Assorted Notes

SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2016

I have mentioned this before, but I am doing it again today, solemnly, in public: I am asking myself, pretty please, to not become a fuddy-duddy, a cranky old geezer.

As a matter of course it is mostly men who will understand this plea, particularly if they have reached their so-called middle years.

Middle-aged and older men are known for their conservative attitudes, and in many cases seem to have a permanent bee in their bonnets and a chip on their shoulders. They regularly feel as if their manhood is being challenged. One of the younger generation of men just has to think of doing something wrong, like parking in the wrong place, talking too loudly on his phone, or cutting in line in the queue at IKEA’s restaurant in Kaohsiung (while actually only re-joining his friend), and the old geezer pushes up in a man who a few moments before was just a normal human being. He gets red in the face, his hair turns a greyer shade from pure outrage, he wants to read someone the riot act, and he says things like, “Please! For the love of god, just wake up!”

That everyone shakes their heads and his wife distances herself from him one small step at a time matter little to him.

Even though there are places where old geezers still rule – Saudi Arabia being a fine example, it seems like fuddy-duddies are an endangered species – red in the face from almost permanent consternation because someone dared to do something with which he disagrees, and with a feeling that if the world had ever belonged to him, it is certainly no longer the case.

Now I just need to build up some resistance to my inner old geezer who wants to show his puffed-up face every now and then and wag his finger at perfect strangers.

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THURSDAY, 12 MAY 2016

I just had an insight into my activities in 2006. Perusing the notes of that year it is plain to see, to my great embarrassment, that I wanted to make a quick buck. I obviously fell for the opinion of information vendors that it was easy for anyone to start earning money on the internet without months or years of patience and hard work.

Surely I must have known what the general impression was of get-rich-quick schemes. Why did I fall for it, then? Why – and I have wondered about this a lot over the last ten years – did I not just pick a niche or an interest or a need with a market willing to pay for stuff, and slowly and patiently built up an online asset?

On 27 November 2006 I wrote: “I’ve increasingly come under the impression that I ignore my real strengths because I have until now believed that it will take ‘too long’ to make money from it.” And later a warning: “Beware of going over to the opposite extreme – losing myself for the next few weeks in creative work I would enjoy more, but that won’t necessarily bring in any money.”

Why did I not start building an online business? Why did I not work on a commercial site that could have started generating profit within six months or a year?

The reason, as I’ve discovered, is simple: If I had wanted to work on something for six months or a year before I made any money with it, I would have worked on my own projects. I had temporarily given up on my writing because I thought – or wanted to believe – that I could make money quickly in other ways, to then return to writing, this time with enough money to amongst other things pay someone to proofread my material and perhaps even to cancel some classes and thus own more of my time.

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THURSDAY, 7 APRIL 2016

A few recent discoveries:

1. My older grandfather, Johannes Jurgens Bornman, was born in the Vredefort district of the then independent Boer republic of the Orange Free State, on 16 February 1900 – less than a month before the Union Jack was hoisted in Bloemfontein.

2. My younger grandfather, Barend Jakobus Lodewikus Smit, was born on 25 May 1913. His eldest sister, Martha Helena Smit, was born on 6 May 1900, and died on 11 October 1901, during some of the darkest days of the Anglo-Boer War.

3. My great-grandfather Bernardus Gerhardus Smit was born on 20 October 1874. His wife, my great-grandmother Martha Helena Coetsee was born on 19 June 1880. It is quite likely thanks to her that my grandfather, my father and I have Coetsee family names.

FRIDAY, 6 MAY 2016

I find family history interesting for three reasons:

1. In the first place, family history is a collection of stories – of people, places, and times different from our own.

2. It is a good thing to recall the names of people who have been dead and gone for decades, and sometimes centuries, as if you are stretching out your hand across time to pat them on the shoulder to say: Decades or centuries from now your name will still occasionally be mentioned – you will not be forgotten.

3. It is interesting to trace the sources of my genetic composition, my biological self – not to be able to say “who I am”, just to say: Oh, so that’s how the line goes.

MONDAY, 9 MAY 2016

Family history, so I have learned, is personal in ways that you may never have guessed. A part of the person that you would become was present through all those generations over the centuries. If one person did not tie the knot with a certain other person, you would not exist. Same story if one person did not die prematurely to leave behind a widow or widower who then got married to another person.

One example: The first husband of Anna Margaretha Roos was killed along with Piet Retief in 1838. Her father, her brother and her brother’s two children (or two of his children) were killed at Bloukrans shortly thereafter. Now, as a child I learned of Blood River and Piet Retief and Bloukrans. What I never realised was that a part of what would become my genetic blueprint was present at some of those places. Had Anna Roos for example also died along with her father and brother at Bloukrans, a part of what would later become my genetic puzzle would have been lost, and I would therefore not exist. (She remarried a few years later, this time to my great-great-great-grandfather.)

For the unique composition of cells that would become I to be born in Pretoria in June 1971, it was imperative for a long list of people not to have died earlier than they eventually did, and that they had to marry and conceive children with exactly the right people.

Important to note: If they had not gotten married to those people and conceived children with them, they would probably have conceived and raised other children with other people, which would eventually have led to the birth of other unique combinations of cells in 1971, or 1972, or 1973 … but it would not have led to my birth, and my subsequent existence for the past 45 years.

