“I, now” and related notes

SUNDAY, 4 JULY 2004

Is “Person A” the same person as she was five years ago? Despite ageing, and taking into account the effects of lifestyle on her appearance and physical well-being, she is probably still recognisable as the same person. However, psychologically she is merely related to the person she was five years ago. To say she is psychologically the same person, is not too different from alleging that one of my two sisters and I are the same person, just because we come from the same womb.

By law, this person is still “Person A”. She is still responsible for contracts she had signed five years ago. She can also still be held responsible for criminal acts she may have committed five or ten years ago.

She also still carries the joys and burdens of choices she has made, or incidents in which she has been involved any time during her past.

The SELF, however, does not remain constant. “SELF 2004 of Person A” is only psychologically related to “SELF 1999 of Person A”.

It can also be asked whether “SELF May 2004 of Person X” is the same as “SELF July 2004 of Person X”, or just related. The answer is again that the two are only related, but probably more closely than “SELF 1995 of Person X” and “SELF 2003 of Person X” (a particular truth for Person X, which cannot necessarily be applied to Person A).

One can even go further and ask about the relation between “SELF 4 July 2004 at 16:34 of Person X” and “SELF 4 July 2004 at 16:33 of Person X”. The answer is the same: still only related, but there is a high probability that the degree of relation is closer than in the case of, for example, “May SELF” and “July SELF”. (Again, any mention of relation in the case of Person X is not necessarily valid for Person A, because five minutes – even one minute – can make a dramatic difference in one person’s life, while relatively little may change over the course of a month in another person’s life.)

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Enlightened and unenlightened – brilliant nine

SATURDAY, 3 JULY 2004

The difference between the ENLIGHTENED and the UNENLIGHTENED

The UNENLIGHTENED says: This is who and what I am, so I should just accept it.

The ENLIGHTENED says: These are the cards I’ve been dealt, and these are the resources at my disposal. Here are my capabilities and my limitations, and here are my interests. Considering all these things, I declare a particular vision of WHO and WHAT I WANT to be, and WHERE I would prefer to be this person. Let the work begin.

SUNDAY, 4 JULY 2004

Salute to the brilliant nine! (out of every ten)

One statement that does not get nearly the attention it deserves: People are brilliant! People are magnificent creatures who manage to survive and even live happy lives to a ripe old age, this despite the fact that they know or understand bugger all about their own species, and about how human beings function.

Someone might say, “Maybe they know more than you think.”

My opinion is, of course, most people know something, and of course they understand many things. But taking into account the totality of what can be known, what people know and understand represent such a fraction of the whole that one can hardly be blamed if you use a somewhat vulgar phrase to indicate the amount of knowledge and understanding you think they possess.

“Are you not also one of this species?” an intelligent reader may inquire.

Yes, I will answer, but I think I can get away with it by now to say that I am not nearly as ignorant as nine out of every ten people on the street.

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Why does a teenager rebel?

SATURDAY, 3 JULY 2004

I reckon a teenager who is judged by conventional standards to be in a phase of rebellion is reacting against his own self, against the people he holds responsible for what he sees as his inadequate given self, and possibly even against the environment in which this given self was born and raised.

It may be attributed to the fact that I am more exposed to teenagers in a certain cross-section of society, but it does appear that the “rebellious teenager” is a more common sight in developed, industrialised countries, where fragmented communities share a single urban landscape, and rich and poor rub shoulders on a daily basis, compared to communities where a subsistence economy is the norm, with narrower, more traditional connections between individual members of the community, and a closer cultural and socio-economic relationship between different local communities.

One could postulate that teenagers in urban communities in industrialised countries have more reason to feel ill-equipped for the lives they want to live, or even for the lives that are expected of them. Young people in these areas are after all more aware of other individuals in the same community or in other communities – both locally or in other areas – who at least seem to be much better equipped than they are.

I also believe – although I can only risk a humble opinion on this – that the particular economic environment in which teenagers indirectly find themselves, or where they know they will find themselves as adults, are conducive to feelings of inadequacy. Socio-economic position – where the teenager finds himself vis-à-vis his parents’ economic activities, and where he believes he will likely end up as an adult, as well as competition with peers in terms of material possessions intensify internal conflict within the teen between his view of what he is at that moment, and what is presented to him as the ideal.

