Assorted Notes

WEDNESDAY, 23 JUNE 2004

Four years ago, I also thought of myself as a writer, but on a daily basis, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, I was, for all practical purposes, my income-generating profession. What was this income-generating profession? I was an English teacher who, in all honesty, mostly failed in the job I was hired to do, five days a week. I thought of myself as a writer, and I did write (the entire “Personal Agenda: Book One” is proof), but I did not have the confidence in myself and my identity that I have now. I was, to a large extent, an unfulfilled, frustrated person, because I was unfulfilled and frustrated in my job.

Five hundred years ago in Europe – during the pre-industrial era, the position of the family in the feudal hierarchy was one of the key determinants of personal identity, at least as far as the community was concerned in whose midst the person found him- or herself. The economic role a person had to fulfil (if it were necessary at all for him or her to perform any kind of labour) was also linked, to a significant degree, to birth.

It can therefore be said that identity in Europe 500 years ago was largely dictated by chance – where the person was born, and the position of his or her family in the feudal hierarchy, and also by the needs of the community – which, together with parentage, determined the person’s economic role.

Since the voyages of discovery and the subsequent economic, political, scientific and industrial revolutions, profession has entered the arena as an additional and crucial determinant of identity. People who live out their lives in the industrialised world have, to some extent, a choice of what role they want to play in the community, which specific needs of the community they want to fulfil, and even where they want to play this role and fulfil these needs, or in what community. Financial ability can also be mentioned as a further factor affecting people’s view of themselves and how they define their identity. Money is also a great equaliser – stories of people who were born in the gutter and end up in palaces are still rare, but they do occur.

When it comes to the question of who you are, most people still look at the cards they were dealt that determine status and role in society – place of birth, gender, appearance and talents, socio-economic status of the family, and specifically in the case of adults, profession.

Most of these thoughts have already been noted in this literary project. What is the point of mentioning them again?

It was until recently a private pleasure for me to believe I expose the “truth” to people who have perhaps believed that a good job and lots of money are the best they can ever hope to strive for in life. I wanted to beckon such people closer, unlock a small antique box, and inside they would see a Greater Truth: “You do not know your TRUE self! What you are at this stage of your life is just a result of fate, your environment, and events that differentiate your life from that of the next person. You live under the illusion that you know who you are; an illusion that nevertheless enables you to function as an Individual in This Time and Place.”

The implication was that only when you look into your own soul and identify your “true self” can you finally claim full humanity, can you declare that you (finally) know who you “really” are. I thought that to discover – or to define – your “true self” was the Grand Prize at the end of a long and intensely personal journey.

However, new insights have started to undermine these views. (These fresh insights have also already been mentioned, but seeing that this touches on the topic of the value of a single human life, I reckon it is okay to revisit the issue.) What then, would I regard as more important than the discovery and defining of the “true self”? The answer: RESULTS OF YOUR LIFE.

We all arrive as small bundles of flesh and blood on this planet, we scream out our humanity to anyone who wants to hear, get older and bigger and eventually the day arrives when we leave the show. The question, at the final count, should not be whether you existed and functioned as your own True Self, but what results you leave behind from your time on this planet.

Has your life produced more positive than negative results? Will the world breathe a sigh of relief when you finally utter your last words? Have you only endeavoured to satisfy your own needs, and to be as happy as possible for as long as possible? Is it important for you to leave behind positive results of your existence? What, indeed, are positive results? These are questions that every person can and should answer for him or herself.

I have discovered a few principles and implemented a few measures that make it possible for me to function as a fairly normal adult in the world and time in which I was born. I have also discovered that life outside my apartment door is to a large extent a game and that if you manage to decipher the rules and reconcile yourself to these rules to a satisfactory degree, it may just be possible for you to lead a happy life, and to declare at the end of it that your life was worth living.

Yet, if I have the option, I would want to live my life as a conscious effort to achieve more positive than negative results that I can leave behind, rather than to just know I was happy, and that my life was worth living, or even that I succeeded in finding my “true self”. (What is the value of a highly developed awareness of your own self, if it is not ultimately conducive to leaving behind positive results from your time on this planet?)

