Author: Brand Smit

SUNDAY, 25 APRIL 2004

Statement: I needed a place, a home, in order to know who I am.

Presumption: Maybe you also need possessions to be able to say who you are – like a collection of nearly 200 movies that say, “I like movies,” or that can confirm what you claim you are, or what you like.

Question: Is the ideal to be able to say and to know who you are without a place of your own and without possessions?

Follow-up Question: What else defines identity? Relationships, how you spend your time each day, what you do for money, what you believe in, the topics you prefer to discuss in social conversations …

The above leads to an interesting question: If you have no home, no possessions, neither friend nor family, you do not do much while you are awake, you do nothing to make money, you hold no religious beliefs and you never have conversations or respond to what other people say, then who are you? What are you?

If you find yourself in an urban environment, you have no cash or credit, no place of your own, no income, and you just do enough on a daily basis to stay physically alive, in practice, it boils down you eating from garbage cans (which means you’re a “bum”), or begging for food (a “beggar”), and that you sleep wherever you can find some protection from the elements (again a “homeless bum”).

So, if you do not have a home, no possessions, no relationships with anyone, you believe in nothing, the only effort you put in is to find some edible scraps of food and a few sips of drinkable fluid once or twice a day before you again lie down in any place where you can stretch out your body, you do nothing for money, and you never talk or respond when someone talks to you, your identity is automatically defined by all of the above, and the community takes it upon themselves to define you accordingly.

In most cases, the result will be that you will be called a “homeless bum”, and will be accepted as such in and by the community. Because you have thus failed to define yourself in a similar fashion to how most other people define themselves – that is, by placing yourself within familiar categories and by using elements of identity familiar to most people in the community, you will be placed on the lowest rung of the social order.

Can one then come to another conclusion other than to infer that home, possessions, relationships, beliefs, activities (creative and otherwise), and words and reactions are necessary for us to be able to know who we are, and to present ourselves in a recognisable and comprehensible manner to the community in whose midst we find ourselves?

Who am I, then? Let’s see: Possession-wise, I am the proud owner of seven of pairs of underwear, two trousers, a few shirts and a pair of sneakers, a few pieces of furniture, a computer, a notebook and five pens (two blue pens, two black and a red one); I live in my living room; I dream of a relationship with Marilyn Monroe’s Taiwanese cousin; I have no faith in dogmatic religion; I write books that will never make money; I only respond when someone talks nonsense, and don’t say much otherwise …

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SATURDAY, 24 APRIL 2004

Insights from Fight Club

[Fight Club is a 1999 movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in which they/he starts a fight club where men can be men again, as the saying goes. The fight clubs – many branches were later opened – eventually developed into an urban terrorist organisation that wreaks havoc, including blowing up credit card companies’ head offices.]

Handy comment on identity: “I flipped through catalogues, deciding which dinner table would best define who I want to be …”

Says Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden: “I say ‘never be complete!’ I say ‘Stop being perfect!’ I say ‘let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may!’”

Comment: To do so – to throw your hands in the air and “letting go” – would inevitably affect how the “chips” would fall. You thus still manipulate the outcome of your “evolution”.

Always a good one: “… working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history – no purpose or place, no great war or depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives.”

And a good question (perhaps more specifically for men, but the same can be asked about a good debate or argument with someone else): “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”

The point, initially, is that participation in fights, win or lose, gives the men self-respect. This is why, when a sizable guy gets on a bus and shoulders the two main characters as he is passing them – deliberately, and with complete disregard, they do not respond, because it does not inflict any injury to their self-esteem.

“Tyler Durden” is also respected by the other men not because he is the best fighter (everyone loses from time to time), but because he can endure physical pain, and because he does not fear physical conflict.

However, there is no way that lack of fear of physical conflict can still be the only standard for manhood, right?! But why is it still so important? (I ask this with heartfelt acknowledgment that I am myself grouped among those who do not drool in anticipation of a good fist fight.)

It is still important because a) we are not that far removed from our primitive genetic ancestors, and/or b) fear of physical conflict suggests something else, namely fear of pain, and the end result of unbearable pain, death.

Know that you will die … yet we hold on to life for as long as possible.

In the final count, fear of physical conflict undermines a man’s image as one willing and able to protect. It also indicates a fear of embarrassment – the inevitable result of the inability to sustain yourself in physical conflict. This would also expose the man, as it were, as the powerless figure he probably already believes he is.

Insights from Altered States

[Altered States is a 1980 science-fiction movie in which the main character, played by William Hurt, uses various methods to return to his original genetic form. In the process, he also spends one night as a hominid. The first quote refers to the night in question.]

“I was utterly primal. I consisted of nothing more than the will to survive, to live through the night, to eat, to drink, to sleep. It was the most supremely satisfying time of my life.”

[The second quote is from the end, after he succeeded in reaching his primal form.]

“I was in that ultimate moment of terror that is the beginning of life. It is nothing – simple, hideous nothing. The final truth of all things is that there is no final truth. Truth is transitory. It is human life that is real.”

