Assorted Notes

MONDAY, 18 APRIL 2005

An American aid worker (a woman named “Marla”) died last weekend in Iraq (roadside bomb). She was probably in many ways an ordinary woman – as ordinary a person as most of us. What was extraordinary about her was her value for a certain community of people who are trapped in a primitive struggle for survival. What was extraordinary about her was her willingness to lose her life for this struggle.

TUESDAY, 19 APRIL 2005

I am, believe it or not, developing sensitivity to the correlation between my efforts and reward in terms of the work I do at home. I mean, I’ve been working on certain projects for how long? That has brought in how much money? And exactly how many people have read what I write? And it does not help that any day now my bicycle is going to deconstruct into ten different parts on the way to the train station, or that my TV’s sound is still screwed up, or that my computer is getting slower by the day, or that I still haven’t been to the dentist … but you remain standing as long as you don’t fall, and the struggle is a daily one. And to complain about such nonsense is after all middle-class.

THURSDAY, 21 APRIL 2005

Walter Reuther (1907-1970), American labour leader: “There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow man. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well.”

FRIDAY, 22 APRIL 2005

12:01

The question is not whether or not each one of us is a fool; the question is what we do with our lives in spite of the fact.

The question is also not whether or not each one of us is going to die …

14:16

For centuries philosophers have been contemplating the question of what reality is – what is real, and what is not.

To a large extent I accept the material world as it appears to me. If I see something I recognise from experience as a “table”, I accept the object before my eyes as indeed a table. I also accept the validity of the sounds related to that specific object.

My own interest lay more with the individual “self”. I accept that statements like, “I know who I am” and “I believe in myself,” and terms such as “self-confidence” only have relative value – that is, relative to the environment in which the person finds himself. Make a radical shift to another habitat, or radically change the environment, and suddenly the person may not “know” quite so clearly who he is; he might also not be so sure of himself, and his so-called “confidence” will probably shrink with his self-knowledge and associated self-belief.

What is true for the person regarding his own self, this is what keeps my attention, not so much whether a table or a telephone or a slice of toast is really real.

I know smarter people can argue that there is a connection – and I believe there is, philosophically speaking. However, because of limited time I choose to focus on what is real for the individual person, about him- or herself.

[The probability is strong that I misunderstand what philosophers have been searching for over the centuries.]

18:15

Time spent in any place is worth the proverbial effort if you have used the time to achieve positive results. The idea that you could also have achieved similar results in a different place is of passing interest and maybe not even worth noting. What is important is the process, the goal, the end result. The place is either conducive, or not conducive, and should be judged according to this measure.

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THURSDAY, 14 APRIL 2005

I reckon I can justify being in a bad mood. I look at the amount of work, the labour from months and weeks and days and hours sown during the past four years on the field of projects with financial gain as primary goal.

I also look at my current financial capabilities.

Finally, I look at how I would like to improve my quality of life and trips I would like to take, and then at how I talk about these two issues; also the fact that I am still caught up in the “process”, with fruit of my labour and final results still only in theory on the horizon, and always just a few days’ journey away.

I am not saying I’m discouraged; I am simply saying I think it is okay if I have a little grumble about it …

FRIDAY, 15 APRIL 2005

17:59

Be kind to animals, and to ignorant and unenlightened human beings. (Says some or another hermit with a long beard. If I say it, it comes across as arrogant – for whatever that matters.)

20:14

I can say what I like about the boredom of an English class (one taught by yours truly), but there are a few things that I should bear in mind: English teaching in Taiwan have paid my bills for the past more than six years; it has provided me with a roof over my head, food in my stomach and clothes on my back; it has also enabled me to keep my student loans under control; it has kept my water and electricity going, and my computer and printer in working condition. In short, English teaching in Taiwan has kept the organism which is me alive for the past 75 months.

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FRIDAY, 8 APRIL 2005

What do you need?

You need a partner, someone who understands you, who understands where you come from and what your idea of a future looks like, who accepts your flaws and limitations and who respects your strengths and your view of yourself; someone who recognises your potential and your talents; someone who confirms your positive view of who and what you are. You also need a place – a home, somewhere you can let go of your measures, where you can relax, where you can thrive, where you can grow into who you want to be.

You need honest and genuine love.

TUESDAY, 12 APRIL 2005

Over the past few hours I have (again) become aware of a few things:

* life is always a struggle – at first (or continuously) for survival, and then to either maintain a good life, or for something better – an extraordinary life, according to your own standards;

* there are so many things to fear it is almost a miracle that we are not so fearful all the time that it impedes our functioning;

* considering the previous point, it can be said that confidence is the hallmark of a fool – but, as an excellent illustration of the contradictions of life, you will accomplish nothing if you do not have confidence;

* I find myself quite absurd in the classroom – at home I apply my self-awareness and my abilities to productive and most interesting work, then suddenly I appear in an environment with rules and regulations and conventions, in a shirt that was chosen to go well with my trousers, with my poor Chinese pronunciation and my fabricated “professional” English accent.

Also became aware of what I want to do that I do not currently do; things I still want to know that I do not currently know; skills I want to master which I have not yet mastered; questions I have that I do not know the answers to – for example, what the difference is between an archbishop and a cardinal (train arrives, 21:30).

WEDNESDAY, 13 APRIL 2005

One must believe it is POSSIBLE
for YOU
to be FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT

that it is furthermore POSSIBLE
for YOU
to be HAPPY

and that it is POSSIBLE
for YOU
to make a POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION

Too many people believe in only one thing: that what has been “given” to them, including socio-economic status and accompanying role, function, and relative value to the community, is the best they can and will ever get out of life; that it may even be vain and arrogant to nurture ambitions beyond that range. These beliefs will in my opinion be to a large extent responsible for that remaining their reality.