Finally, I believe that too many adults, or then in this case specifically the adults in developed countries who have to fulfil the role of parents of teenagers do not have the slightest understanding of the processes of identity formation, nor do they have any idea of the most elementary philosophical issues that teenagers are confronted with. This lack on the side of the parents contribute to the fact that teenagers try to formulate answers to the questions of WHO, WHAT and PLACE in their own ways, and sometimes in any way that is remotely satisfactory. Ignorance is once again the culprit. Enlightenment is once again salvation …

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I still believe …

SATURDAY, 3 JULY 2004

Allow me to lay some truths on the table:

1. Identity plays a vital role in the normal functioning of an individual.

2. The particular community in whose midst an individual is born and where he or she grows up plays a central role in the formation of identity.

3. It is very common that a particular religion is closely connected with a particular community; this particular religion is in many cases a crucial determinant of identity for people who were born and who grew up in this community.

4. For the adherents of various religions, it is essential to lay claim to the universal application of a particular religious “truth”.

5. It is understandable if a person who was born and who grew up in a community where a “universal application” religion is a key determinant of identity, continues to recite these claims for the sake of their own particular identity, and also that they will communicate these claims to the next generation.

A question: Can a rational person be blamed if he has a sceptical attitude towards the claim to “universal truth” by the adherents of any particular religion?

To put it differently:

a) Communities all around the world function as sources of particular identity.

b) To question, as an outsider, the validity of a particular community as a source of identity, simply because your own identity does not come from that source, is illogical. (This would mean that someone who was born and who grew up outside your community can also question the validity of your community as a source of identity because their identity did not originate from the folds of your community.)

c) A particular religion is in many cases closely connected to a particular community, and plays a pivotal role in defining identity for people born in that community.

d) Community A is thus equal to Community B as a source of identity.

e) It can also be said that Religion A is equal to Religion B as a source of identity.

Three questions:

1. On what basis can followers of Religion A, taking into account the above points, still insist on universal application of their “truths” – across all historical, cultural, and other boundaries?

2. On what basis can the followers of Religion A – most likely followers of that particular religion because that particular religion had been a primary given factor in the process from which their identities developed – make the assertion that the value of their religion extends beyond the value of Religion B – that plays a similar role as a determinant of identity in Community B?

3. Where can the line be drawn between religion as a transmission medium of “timeless truths” (no matter how true they may be), and religion as a determinant of identity?

After thorough consideration of this subject, there remains a question that one cannot resist the temptation to ask: WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

It’s easy to recite one of the principles of secular religion and answer, “The truth is relative.”

However, I still believe that there is an ABSOLUTE, UNIVERSAL TRUTH. I also believe that the particularity of fate data with which everyone is confronted at birth, the givenness of instruments with which to express an awareness of individual self, and the significant role of religion as a co-determinant of identity are all pieces of the puzzle that is the TRUTH.

Finally, do I think it is possible for a human being – a living member of the species Homo sapiens – to know the absolute, universal, timeless truth?

My answer remains, without doubt, no.

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Personal Agenda, Book Three: Introduction

A few pages ago I solemnly said GOODBYE. Now I’m sitting here behind my computer, wiping the sweat from my brow in salute to the reader who has made it this far.

The first part of this final INTRODUCTION starts with a piece that I wrote as people were filing into drinking establishments for New Year’s parties (2003/2004). In the second part I refer to a few dreams that have gotten stuck in my memory over the years. The last part is taken up by administration for the third part of this literary project.

I. What I planned for this year/What I plan for this year

It is Wednesday, 31 December 2003, 25 minutes past 11 at night. There are 35 minutes left of this year. Because it has become a habit to write something at this hour, because it is usually a good idea, and because I’m not in the mood to pay a fortune to get drunk with a bunch of strangers, I am sitting where I’ve spent most of my time this year: behind my computer, writing.

As the title [of this part of the “Introduction”] indicates, I decided not to write about trains, women, teaching English, or the fact that you can buy cheap alcohol at the 7-Eleven on New Year’s Eve. This piece will cover plans.

There were plans at the end of last year, and there were plans at the beginning of this year. There were plans in May, and there were plans in July. There were also plans in August, September, October, November, and December. And then, as befits a New Year’s Eve, there are plans tonight.