Can one go further and ask about the results of every day? Every week? Okay then, the average results of every year? Can you purchase “positive results” shortly before the end of your life? Who determines the quality of these results? And what is the possibility that the beauty of a single day or even a single moment can get lost in the rush to leave behind a positive legacy of your existence?

Regardless of what you believe about the value and meaning of your own life, or about what makes your life worth living, regardless of the weight you attach to results of your life, one thing remains: YOUR LIFE WILL ULTIMATELY PRODUCE RESULTS. Whether these results will be more positive than negative depends to a large extent on yourself and the choices you make on a daily basis.

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SUNDAY, 20 JUNE 2004

I think I’m ready to declare that life is to a great extent a game.

It works like this: you define for yourself a character from the human character material you observe in your environment and from what you are exposed to from other sources (alternatively you become, to a large extent, the character your environment forces on you or which it requires from you), and then you play a role you define for yourself, or that you choose from the possibilities (or you play the role forced on you by the environment or the one required of you).

Differences between the ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUAL and the OTHER INDIVIDUAL can be found in the above explanation: The former defines to a considerable extent his or her own character as well as the role they want to play, while the latter mainly plays the role of the character the community imposes on them or requires from them. The ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUAL knows who and what they are, because in a practical expression of their free will they choose among many possibilities the role and character they deem fit for themselves. They can also explain why they chose a specific role and character, and not someone or something else.

How well both types of individuals function in the world depends on how well they know the Rules Of The Game Of Life, and how willing they are to play accordingly.

It is also true that many ENLIGHTENED people do not have a high opinion of the Rules. However, only a moderate degree of intelligence is required to decipher the rules of the Main Game, and of the various sub-games in which both ENLIGHTENED people and OTHER people are sometimes obliged to take part. In other words, there is always hope.

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[Additional note: The role and character chosen by the type of person I call enlightened are not necessarily better – in a moral sense – than the role and character that is required by the community of another individual, or a role they feel compelled to choose at the expense of other ambitions they may have harboured. The role in the latter case might be one of leadership in an extraordinary difficult time for the community, while the chosen role (and character) of the so-called enlightened individual in similar circumstances may be one that is characterised by non-involvement. I mention these possibilities because, despite the fact that the enlightened individual is my chosen hero figure, I am not blind to heroic acts of so-called other individuals.]

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[One more note: Just because a person does not define his or her own character and role, is not to say that he or she is not enlightened. Such a person may be fully aware of alternative characters that they could be or could have become, or alternative, even more enjoyable roles they are more than capable of playing. Due to the best of reasons they might accept their prescribed roles and characters (or the roles and characters that society expects of them), for the sake of service to the community, and for the sake of leaving behind positive results of their existence.]

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THURSDAY, 17 JUNE 2004

Some people end up as caricatures of the information they receive from the environment about what they should be and how they should act. These puzzle caricatures are seemingly unaware of how clearly the seams show between the sometimes hackneyed parts from which their socially functioning personas are compiled.

How about myself? I am aware of the puzzle pieces from which my own socially functioning persona has been compiled. I also know that I can choose to reject many of these bits of information about myself at any time (or if I don’t want to be that extreme, to at least make some changes).

If I speak and write in Language A, it is not because I believe Language A is a better communication medium than Language B, it is because I am more comfortable with it because of my background, and as a result of a lifetime of exposure that has left me more apt to express myself in this particular language. My preference for Language A is a choice for the sake of efficiency, with sentiment – a common attitude when it comes to the language with which you grew up – of secondary importance.

Are not all of us in the end to a significant degree puzzle caricatures for as long as it remains effective? If we replace one set of puzzle pieces in a more self-critical phase of our lives with a set that fits more comfortably or with one that looks better, we may not be caricatures anymore, but are we not still made up of pieces cut and shaped by those who came before us?

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TUESDAY, 15 JUNE 2004

A cargo train hits one that messes around too much on his own track

Like a freight train would sober up a drunk man on a train track late at night, so an idea recently hit me: Some people close to me believe the main reason why I am still in Taiwan after all these years is because they think I am … let’s just say, of an “alternative” sexual orientation, and to be here – away from the prying eyes of people who know me, I can give my sexuality free reign.

