Author: Brand Smit

THURSDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2004

If you are overly burdened with instructions on what you may say and what not, where certain things may be said and where not, how you should say things and how you’d better not, if you are under prescript of what vocabulary you may utter and what not, then your speech – the primary way in which most people express their experience of reality – is not free. If you are not freely able to express your experience of reality, or do so only in ways that are prescribed to you, you are not free. And seeing that how you appear to the world is determined to a large extent by the way you express your experience of reality, it ultimately becomes part of WHO YOU ARE. Who you are, is then to a significant degree the result of unfree self-expression. Who you are, is then a result approved by the dictates of a particular time and place.

FRIDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2004

“You’re catching me in anonymity. Now I have to become someone again!” says “Brand” to his friend [O] after the latter confronts him out of the blue where he is standing outside a 7-Eleven, smoking a cigarette.

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[The reader may wonder what the purpose is of the odd notation on lunches and Saturday evening barbeques where the same mysterious young woman is present every time, just as luck will have it. Except for my hope to brighten the text a bit with the idea that I am not a fleshless phantom who spends all day behind his computer or notebook, these pieces of text are inextricably intertwined with a matter more intellectual in nature … RECOGNITION and APPEARANCE.]

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TUESDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2004

Note I: The WRITER’s complaint

I am in a situation where I have befriended two 25 year-old women, with the view of engaging in romantic adventures with one of the two. My complaint is that I believe I am not appearing as I would like to appear.

As what and who would I like to appear? As … (drum roll) … the Writer.

WEDNESDAY, 1 DECEMBER 2004

Note II: The insight hits

02:40

As long as I remain “unpublished”, I will not get recognition for the most important work I have done over the past ten years, and I will therefore not be able to appear to others (read: to a specific young woman to whom I am attracted) as I see myself.

08:32

In other words, unpublished means no recognition means inaccurate or incomplete appearance.

THURSDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2004

Note III: The insight hits with more impact

“It’s so simple only a genius could have thought of it,” Albert Einstein apparently said of Jean Piaget. What is so simple in my case? The connection between RECOGNITION and APPEARANCE!

I can’t believe it has taken me so long to pick up on this! It also speaks volumes that recognition is something I have always viewed with suspicion, because it says “need” and “other people” and do things so that people think X, Y, or Z of you.

Still, if you do not get recognition for your most important work, you cannot appear as you see yourself. It is so simple you must be stupid to not grasp the importance of this! (And I am known to be slow at the best of times …)

The inevitable follow-up question: For what would you want to get recognition?

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MONDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2004

Members of different groups look down on the so-called masses. There are those in positions of political power who see the masses as “children” for whom the political leader, as “parent”, should be responsible. Then there are some academic types who look down on the masses as often ignorant about matters not affecting their daily existence. A third example are some rich people who see the masses as petite bourgeoisie who live their small lives in ignorance of how good life can be – provided they are smart enough or lucky enough to break out of their small worlds.

Of course many people have a problem with snobbish individuals or with anyone who look down on their fellow human beings for whatever reason. I believe each case must be judged on its own merits.

There is one case though where contempt slips very smoothly and almost automatically from my mouth and that is for the grown children of some rich people, and the grown children of some politicians. Some of these individuals have done nothing, absolutely fuck-all, to earn their positions in society. They look down on the masses that struggle from day to day, and expect to be respected by the servants who clean up after them and who courteously serve them plates full of exquisite food … of which they did not earn one ounce!

They look down on people lower on the socio-economic scale, and then they have the audacity to expect to be respected by these people. Yet they did nothing to earn their own superior status!

I have nothing but contempt for these people. The politician who looks down on the general public … is a topic for another article. The intellectual who gains superior knowledge and understanding after years of study that distinguishes him or her from the so-called masses, is in a more justifiable position. And I can even say of the rich man or woman who have accumulated their own wealth that they may have worked for years to get where they are, even if significant degrees of luck were probably also on their side.

But the rich man and woman’s children?! The grown children of politicians?! I say if these people want respect, they must work for respect!

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TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2004

Embarrassing appearances

I felt slightly embarrassed about my appearance today at the school for adults. It was all about my clothing: old, worn-out belt, and a cheap-looking short-sleeved shirt.

This is another issue than can be debated until your belt finally rots off your waist, but it won’t take away a basic truth, namely that if you are embarrassed about how you appear, for whatever superficial reason, it just nips that edge off your confidence. The opposite is also true: if you feel good about your outward appearance, for whatever superficial reason, it just gives you that extra boost in confidence.

In light of these remarkable insights, what should I do? I need to buy myself a new belt tomorrow; I need to check out a few shirts, and I have to reattach the button on my green trousers.

FRIDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2004

To accept the knocks in your programming, or not

The life experiences that give you psychological knocks form part of your “programming” that determines how you function as an adult. For example, certain experiences in my past resulted in a pathological unwillingness to work for characters who yell orders at me. I know where this reluctance comes from, and I definitely classify it as a knock. It also contributes to the particular programming that determines how “Brand Smit” functions.

Now for the really interesting point: this so-called programming can be changed through therapy.

What does this mean? It means I can go to a psychologist, and after a few months of hard work I will probably be able to accept a good job opportunity in a corporate environment where a moronic higher-up not worthy of my respect can scream at me, and it shouldn’t bother me.

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FRIDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2004

08:28

The problem with religion as identity determinant is that it has to remain constant to maintain credibility in the eyes of the people to whom it grants a religious identity. But in order to remain a relevant determinant of identity, the source of religious symbols (religious texts, institutions like “church”) may have to change – in small increments, but still to such an extent that the source today will be fundamentally different from the source of 500 or 1,000 years ago.

What happens then when someone who employs a particular religion for purpose of identity acquires knowledge and a critical understanding of this fundamental shift? One possibility is that such a person would develop a condition that can be called a crisis of faith.

* * *

Since I have just gotten up and haven’t even had breakfast yet, one may be wondering whether it is a bit early for ideas such as the above. My answer is … apparently not – not if one receives the thought, formulation and all, in your final dream before waking up!

The dream played out at a dinner table with people with whom I did urban missionary work more than a decade ago as well as other contemporaries from high school. While we were eating – in the dining room of the early twentieth-century mansion that served as the headquarters of the organisation, there was one hell of a party going on in the garden. As I was about to take another bite of one of the delicious dishes on my plate, the thought struck …

08:39

People with whom I had had close relationships at that time may say that I have betrayed my religious identity. I am of the opinion that I have outgrown my religious identity.

Someone may respond with calm conviction that one cannot outgrow the truth. I will, equally serene, respond: “I am still committed to knowing the truth. And I don’t need an institutionally-defined identity to know the truth or to pursue it.”

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[In many cases, leaders of religious movements claim that they are not changing their religion, they are simply reverting to an earlier, purer form. This explanation ensures that the religion retains credibility as identity determinant, and it also justifies the changes they make to the practical expression of adherence to the religion, or even to aspects of theology, for the very purpose of keeping it relevant to people with different religious needs than people 500 or 1,000 years ago.]

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