Thus, for my being to have come into existence, it was important that certain people with specific genetic particles had to escape death at particular times and places – amongst many sets of circumstances, the battlefields of Natal in the 1830s and those of the Boer republics at the turn of the century.

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FRIDAY, 29 APRIL 2016

A few years ago, I spent a lot of time doing things I didn’t really believe in. These activities included developing internet properties I wanted to sell, producing content I wanted to sell to other internet marketers, and trying to sell information products developed by other people to other people who would eventually sell it to end users who hopefully needed the information.

What does it mean that I had to believe in what I was doing? And why should I believe in what I am working on, or in what I spend a significant number of hours on every day?

I think it has to do with my view of human beings. I think humans are fantastic animals. Indeed, one could almost say humans are miracle beings – the sophisticated mechanics, the breath-taking complexity of what goes on in the brain, and the complex dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

With this as a starting point, I believe you should keep yourself busy with activities worthy of your complexity and sophistication.

You can go through a long list of activities on your own to determine how appropriate they are: reading, thinking, writing, cooking, athletic competition, designing websites, managing a coffee shop, treating sick or injured animals, fixing teeth, teaching English classes to Taiwanese students, and so on.

What I did until a few years ago was to kick against the pricks. I had already known that what made me the happiest was to think about things and write down what I thought. Later I would return to the notes I had made, rewrite some parts, add text here and there, sharpen some sentences and so on. Eventually I learned to publish these notes so that other people could also read what I had written. Year in and year out, again and again and again I realised that to be engaged in this creative process was my natural state. I could pressure myself into any direction, force myself into different roles, convince myself that I had to do all sorts of activities that were supposed to make money. But I always knew that if I gave myself half a chance, I would return to my natural condition.

This process of thinking and reading and making notes and later publishing them qualifies in my opinion as a series of activities appropriate for a fantastic animal to keep him- or herself busy with. I reckon it is furthermore a case of opportunity seized and time being properly made use of.

Of course, everyone has to earn their bread and butter and roof over their heads. So, do I believe in the things I currently do to make money? Are these appropriate activities for a fantastic animal?

I believe in the value of language studies. Trying to master a second or third language is in my opinion a worthy and highly valuable endeavour. I have therefore no problem spending time with individuals keen on improving their language skills. I also have no problem recommending a product that I believe provide good value to language students. I also don’t mind investing time and money creating products that meet the needs of this particular market.

At one stage I developed an obsession about the reason why I worked so hard yet ended up having so little fruit of my labour to enjoy. I came up with something like nine or ten reasons, including lack of investment capital and partners, the fact that I didn’t focus on abundance, and that I did not solve enough problems for enough people. One reason that had never occurred to me was that I did not believe in what I was doing. And I guess I didn’t believe in what I was doing because the thought flickered on and off somewhere in my grey matter that what I was keeping myself busy with were not appropriate activities for a fantastic animal with only one chance at life.

SATURDAY, 30 APRIL 2016

00:34

What about sports betting and trading on the financial markets? Why do I have no problem keeping myself busy with these things? Do I believe in them? Do I think these activities are appropriate?

Answer: I can accept that I do not believe in these things, because they do not keep me busy for long enough to be a problem.

01:39

I just discovered this note, dated Tuesday, 12 October 2010: “If I am not committed to something, the likelihood is slim that the project will be completed. And even if it gets done, the probability of success is not very high. Also, if I do not BELIEVE in something, I cannot be committed to it.”

Postscript (December 2016)

It is easier to believe in what you do when you create value for someone else. The author of Killing Sacred Cows, Garrett Gunderson, writes: “How can it be risky to wake up each morning and do what we love doing, provided it […] creates value in the world.”

He also quotes Steve Farber: “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”

From what I learned a few years ago, I can add to this: Do things you enjoy doing for people who appreciate what you do because you lead them away from a place where they do not want to be; because you guide them to a place where they do want to be; because you make things easier for them; because you entertain or comfort them; or because you teach them something or help them to understand things better. Do these things for people, and you probably won’t have a problem believing in what you do.

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THURSDAY, 28 APRIL 2016

There are people who love making money. These people know why they make money. It makes them feel good to have money; they like to spend money, and they like to own things.

Other people don’t think much about why they make money. They know all too well not bringing in money every month will mean suffering not only to themselves but also to loved ones who depend on them, or who rely on their financial contribution.

I have the habit of complicating things like this. I find it necessary to think of specific reasons why I want to make money, or why I feel I have no choice other than to make money.

One of the reasons I want to make more money than I need now is because I would like to be in a position in ten or fifteen years’ time where I could be less active in the process of making money. It would be exceptionally good if my partner could also be in a position to spend less of her time making money.

What complicates the money-making story for me is the fact that I don’t consider the work I do for money as my real job. I write, and I publish what I write – that is what I regard as my true vocation, and I am well aware that it will probably never generate much profit.

If I didn’t need to make money, it would probably never cross my mind. The productive hours of my days would be filled with work that I consider more important than any other work for which I am compensated in cash and money in my bank account. I would be busy producing words and sentences on a keyboard or with a writing utensil, and if I were not busy doing that, I’d be thinking of things that would probably end up on paper or in some digital format.

To make money is therefore for me a necessary and unavoidable unpleasantness.

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