WEDNESDAY, 15 JUNE 2005
Several thoughts are standing in line for a piece of paper […] I find myself developing a hang-up regarding credibility. I can lay hundreds of pages of text on the table, but … until now nothing has been published! […] Something must be done!
Paper is paper; ink is ink; and as I sit here in my grey shorts and grey T-shirt on the red chair at the desk in the kitchen with the blue fan making a noise and the rain dripping outside, feelings are feelings. And as it is, one is not always successful in your attempts to try and explain to your future self, on paper, in ink, exactly how you felt at that moment.
So what I feel is frustration … no, impatience, because I can see the finish line, or the destination about which I have prophesied for so long. I see it because it is close. The problem is that I don’t run straight at it. I shuffle at a half centimetre per hour, going from left to right and right to left, then I do a somersault, walk back to the beginning before I realise I have to turn around, then I trip over my trousers, shuffle forward at one centimetre per hour for two hours, fall asleep from boredom and lose my way again … and so I keep on going.
I need, for the sake of credibility, to produce, with official verification of success.
THURSDAY, 16 JUNE 2005
Rain – continuously for five days, endless laundry, dirty dishes, credibility as a writer and an entrepreneur, and a new question: Am I a little embarrassed about the effect that an intimate relationship has on me? It affects what I say and how I say it; that I am apologetic and what I am apologetic about; and it makes me appear to someone in a way I previously only appeared to myself – meaning financial status, my status as an unpublished writer, the fact that I work on many so-called money projects … that make no money at all.
Another question (an essential one): Do I feel as good about myself in an intimate relationship as I felt on my own?
As I was writing down the question, I realised it was loaded with misunderstanding and unspoken detail. Was I always happy on my own? Did I expect to be happy in a relationship at all times? The answer to both questions is no.
Here is my advice to myself: An intimate relationship is an environment where you are once again confronted with yourself – an environment which differs in crucial ways from the one in which you were on your own. It provides you with a new mirror in which you see yourself. It is an environment where conflict, both large and small, makes a regular appearance. A relationship is also a process in which you have to again define yourself – who you are, what you are, where your place in the world is, your ideal role, your relative value as a human being (and as a possible role player), your strengths and your weaknesses, what the future may hold for you, how much money you need to not only survive but to be who you want to be and do what you want to do.
Like the environment of the Desert (celibacy and loneliness), this environment and the accompanying process are also both constructive and destructive, both positive and negative; sometimes it leads to an awareness of happiness, sometimes to frustration; sometimes it leads to a decrease in positive self-image and confidence in your potential and abilities, sometimes it confirms your existing positive self-image and confidence in your potential and abilities, and sometimes it is conducive to a strengthening of the latter.
An intimate relationship is a living environment where patience, love and mutual acceptance will lead to fulfilment of much more than just physical needs. In the ideal situation it will lead to a richer experience of being human. Of course, an intimate relationship can also lead to pain, disappointment and frustration. It is an environment where high value should be placed on honesty and sincerity. It is a process that must be cherished, even if you have to occasionally endure the less pleasant aspects that will be part of any situation where two people are in regular and intimate fellowship.
SUNDAY, 26 JUNE 2005
Says a Christian character in a movie to another character: “Jesus will save us.”
“I don’t believe that,” the other guy replies.
“Your beliefs have no bearing on the facts,” the Christian character responds.
MONDAY, 27 JUNE 2005
01:22
A random search through old boxes, old junk and scraps of paper that went AWOL years ago leads me to realise once more that I did not come into existence yesterday. I have come a long way.
17:58
How does one think? We speak in sounds and read visual representations of the sounds – but how do we think? What are the words in your head?
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