Assorted Notes

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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MONDAY, 1 AUGUST 2005

18:51

Creative independence is a good and noble goal to pursue. To perform your job as you deem fit and not as dictated by others, is all well and good. But how does this apply to medical doctors, dentists, police officers, engineers, firefighters and emergency service staff? Writers, actors, philosophers, photographers and so on are part of a group of “workers” who can certainly insist on minimal interference on how they perform their work, but can all workers insist on this?

Another question: The writer or the artist who fights tooth and nail for creative independence, to do what he wants and as he deems fit, every now and then needs a dentist or a doctor, or a nurse or a bank clerk. He expects that these people will perform their work as it is supposed to be done. So then he does not practice what he preaches, or what? And is it not also noble to serve the needs of the community?

19:00

What would I say one day when I am old, and someone asks my advice about life? (If I am lucky enough that the person asks me a question for which I have worked out such a nice reply, and they are patient enough to listen to the short speech.)

I will say, three things:

1. Get to know yourself. Ask yourself questions, and consider each possible answer carefully before you accept one. If other people have answers to the questions you ask or if they offer you answers, accept these answers only after you have given them some proper critical consideration and only if you regard the answers as relevant for yourself. Get to know yourself in different situations and in a wide variety of environments. Observe yourself; see where your strengths lie, as well as your weaknesses.

2. Make money. If you can do so without calling someone “boss” and without dancing to someone else’s tune, you will be one of a minority of people who enjoy personal freedom in their work. If you make more money than you need for your basic needs and for whatever makes you happy, that will also be good. It will enable you to enjoy life that much more, and it will enable you to assist others in their struggle for survival. Remember: greed is a lousy trait; be wise with your money; and if you build your self-esteem mainly on the fact that you have money, you are building your house on sand.

3. Knowledge … of your environment, the world outside your immediate field of experience, other societies, other countries, general and specific histories, and so on. Knowledge of psychology, philosophy and other disciplines will also allow you to understand yourself, other people, and the world a little better.

TUESDAY, 2 AUGUST 2005

Imagine the following scene: a hundred people are gathered in a hall. No names are used. Each person has a set of blank cards with him or her – say about fifty cards. On these cards people write statements that define them: descriptions such as, “I have a long nose,” “I have a mole on my forehead,” “I like to tell jokes,” “I love gardening,” and also experiences such as, “I fell off my bicycle when I was twelve and lost my front teeth,” “I travelled through Europe with my parents when I was seventeen,” “In my mid-twenties I lived in South Korea for two years,” and so on. The cards are then thrown together, and each person is then identified by these statements and experiences. Of course, at least half the people would react if the statement, “I am a man” is read. Many will raise their hands when the statement, “I have protruding ears” is read. Certainly the semi-unique combinations of physical characteristics and descriptions of personality will differentiate one person from another, but will personal experiences prove to be the ultimate unique identifier?

THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST 2005

If you do not know what you want to do with your life, what do you do with your life? How do you function? Why do you live as you live, where you live and with whom you live? Why do you do the work you do? Why do you wear the specific clothes you wear?

I am sure there are interesting answers to these questions. Or, most people do in fact have an idea of what they want to do with their lives. If this is the case, I wonder: “What?” And if someone then answers the question, I would still be curious: “Why?”

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SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2005

From the latest Sarie [a South African women’s magazine]: “[Women] work with traditional role descriptions that are often religiously sanctioned.” And, “Few people are ‘naturally’ self-sacrificing. Women are so because they think it is their only rightful claim to existence.” Also, “You get positive response if you fulfil the ‘typical role’. You already know what your role will be someday and therefore you never develop certain characteristics – woe to you if you move outside those tracks.”* (UNISA theologian Christina Landman)

* Own translation from the original Afrikaans text

MONDAY, 18 JULY 2005

The impending storm makes me anxious. During the storm itself, I am calm.

TUESDAY, 19 JULY 2005

The Ideal Self is not a foreign entity with whom you meet up at the end of a long journey, to then solemnly fuse with. The Ideal Self is contained within.