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SATURDAY, 2 APRIL 2005

Last night I had a dream. Images of a staged battle from the Roman period flashed through my mind. There was also an oversized two-storey building with small apartments.

A woman discreetly entered one apartment to eat modern food. After this woman had left, I sneaked in, grabbed some raisins and nuts from the kitchen and stuffed it all in my pocket. Then, in the living room, I discovered a hard-boiled egg and took that as well – after I almost emptied a salt shaker on it. (The salt shaker was standing on a coffee table, with a lot of spilled salt around it.)

I walked down the vast, over-sized hallway where two women confronted me with the insinuation that I am not always the same person. They peppered me with questions like, “How is this name pronounced in that language?”

By the time we got to the ground floor, my initially polite answers to their questions had transformed into a more heated response. “I, myself was given a very ethnic-specific name,” I said, “but sometimes you need to express yourself in other ways than those you were given. And sometimes you choose to go beyond what you’ve been given, in order to transform yourself! And maybe you do so for no reason other than as a first step towards, and for the sake of, transforming … the community … in which you live.”

By the last sentence, the two women had become so terrified that one was hiding behind the other one. When I turned around and started walking away, the woman who had been hiding followed me, scratching my back with both hands – in a feline sort of self-defensive action.

Then I remembered the egg which I had taken from the apartment. I put my hand in my trouser pocket, crushed the egg, then turned slightly, reached over my shoulder and shoved the broken pieces into her face.

The last sentence of my short speech was measured. Up until that point I had been speaking in a loud, urgent tone, but then I softened my tone to emphasise the words – especially since they might have expected me to say, transforming the world.

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THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2005

A fundamental shift has occurred in my thinking. Four years ago, I tried to formulate the purpose of my own existence as “creativity”. I believed that to be creative was the ultimate goal not only of my own existence but of any person’s existence, should he or she ever develop far enough from a state of primary needs fulfilment.

Human existence is lived out within a specific environment with unique (or semi-unique) social, cultural, economic, political and historical elements, and with the assistance of, and sometimes hampered by, a unique mixture of genetic characteristics GIVEN to each human being by the proverbial fate. As things are, some people find it hard to construct a life with a certain meaning within the environment that was given to them. Important CHOICES then have to be made. These individuals might need to make adjustments to their identity that may utilise elements from other sources as those which were originally given to them. They will probably change where they live and work – considering the vital importance of environment on who we are and how we apply our existence. Finally, performing the roles they will eventually define for themselves will constitute not only an existence with a certain meaning, but also the pursuit of a specific purpose of their existence.

Should anyone challenge me at this moment with the question of how creativity fits into this whole matter, I would have to admit that I do not have an answer ready to recite. To be creative, to live out your earthly existence as a creator is no longer enough for me as an answer to the question of the purpose of my existence.

The search for the True Purpose of Human Existence cuts like a ritualistic blade through the soft flesh of what we call “life”. Where do humans come from? Is there a reason for our presence on this planet? What type of questions did our earliest ancestors ask? Is this thing of asking questions a by-product of our development, or part of what drives us forward? Was it always in the proverbial cards of what humans would become? Is there an invisible force behind human existence? Was and is the assumption of this “force” that we have to serve some purpose? If so, why is it not clearly laid out to us? Has it all been laid out for us more than once, with many of us simply continuing to ignore it as many of our ancestors also did? Why, if we accept for the moment that it is indeed important to serve a purpose, is the true purpose of our existence not again and again and again spelled out as a matter of daily cosmic ritual?

A person is to an extent that can never be exaggerated a product of their environment. The set of sounds with which you communicate and the vocabulary in which your thoughts take shape, the beliefs that you adhere to, the ambitions you define as your own, where you live, where you work, how much income you earn every day, month or year, where you sleep, on what kind of furniture, under what kind of bedding, with whom, what you do between the moment of waking up and the moment you drift off again at the end of the day, how often you leave your home, for how long, where you transport yourself and with what kind of transport medium, and how all these things interact with your consciousness can all be directly or indirectly traced back to the environment you were “given” at birth. (Even if the environment where you live out your adult existence is radically different from the environment that was given to you, your chosen environment remains inextricably linked to your given environment because your ultimate choice was most likely influenced by your given environment and was probably to some extent a reaction to it.)

It is furthermore true that the environment where your existence started and from where you received your earliest “programming” is also the primary source of information about the purpose and meaning of human existence. Now, 500 or 1500 years ago this was also the case, but the world that many of us are aware of in the 21^st century extends considerably beyond the boundaries of the town, city or village in which our existence is lived out. Mass media and the Internet also expose us to alternative ideas about the possible purpose and meaning of our lives that two or three generations earlier could not have contemplated on even the most tranquil of mornings.

The sources we can consult, should we desire to pinch off a minute somewhere to contemplate the issue, is much richer than a generation or ten ago. Despite this many still choose to seek answers from local guides, whether parents, grandparents, friends, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, self-help gurus or popular entertainers. Answers can certainly be gotten from these people. My question remains: what are these answers? What possibilities are offered by the usual line-up of self-appointed or community conscripted Providers of Truth and Guidance?

Maybe a question closer to the heart of one hiding behind a computer screen filled with words he is typing while no one disturbs him in the privacy of his own apartment: WHAT ANSWERS WOULD I GIVE SOMEONE ON THE QUESTION OF THE TRUE PURPOSE AND MEANING OF PEOPLE’S EARTHLY EXISTENCE?

[One-hundred-and-seventy-two words neatly woven into four paragraphs followed, to make up for the fact that I could not think of any clear answers. One-hundred-and-seventy-two words have therefore bitten the dust.]

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