …

I could argue that I want to teach more classes at the moment because I need more money. But I also know that I am motivated by the desire to see the fruits of my labour sooner rather than later, and to taste it, and to feel it on my skin, and to experience it.

20:52

Am I saying that labour should necessarily provide cash or other forms of credit that can be exchanged for things one can feel, taste, drink, see and possible smell and hear?

No. Three examples: to raise children; to actively do charity work; and to learn other languages.

Most of my effort – by far the most! – over the past five years has been ploughed into writing projects. It will certainly be unfair to say that no project has ever been completed (unfinished projects are not the same as projects that are endlessly revised). I would however ask: Where is the fruit? Show me the fruit of five years of effort!

I am a little hard on myself … I know the fruit will be sweet … but I need to express my frustration.

Last night I shared the thought with [N.] that money – hard cash – is a fruit of your labour that you can almost immediately enjoy, and that I put most of my effort into work that may only bear fruit in x number of months (or even years!). She replied that my fruits will eventually be good, even if it takes a little long to realise. And then the real comfort: “If you didn’t write, I would’ve considered you just an ordinary guy … and would probably not even have gone out with you. Your writing,” she concluded, “makes you special.”

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TUESDAY, 23 AUGUST 2005

10:00

Me: “In the language of our time, I say …”

Crowd: “One-zero!”

Me: “Make your choice.”

14:25

“I exist.”

I exist – but how? and why?

“I function.”

I function – how? why?

“I appear.”

I appear – but where? how? to whom? and why?

FRIDAY, 26 AUGUST 2005

My vision of an ideal world: in any given community a vanguard of enlightened men and women – all competent people, producers of knowledge and insights, artists, writers, designers, and other professions – who strive for positive results of their own lives – results that would inevitably be to the advantage of the communities where they live and work.

SATURDAY, 27 AUGUST 2005

In the end, I can only bear witness to my own life: how I made decisions, what I decided, how I defined myself, and so on.

SUNDAY, 28 AUGUST 2005

Choose your self model. Bob Dylan, for example, chose the model of “American folksinger”, which in turn was based on another model, which in turn was based on an earlier model, until you get to the earliest archetype. Dylan, in turn, made his mark on the model. Many who came after him based themselves on the “Bob Dylan” model.

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THURSDAY, 11 AUGUST 2005

14:10

It is good to live in harmony with your surroundings. It is good to compare your life with the lives of other people and to come to the conclusion that your choices are also good, and explainable; that they can even be offered to others as a valid option for an adult at the time and environment in which you live.

I would like to believe that I do not need the approval or endorsement of others. What I do want is to be able to look at my own life and to be able to declare with conviction that my life is also good, that the choices I have made were right for me, that my life also has a claim to wall space in the Gallery of Adult Lives.

16:37

Boring Fact That I Have Recited So Many Times That I Can Repeat It In My Sleep, Number One: I am at my happiest when I am working on my own projects – when I am busy with free, creative work under my own control.

* * *

“At your happiest?” someone might ask. “What about your relationship?”

Reply: If I were not in a good relationship, the fulfilment I experience when I am busy with my own work would have been mixed with quite a few other emotions. Without my creative work, without my projects, I would not be half the man that I currently am in my relationship. Among other things, I would have constantly questioned my own value and attractiveness as a person and a partner.

SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2005

I, myself, and the truth about madness and lies: from a dream

SUNDAY, 21 AUGUST 2005

Each of us is the result of choices that thousands of people made over the centuries, and actions they took or did not take or took by error – from an impulsive decision to get on a boat to another continent, or not to get on a boat that eventually ended up on the bottom of the ocean, to swords that just missed an important organ, or an ancestor centuries ago that ducked just in time to see a stone fly over his head instead of crushing his skull.

MONDAY, 22 AUGUST 2005

01:15

Epistemology: How do you know anything?

09:20

Debate, experiment, “For it is said …”

How do you know what is being said is true?

“Because …”

17:50

Am I still chasing after wind eggs … okay, wrong question. Am I still running through a muddy field, chasing after a rainbow? Or am I actually going to arrive, eventually?

______________________

SATURDAY, 6 AUGUST 2005

10:50

You can approach a difference of opinion on religious matters, especially with your family or the family of your significant other, in one of two ways: apologetically or unapologetically. If you are apologetic, you come across as weak, as someone who actually knows what is right but who still chooses not to live according to these principles and convictions (perhaps because you are weak and spineless). In the case of an obdurate attitude you easily come across as arrogant and even as looking down on someone because you know what that person believes, but for you it is not “that simple”.

11:35

I have a strong suspicion that I sometimes create the impression that I know things that other people do not know; that I have secret knowledge that will pull the carpet from under another person’s feet; that I do not share things with people because I feel sorry for them, and because I do not want to be the cause of their existential angst.

The truth is that where many people’s beliefs and general worldview consist of statements, mine consist of a few statements, and many more questions.