MONDAY, 25 JULY 2005

10:25

Eventually all questions about identity, religion, beliefs, integrated view of existence and philosophy come down to a practical matter: How should I function? How should I live from sleep to sleep? What should I do with an existence I cannot but recognise?

15:45

All those questions from the 10:25 text are about more than just functioning. It also comes down to the results you will leave of your existence.

* * *

I make a statement: My favourite colour is green. Someone else hears it and think, “What is my favourite colour?”

I say, “If I had NT$100,000, I will go to China for three months.”

The other person says, “Oh. What will I do with NT$100,000?”

I say, “The purpose of my life is to ___________.”

The other person hears this and reflects on his or her own life. “What is the purpose of my existence?” the person asks.

The point is not to only ask questions but to also say what you believe, what you do and how you see things. Another person hears what you say, or reads what you have written, and an inner voice also kicks in in the other person’s mind, asking some of the same questions you have contemplated over the years.

18:50

Question: What is life about? (One of several possible formulations of what is basically the same question.)

Answer: Functioning + End Results

SATURDAY, 30 JULY 2005

My four goals in life are as follows:

1. To be happy, and if I can be happy with someone, that will be outstanding.

2. Creative independence – to create and to produce what I find good and not as dictated by others.

3. Financial independence – to never have to look in anyone’s eyes for money; to have enough money to make possible the following: creative independence, in reality and not just as an ideal; to do things that make me happy; to create a home environment, or to co-create a home where I will be comfortable working, spending time with other people and resting; to afford a lifestyle I have been pursuing for many years.

4. To help other people in their struggle for survival, and/or to be of value in their own efforts to develop an understanding of their existence that will enable them to lead happy and productive lives; also to contribute to a healthier habitat for humans and animals.

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TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2005

14:10

What is an integrated view of existence?

For me it brings together Freud and Christ, society and blood cells, humans and animals and trees, past, present and future. It brings together what is going on in the human psyche, what takes place between two individuals in different situations, and how one community exists in harmony with another. It brings together science, chemistry, psychology, religion, philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology and biology.

It enables you to look at yourself, at everything around you, at things that are happening in other places and that have happened at other times according to credible sources, and to other people who have experiences of reality similar to your experience or who have totally different experiences, and then to state that “things” make sense – or at least that they make sense in such a way that you can function at the time and in the environment in which you find yourself.

17:41

This morning I had a strong feeling that something was broken or something that had previously worked was not working anymore. I gave it some consideration, since it sounded like a serious matter.

After a few minutes I reckoned, Freud talked about the human quest for constant energy levels; I could definitely say that my internal stability had been disturbed the past three weeks. There was the absence of the person whose intimate presence I have become accustomed to in recent months. There was the pain and discomfort during the last two weeks in my face – uncomfortably close to a person’s central point of consciousness, and therefore difficult to ignore. Finally, there was my computer – my primary instrument of expression, the most important instrument in the realisation of literary projects and other commercial projects, and generally my refuge at times when TV, movies or people cannot ease my mind. All these things had a definite impact on my energy levels and my general consciousness.

Something that is broken? Something that doesn’t work anymore? I should consider the above before I start taking anything apart.

20:18

Knowledge brings peace, and undermines irrational anxiety. If for example I could know that everything will work out over the next few months – writing projects, commercial projects, my relationship with [N.], money, schedules, vacation, family, and so on, would I have been calmer?

Speaking of knowledge: What would I say if I had to get access to verifiable, indisputable evidence that there is a “spiritual” dimension – and that this dimension is filled with both good and bad “spirits” (or entities), and what you do with your life in the “earthly” dimension will have an effect on which side of the line you will end up after exhaling your last breath? That the Christian concept of “heaven” and “hell” is a simplistic version of what happens to your “spirit”. That it is indeed a complex process of purification, possibly even rebirth, learning lessons, making choices, being receptive to indicators that will enable you to continue on your spiritual journey. That stuff happens for a reason. That some people come your way, or are “guided” by complex manipulation by good “spirits” to assist you – or even a case of mutually beneficial influence in something like a relationship, but also that there is no central figure who pulls strings and comes to one person’s rescue in an accident yet allows another person to be violently murdered. What would I say, or what would be my position, if I could know that this is the truth?