Allow me to make the following comments on the subject (with the relevant people very close to me the intended readers):

1) I am aware of the fact that this type of misconception takes years to sneak into people’s imaginations, and it is usually not dispelled simply because the person says, “You are wrong.”

2) You are all wrong.

3) If people fail to understand more complex reasons for the decisions others make, or to understand what motivates them, their imaginations usually work overtime to make up for it.

4) I have no problem with homosexuality, so don’t expect me to be uncomfortable when the topic comes up.

5) Finally, if, and when I meet a woman with whom I want to spend serious time, it will not be to make anyone other than myself and this special person happy.

Oh, one last thing: thanks for coming up for me against those who are perhaps less tolerant in such matters, even though everyone missed the target by some distance.

WEDNESDAY, 16 JUNE 2004

Another train insight

People look around them and see what manifests as good and successful and efficient human models. They then look at themselves, see where they fall short, and develop obsessions to make up for their perceived shortcomings.

What lies behind this? As I have stated before, I believe what lies behind it is fear. The “potential” human being is shocked alive, like a Frankenstein figure, by the lightning bolt of fear. Fear of what? Fear of failure as a human being, of being swallowed up into the Big Nothingness, and of being forgotten as though they had never even left a single footprint on terra firma.

[Text is text, right? What would be impossible to read between the lines of the above two paragraphs is that I almost lost my wallet and had to spend half an hour on a deserted train station between Crooked Village Number Nine and my hometown of Fengshan simply because of my unwillingness to wait until I got home before making a note of my thoughts.

On this particular Wednesday morning I was waiting for a train at Number Nine’s station. The specific wording of the above text entered my grey matter, I took a little packet of papers from my bookbag, forgot to close the bag, and started jotting down the note. The train approached the station as I was writing the last sentence. I grabbed my bag, my papers, my bottle of water and my pen, and ran for the nearest door. Only on the train did I realise my bag was still open. I felt around for my wallet, and after I had checked in all the possible places I came to the conclusion that the wallet must have fallen out.

The station master at the next station – whom I had only located with my second attempt, phoned the other station master, and half an hour later I was reunited with my wallet, my three banknotes and my movie VIP card.

It could have been worse, I told myself: I could have forgotten the wording of an interesting thought.]

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TUESDAY, 15 JUNE 2004

My identity, my life (I)

I now know what made me change direction on Sunday, 2 May/Monday, 3 May. On that Sunday afternoon I had telephone conversations with my older sister and with my old pal in Johannesburg – and with both of their babies. I was deeply impressed with how their lives showed a definite character, while I was still “on my way home”. I reached a point that afternoon where I realised I had a profound desire to also be in a position where I could say: This is my life, and my life is also good.

* * *

Everyone has their own particular lives. Then the camera turns in your direction, the microphone is pushed in your face, and the inevitable challenge is made: Identify your life.

And the answer: “I am Peter X living in City Y, and I fill my daily existence with …”

Traditional knowledge, and old screws

Many people do the “right thing” without reflecting on it too much. For me it has taken a long time to learn certain things – the kinds of things that, if I would tell people, “These are the conclusions I have come to after years of contemplation,” they would respond with, “We already know these things. We have been applying them in our own lives for quite some time. Did you really have to sit down and think about it?”

What is wrong with me? Did a screw loosen up somewhere in my head years ago? Am I stupid? No. (I had to be quick with that answer before I could seriously consider the possibility.)

What happened was that I had lost faith in what had been offered as “the truth” and “the way things work”. I questioned everything, and had to reconstruct from scratch my own worldview and frame of reference by which I could function as an adult outside the madhouse.

Eventually I once again accepted some “old” truths – the difference is that I know why. And understanding why I believe what I believe has to make my years of life on the “outside” worthwhile.

WEDNESDAY, 16 JUNE 2004

My identity, my life (II)

I got tired of listening to other people talk about their particular lives and then when I opened my mouth to talk about my life, all that came out were vague plans and vague promises to the effect that I did not have a life, “but I am on my way”.

The truth is, I do have a life! It’s not perfect, but it is good! And it is my life!

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