Assorted Notes

SATURDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2004

Truth and vocabulary (I)

Who are you if who you are in response to your surroundings and who you are in order to function successfully at a particular time and in a particular environment are not the full “story”? What then, in that sense of the word, is your full story? And how much better and more complete would your answer be if you were fluent in a thousand languages?

SUNDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2004

Truth and vocabulary (II)

Fact is, 5000 years ago our ancestors possessed a vocabulary of, say, roughly 5000 words with which to express the experience of their reality, and their awareness-of-self. Their expressions of “truth” were therefore also limited to more or less 5000 words.

These days we enjoy the benefit of say, ten to roughly 60,000 words with which to express the reality or realities that we encounter, as well as our awareness-of-self – more verbs, adverbs, adjectives, phrases, and so forth. Our “truths”, including our religious beliefs can therefore also be worded in more detail and in more subtle nuances.

One does wonder, how would it have affected an individual’s experience of reality if he or she were the speaker of a language that contained a million words, and if he or she knew and could use with ease ten or twenty times more words than the average educated person who walks the streets of a present-day city?

Fact is: “god” is a word. So are “human” and “soul” and “self” and “life” and “death”. What lies behind these words, which cannot (currently) be expressed in words?

[The website, King James Bible Online, indicates that there are almost 15,000 unique words in the Bible. According to Wikipedia The Oxford English Dictionary lists over 250,000 unique words, excluding many technical, scientific and slang terms.]

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THURSDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2004

22:22

I have just had a telephone discussion with an old friend, and I shared some of my most recent thoughts with her – on appearance, desire, embarrassment, failure, self-perception, and so on.

After the call I thought to myself that I may have said people should rather be celibate. I don’t think I totally meant to say celibacy is better than having an active sex life. I just wanted to draw attention to the possibility that a change in sexual desire, or sexual behaviour, or expectation, will fundamentally affect your social appearances, and with that your view of yourself and of other people.

22:47

The situation was such that I experienced a sensation I can describe as regret that I had shared those opinions with her.

Her response made me think I had bowled her over, so to speak; that she was impressed by the profoundness of it, but that she also felt as if she were out of her depth – and that she therefore had to cease her appearance to save face.

Needless to say, I was aware of the possibility that I had once again managed to alienate someone with my so-called insights.

My life, my struggle.

22:53

Am I saying people should stop mingling with one another and enter the wilderness one by one, or rather, enter their own private wildernesses lest they bump into each other?

Not necessarily.

All I am saying is that solitude and loneliness have fertilised my own tree in such a way that it has borne very unique fruit.

FRIDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2004

A brief overview of European and Asian civilisations reveals the existence of an ancient tradition of men and women separating themselves from the rest of society. The fact that you will hear of some of these men and women or read about them implies that their isolation had led to above-average insights about life, and/or that they had undertaken actions after periods of isolation that immortalised their names in the annals of the history of humankind.

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THURSDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2004

Dear 18 to 35-year-old reader, your options as a working adult are as follows:

1. Find a job that provides you with a sufficient income.

2. Find a job that provides you with sufficient income and that you enjoy doing.

3. Find a job that provides you with sufficient income, and that gives you a sense of fulfilling a valuable role in the broader community (not only in the workplace where you earn your income).

4. Find an opportunity that provides you with sufficient income and that is consistent with your critical self-perception – developed after confronting your Given Self and defining your Chosen Self.

(Number four is more complicated. Professional work, or any work from which you earn money, must be chosen, and is sometimes needed long before the person has a more sophisticated idea of who he or she is other than “My name is John or Mary; I was born in Town A or City B; I like this or that; this or that bores me; this or that makes me angry; my father and mother and siblings are A and B and C and D and my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends are these and those; I want to live in a three or four or ten bedroom house or apartment in Country X or City Y; I want to drive a Porsche or donkey cart or truck, and I want to get married and have one or two or seven children.”)

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WEDNESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2004

22:59

I have learned that not appearing means silence. And that silence, if you can handle it, is good.

23:57

When I was younger, it felt like I was doing something wrong when I spent “too much” time on my own. Which is not surprising because from an early age it is discouraged; “You should get out more,” “Spend some time with other people,” “It’s not good to be so alone all the time!” people will often utter their well-meaning opinions.

It may take years before you develop some alternative views on this matter, for example that social appearances – which incidentally require much more personal information than anonymous appearances, and even appearances in professional capacity – mean a lot of “noise”. And this noise silences voices that many people fear – and perhaps in some cases need to fear.

These “voices”, if you pay attention and if you think long enough about what you “hear”, ultimately reveal insights that are only destined for those willing to listen, and for those who are willing to keep the airways clean to encourage the process.

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[Many people in the history of the world have been known to have heard “voices”, and they responded by taking actions that have affected, and still affect, the lives of thousands and even millions of people.

There are also many people who will never make any tangible impact on their environments who also hear voices every day. The fact that many of them are locked up in institutions confirms how these characters are viewed by society – whether it is justified or not.

What “voices” do I hear? Although the term is a useful one, I should mention that I don’t really hear voices (most of the time I don’t, anyways). The times I refer to when I supposedly “hear” something are usually times when my own voice fills the airways while I am in deep conversation with myself. That my self-talk is uninhibited – I’m not trying to impress anyone in a social appearance, for example – means I can throw the proverbial table full of cards. These “cards” may be answers to questions, or solutions to the problems I regularly harass myself with regardless of whether I am on my own, making an anonymous appearance, or appearing to the community as “Brand Smit”. Once these cards are on the table, the validity of each one can be considered on merit. No answer, no solution is ever accepted blindly because some or other voice had dictated anything to me.]

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TUESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2004

A (new) existence in three essential steps

[Not the first mention of these thoughts, but who keeps count if something can be expressed in steps?]

Step One: Confront your Given Self, and accept what you cannot change.

Step Two: Taking into consideration unchangeable aspects of your Given Self, define who you want to be, how you want to appear to the world, and what role you want to play. Decide whether you would prefer to be on your own or with another person. Also decide where you would like to spend your life on your own, or where you would like to spend it with another person.

Step Three: Considering all the above decisions, figure out how you can provide in your daily needs without denying the Self you want to be, and in ways that are conducive to who you want to be, to the role you want to play, and to your ideal contribution to society.

Zig-zag

It is always possible to see the truth. The question is, at what price?

People often say, “You’re shameless!” when they want to chide you. Isn’t that strange?

From the China Post:

“People don’t have to like what I do. I’m happy as long as I get them to talk about the issues.” ~ The opinion of photo-artist, “Olaf”

In Hong Kong, Health Secretary, York Chow told reporters: “Suicides are committed for different reasons, but the most common is that (victims) feel disconnected from society.”

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