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MONDAY, 11 JULY 2005

11:35

We all have opinions of each other. Some people might be slightly shocked if they knew what I really thought of them, and equally so I might be shocked and perhaps indignant if I knew the low opinion some people have of me.

Before I tell people how seriously I regard their opinion though I would like to ask them to explain the scales they use to weigh other people. My suspicion is that the scales many people use are primitive thrown-together instruments that could just as well have come straight from the middle-ages.

If you can present your case and convince me that your standards are reasonable, I will thank you for your honest and constructive opinion. But if I am not impressed by how you formulate your opinions, I will be clear in mine. Thank you for taking the trouble to form an opinion about me, I would say, but your opinion is ridiculous, and therefore need not be taken seriously.

(Unless … the person’s opinion of you threatens to turn into action that will undermine your chances of survival or your optimal functioning. In such a case, the person’s opinion does not necessarily need to be treated more seriously but the person must indeed be treated as an unsophisticated savage or a wild animal that can do serious harm to you.)

12:34

I now know this: you do not walk away from ten days of almost continual pain and discomfort in your face without at least a crack in your moral.

12:51

Notes from the last few days make it clear that a thought has been brewing. I am angry at myself, and it has to do with one thing: my life – and by life I mean the hours I am awake every day – is filled with tasks and objectives and projects that must be completed so that I can come up with more tasks and start with more projects, and pursue more goals. And then a bus hits me, and what will I regret most? Happiness. There is so little happiness in my life that it makes me nauseous. And the opportunities I have for happiness are almost endless.

The past two weeks have been conducive for this insight – my dental discomfort, [N.]’s absence, all the tasks I have completed, my new computer, the editing of “Personal Agenda”, and yet … there are always more tasks, more projects, more objectives! There is no end to it! I worry myself to death about money and my next trip to South Africa and about how I appear! Get up, work, think, write, eat (worry about not getting fatter!), watch some TV (not too much because there are tasks waiting to get done), and then back to sleep. And then I get up again and shower and work and eat and pursue goals and then a bus hits me. And it’s all over. And the woman at the tea stall still makes tea every day, and children still go to English classes, and new TV shows are still made, and this Sunday there is a new feature movie on HBO.

And there I stand on the other side of the Great River, and I realise: tasks are important; goals are important; projects deliver results of a meaningful life. But if it did not bring you happiness, not just in your so-called life but in your hours every day, was it then truly a life worth the hardships, the humiliations, the embarrassments, and the toothache?

14:50

The time has come to cultivate a new voice: The Voice from the Other Side.

The Voice of Reason might say: X = 2. The Voice from the Other Side will say how much it matters – from the other side.

22:57

Anything that exists or has ever existed outside of what you can experience at the present moment or that you can perceive with your senses is faith – or perhaps rather, it can be placed on a scale of probability. All historical “facts” are compiled versions of past events that we believe happened, and as it is told to us. We can only believe that this is true (or was true) because our consciousness and any first-hand experiences we may be storing as memories do not stretch beyond our own lives and the place or places where we have lived this life.

It is therefore not so much about faith but where we draw the boundaries of believability, and specifically what we believe in.

The fact is, we cannot function without faith – that tomorrow would for example be similar to last Tuesday in terms of work schedule and other activities, is faith. We can only believe that Napoleon or Julius Caesar or Aristotle ever existed; they cannot convince our senses of their past existence. We believe they existed, because we read about them or we read what they have written.

Finally, a useful intellectual exercise may be answering the following question: What is the difference between belief in the existence of any god, and belief that Julius Caesar existed?

[Probability that a person such as Julius Caesar could have existed versus probability that any particular deity could exist is probably a good start.]

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