My plan at the beginning of this year was to lift my exile and return to South Africa at the end of February [2003]. That was what I now call a “liberal plan”. I didn’t have enough money, and I didn’t really know what I would do in South Africa. I did like the “revolutionary” nature of it, though. Because the plan was a bit crazy, it set off a reaction I now call the “conservative response”. I (once again) thought, “Actually this place isn’t so bad,” and that staying in Taiwan until the end of 2003 would probably have a positive effect on my financial well-being and professional development.

By May, I had come up with the idea that I was never going to make enough money here in Taiwan, or with English teaching. “I need to do business!” I cried out. And went off on a coughing fit brought on by five years in a windowless apartment.

By June I was fed up. I propelled myself forward on the ink fumes from my notebook in which I furiously offered up notes and poems as compensations for all that wasn’t good in my life.

By July, I was determined that I was going to lift my exile in February 2004, and to haul a caravan into my family’s backyard in Bronkhorstspruit or Middelburg. Information was collected, pledges made, and dry twigs solemnly broken off from a tree in the garden – and planted in a vase back in Taiwan to remind myself of my promise just in case I forgot.

The tree on a farm outside Middelburg

August brought the brilliant plan to quit my job at the pre-school and make all the money I needed with “Business!” End of September saw me in a new apartment, finally, after nearly five years in Number Fifteen.

All the free time I saw stretched out in front of me every day eventually made one thing clear: I am, in the first and final place, a writer. The project entitled “Personal Agenda” was my main project from February onwards. It remained my main project throughout the year. It was also what I kept myself busy with in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings when I was actually supposed to do “Business!”

I did finally start working on a few ideas that could be classified as commercial projects and continued working on a few others I had placed on ice earlier. After some months I actually completed one project. My Chinese also benefited from more time I had at my disposal. I have generally felt happier over the past few months, as I was in the first half of 2001, when I also spent most of my time in my apartment, hard at work on my own projects.

It is Wednesday, 31 December 2003. It is two minutes to midnight. Two minutes before a new year. Two minutes left of a good year …

* * *

It’s Thursday, 1 January 2004. It is one minute after midnight. It’s the beginning of a new year. Fireworks rattle like machine guns in the distance. Water is dripping from my toilet. The computer’s fan is making a noise, and my fingers are dancing epileptically across the keyboard. Welcome to a new unit of time in our lives.

Wednesday, 7 January 2004

Here are my plans and intentions for the next three years:

[…]

That being said, I would love to lift my exile as I have always hoped it would happen – by transporting my possessions and my person back to the place from where I departed on 16 January 1999. How things will work out, is how they will work out. We make plans, and then there’s reality. But we must continue making plans, otherwise we might just end up waiting day and night for a bus that may only arrive in fifty years. We don’t determine everything that happens to us, but until things do happen, we need to keep ourselves busy productively. This way we can also influence what will happen to us, and maybe even when.

II. Three dreams

I was very young, maybe five or six. I dreamed my parents and my sister (my youngest sister wasn’t born yet) and I were driving in our station wagon through some city. It was evening. We had become aware of someone following us. Later we were in an apartment. Everyone but I was asleep. The people that had followed us tried to break into the apartment. I was the only one who could hold them back, but all I had to protect myself and everyone else in the apartment was a box of matches.

As a teenager I used to have a specific type of dream. I would be in danger. I knew someone could help me … if I could just give a good shout. The problem was, I could never produce any sound.

The third dream is still conjured up by my subconscious from time to time with different backstories. I’ll be among a large group of people – say at an outdoor wedding, and then I start walking off on my own. After a while, my steps would become longer. Eventually my steps would become stretched to the point where I would float in the air for a few seconds. I would be so chuffed with this ability that I’d purposely stretch my steps as far as I can. It usually doesn’t take long before my feet no longer touch the ground.

III. Administration

The introduction of the final part of this literary project is shorter and more modest than the introductions to BOOKS ONE and TWO. The content is also organised differently.

February yielded a plan. Chapter One follows the development of this plan over the course of just more than a week. Chapter Two contains a few notes from January and February. February was not only the battlefield of a plan, it also brought a new, temporary order to power. Chapter Three contains the official history of this Commercial Dictatorship. I also arrived at a certain insight during the first week of the new regime. Its development can be viewed in Chapter Four.

This is then: The THIRD AND FINAL BOOK of THE PERSONAL AGENDA OF BRAND SMIT.

Friday, 2 July 2004

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