FRIDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 2003
If I succeed financially, I, and possibly others, will benefit from it because our lives will be more comfortable, with a stronger likelihood of continued satisfaction of our needs.
When I write, I am more than just one of 46 million citizens of the Republic of South Africa, and more than just one of the six billion people on this planet. And I’m more than just another product of an egg fertilised by a sperm cell, that grew for nine months in the belly of a woman, was born, and hasn’t died yet.
When I write, I take the core of my specific experience of reality from the clutches of this time and this place, and I do something with it. Then I am more than just the sum of cells and bones and blood and filled space. To write is to keep myself busy with a process through which I become a better person.
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For more than a decade I’ve been wrestling with a problem: How to spend my time on this planet and use opportunities in a manner consistent with the complexity of my being, without ignoring the economic powers of this incarnation of Civilised Society.
I must try to find a balance between doing what I believe I should do, whilst at the same time, as anyone who wants to survive from day to day, walk around with a sufficient amount of money in my pocket – the modern equivalent of primitive hunting equipment with which I could get what I need when I need it, in order to keep my own chances of survival at least equal to that of my average contemporary.
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