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FRIDAY, 23 APRIL 2004

Fasten the tent flaps

I am in the mood for people, and I am in the mood to be alone. I feel strong, and I feel weak. It feels as if I’m on my way, but I don’t know where I’m heading. Five to twenty years of keep on going and staying the course. Afraid of mediocrity; afraid of getting old. Afraid of waking up alone one morning in an apartment in South Africa and I’m 37 years old. Alternatively, things work out here, and I’m 37 and happy in Taiwan. Fight the battle where it matters. “Please come back!” Twigs after final embraces. “Next year, really!” Taiwan for no special reason, the place is all right. Be who you are or who you become, where it will matter. Money and women. Leave me alone, comfort me. More answers than questions, if I can only remember the answers. Jobs, projects, credibility. Antique cabinets and old tables. Sticky sweat, winter, barbecue, summer, movies. Saturday afternoons with friends and family. Book royalties, sex, girlfriends, marriage, getting old alone, going mad, holding hands, picnics, poetry, health reasons, old flats, new houses, cars, bicycles, penniless poets, things that work out, things that don’t work out, issues, problems, social acceptance, shyness, self-protection, friendships, cigarettes, email, boxes, money. Oh, and revolutions, civil war, and heavy artillery.

SATURDAY, 24 APRIL 2004

New Faith/New Identity

Conversion to a particular religion always implies a transformation of identity.

Question: If a person converts to a particular religion, does it necessarily imply that he or she is not happy with the person they have been up until that point? How much does this have to do with faith, or a particular “truth”, and how much with the human need to feel safe by means of identity – if not always in the immediate vicinity, for example Christians in certain areas of Pakistan, but “safe” in the Bigger Scheme of Things?

[Additional thought: Each person’s conversion and associated joining of a particular community of faith confirm the “truths” of that religion. Why? Because yet another person has considered it, and confirmed it with his or her conversion. This makes the “truths” of a particular religion even more valid for those who adhere to them, no matter what religion it is, and regardless of the specific doctrine that is preached.]

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TUESDAY, 13 APRIL 2004

Statement 1: Eventually many people become aware of the fact that the odds are loaded against them, and even if things turn out okay for them, there are masses of others for whom it will never turn out well. People are also aware of their above-average intelligence in the animal kingdom – which, among other things, means that they know how to end their own lives. Reasons why a person does not do it include lack of courage to jump in front of a train, concern for loved ones, or even vague ideas about what might happen to their “soul”. Measures are taken to start “making things worthwhile” …

Statement 2: To say that good things are not possible, is just not truthful.

Question … How much importance should one attach to your ideal vision of how things ought to be, your ideal place and living environment, and your ideal role in society? How much premium should one place on things that are “always possible”, if the fact that it is not in the process of becoming reality is depressing you more and more every day? Or is this the “devil” whispering discouragement in my ear? (13:16)

And answer: Why does one have these “ideal” visions? Is it because your current situation does not meet your needs?! Or perhaps because the long-term sustainability of your current life is all too possible, and all too horrible?! (13:20)

WEDNESDAY, 14 APRIL 2004

Is it me, or is it Environment Z?

Social identity is more important than I would sometimes like to admit. In the light of this it is appropriate to mention that I am not too comfortable in typical male bonding scenarios; I am not much of a “man’s man”.

Does it bother me? No, I just want to mention it because I thought about it, and I wanted to acknowledge it.

Also important is that if you do not handle this type of situation in the right way, it can lead to a lack of confidence and reduced self-esteem in the type of environment where it happens to be the standard, or the main criterion for esteem and respect.

* * *

This can also be applied to a wider context. Personality Aspect X may not be one that defines you, or one with which you closely associate yourself, but this very personality aspect may be an important benchmark for respect in Environment Z. Because you do not carry a sufficient degree of X, you are not necessarily respected in that environment. It then becomes part of your self-perception in Environment Z, and it might lead to reduced self-esteem.

The secret? In Environment Q you may just be respected for precisely the absence of Personality Aspect X. So, it is quite probably a case of nothing inherently wrong with you, just with you in that particular environment.

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TUESDAY, 13 APRIL 2004

Some things you think; others you just know.

In February, I talked about commitment to a money project in a way I’m usually only committed to a literary project. For six of the last seven weeks of my earthly existence, this has been exactly what I have made myself guilty of.

However, it has become increasingly clear that the project I am working on is quite possibly not just weeks away from positive cash flow. I can, therefore, not continue to work on it like a psychotic robot at the expense of anything else.

It should come as no surprise that I did not merely think I ought to pay attention again to some of my other projects; I knew it.

For the record, it must be mentioned that the idea of maintaining a domestic situation in Taiwan is currently experiencing a period of renewed tolerance among the “people”. (We know, however, how quickly the atmosphere of tolerance can change in this area – one moment the Chief Advocate for Staying in Taiwan is happily stumbling to his bicycle with bags full of breakfast cereal, and the next moment he is pedalling for all he’s worth to get away from a small but hostile crowd armed with stones and broken bottles.) To put repatriation plans on long-term ice, however, will once again fuel impatience, frustration and despair … in such a way that one starts to wonder if totally different future plans share a single internal root!

Are there alternatives between these two extreme options? Is there an alternative idea-logic to offer the citizens of my internal republic other than Return to the Country of My Birth despite the Consequences, on the one hand, and Too Much Uncertainty and Effort so Let’s Just Stay in Taiwan on the other? Is it time for the Writer, the Student and that other guy (the one who has to make money) to storm the towns, the cities, the plains and the coffee shops with the manifesto of a New Idea? Is it time for a Third Force?

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