Many people will respond to this by saying that it must be awful to walk around with so many questions to which you do not have answers. (And in their own minds they think how awful it would be for them to live with so much uncertainty.)

My response is that my mind is much more at ease with questions and honest inquiry and with saying, “I don’t know” than with statements about which I am uncertain but which I feel I need to defend for the sake of membership to a specific group or community. I also know by now that I do not need answers to all my questions to be able to function on a daily basis, or to be who I want to be, or to contribute constructively to the community in whose midst I live out my existence, or to pursue good values.

My understanding of life is sustainable, because it is built on critical inquiry rather than on statements that one is expected to simply accept but that have changed over the centuries. A steady understanding, rather than one built on sand now blowing this way and tomorrow or in 500 years blowing in a completely different direction.

17:48

Social appearances are always, to a greater or lesser extent, dishonest.

WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2005

from the light of circles where the swords are dancing/a fresh desert again break forth … first two lines of a poem that appeared in my notebook in a dream.

The rest of the dream: It was evening, [N.] was at a coffee shop, and I was at a deep fried or noodle stall. When I went back to the coffee shop, Dan and Mireille [two people I met in Korea], and two other people were sitting with [N.] who I then took by the hand to “save” her.

She then told me Dan introduced himself as “Name is Jim, surname Morrison.”

One of the other people then came over to where we were waiting for our fried dumplings and chatted with us in Afrikaans. The guy responded with, “No, I don’t think so” when I said maybe the cave where he had been in Africa was the “Skull Cave”. He said he did not really follow the “Phantom” in the Sunday papers, did I?

______________________

Shortly after six on Friday, 5 August 2005, I start pedalling home from a cram school. What follows are the observations and conversations with myself that compete for my attention over the next twelve minutes.

Thought number 1: “I completely misunderstood Zhang when she started talking about the Chinese teacher and her problems.”

Response to thought number 1: “Don’t worry about it. I know the story. It’s not really important.”

Through the temple gate and a green traffic light, just ahead of a scooter that recklessly run the red light …

Thought number 2: “So I arrived at the school with the idea that I actually want to go to South Africa between 2 and 14 September. Just as I was taking off my shoes at the door, a bell went off. ‘September third, September third … why does it sound so important?’ I pushed open the door, and then I remembered: Ernesta’s farewell weekend! But …”

A man with a pack of cigarettes in his hand walks to a car parked in the middle of the road. I’m distracted. I go around the corner and see a woman. She’s pregnant. I look at her feet: fat toes with nails clipped too short. She’s not particularly attractive. She’s in a gritty part of town. My imagination kicks in.

Thought number 3: “She reminds me of a character in a movie … the woman was not too bright. Could this woman’s husband also be a member of a crime syndicate? How would he feel when his child is born? Will they be able to raise the child properly? Will the child end up following in his or her parents’ footsteps? If the man is a member of a crime syndicate and the child is a boy, will he end up also becoming a gangster – an open sore on a community that does not need nor can afford more criminals? If the guy is a gangster, does he believe his fellow mobsters will treat him with more respect once he’s got a child? Will he end up using his child in arguments he would not have been able to win in any other way? Then again, what about accountants, and engineers, and office managers? Do they always raise their children properly? Is it always a good thing if their children follow in their footsteps? Do they not also sometimes use their children in arguments they would not have been able to win in any other way?”

At the traffic lights, I turn left. Two boys stare at me as if I don’t belong in that part of town. I see a bundle of … thread? A fish net. An old man is sitting on a low stool beside the road pulling the net apart. A dog is lying on the ground next to him playing with the net. The old man looks unperturbed.

Thought number 4: “How does it feel to live like that? Say you live on an island, or on a remote beach. You spend your time pulling nets apart, and walking your dog along the sea, and fishing, and taking naps in the shade of a tree. What would such a man say to someone who talks about famine in Africa, or war in Iraq, or bombs in London? Will he say, ‘It does not matter to me’? ‘This stretch of beach, this view of a piece of ocean, this is my world. I do not really care about what happens in other places.’ Then the other person will say, ‘What if there’s a situation where, if only one person could help – and that one person could be you, it would save lives?’ ‘Well, if it’s their time, it’s their time,’ the guy will probably answer.

“The problem with this attitude is that the bad guys are never so casual about things. To tell the truth, it’s one of the biggest fuckups you’ll ever find – this thing that apathy and indifference are never characteristics of those who endanger lives, and destroy, and corrupt, and exploit and oppress until the last drop of blood! So the guy with his life on the beach, with his fish net and his dog and his small piece of ocean, will eventually also have to choose.”

“This I have to write down when I get home,” I think as I pedal the last hundred or so meters up the hill.

And then I suddenly remember the thought about a possible trip to South Africa from a few minutes ago. “So even if I had money for a vacation in September, I couldn’t possibly let my friend down in her final week in Taiwan. Pity I didn’t think about that when I had to explain to the family why I won’t be able to visit them next month.”

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