Author: Brand Smit

TUESDAY, 19 AUGUST 2003

Brand Smit and his wife, Elsa Kleynhans, live with their two young children in number 11 Bluestone Lane. Marie, their oldest, is five and a half, and Ben is three. Brand spends most of the conventional workday on his literary projects. He’s currently working on a first draft of an idea about struggle and creativity, especially in the context of the suburban middle class. Between his study, the living room and the kitchen, chances are that you’ll find a copy of at least one of his two volumes of poetry, as well as a copy of the collection of essays and other pieces from his time in Taiwan and Korea.

Brand’s daily routine follows a familiar pattern. He usually gets up before Elsa and the children, makes them breakfast, takes the children to kindergarten, and drops Elsa off at the primary school where she teaches. Then he might spend an hour or two at the library, and between lunch and dinnertime he’s usually behind his computer.

Apart from the meagre income he earns from his writing, he also publishes English textbooks with a business partner in Taiwan. This endeavour takes him to East Asia at least once a year for book fairs and to talk business with local schools.

Last December, the family visited Elsa’s family in the Cape, and Brand swore never again. Elsa’s brother is a local businessman and prominent member of the community. As before, they didn’t sit around the same campfire when the conversation – as it almost always does – turned to politics and religion. Brand initially said they should stay home this December. After talking about it again, he and Elsa now plan to go to Mozambique for a week or so with Brand’s younger sister and her husband. Christmas will again be at Elsa’s parents in Bloemfontein, and New Year’s with his parents in Middelburg.

Brand frequently talks about the time he spent in the East. Elsa listens patiently, although she can by now tell all the stories in almost exactly the same words. Sometimes someone Brand knew in Taiwan would visit them. They usually talk late into the night about typhoons, pollution, epidemics, English classes and Chinese. Brand registered for a correspondence course in Chinese at UNISA after returning from Asia. He finds it ironic that he now speaks better Chinese than when he lived in Taiwan.

When Brand turned forty last year, he bought himself a lawnmower. Elsa laughed when he first mentioned the idea, but he thought the time had come to see if he could still use one (gardening services had done the necessary maintenance until that point).

Brand is devoted to his wife and children. He hopes Marie will one day become an architect or a vet. Although it’s still too early to say, he believes little Ben may also develop into a writer. He shares this with anyone who wants to hear, and looks embarrassed every time Elsa says to him, “Allow the child to become his own man.” His usual response – he can see it in the boy’s eyes. A writer, or – who knows? – maybe a clergyman.

* * *

Stella Adler said: “Life beats down and crushes the soul. Art reminds you that you have one.”

Brand Smit reckons: “The future waits for those who are patient enough to first figure out the meaning of life.”

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TUESDAY, 19 AUGUST 2003

Let’s play a game. Let’s imagine I’m wrong in terms of 90% of the things I’ve been saying for the past few years.

What would this mean? It would mean that creativity is a luxury that can only be enjoyed by the wealthy, or then only as a hobby by the rest of us. It would mean that one should be grateful if you get any kind of job, and that you therefore have to be grateful for the privilege to address someone as BOSS. That if your services are no longer required by a company, it’s just your bad luck, and probably your own fault because you were dispensable in the first place. That by the time you leave high school – if you were so privileged to have spent twelve years in school – you should have worked out without any drama where you fit in the Great Hierarchy, and be ready to take your place with conviction. That you have to take what comes your way, and just accept it with a dignified “That’s just life.” That you should get married and start procreating as soon as you get a job, because that is what nature dictates, and what society requires. And that you would go to hell if you don’t believe everything the Bible says. It would also mean that banks, large corporations and the government are right because they are stronger than you. That you should treat the bank manager, the boss and the politician with respect because they are higher than you on the Hierarchy.

If these things are true and I’m wrong, I’m in deep trouble.

Anyways, where was I …

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MONDAY, 4 AUGUST 2003

Why were the Beatles “larger than life”? Because they did what they liked and what they believed in. And because they spent most of their productive time on it, their abilities were exponentially sharpened.

The fact that their creations – their particular type of music – was in demand at the time certainly helped. But the fact remains that they engaged themselves, on a full-time basis, with that which they felt most strongly about, that in which they truly believed. As a result, they reached a level of artistic ability any talented, creative person can achieve if he or she busy themselves with what they like most, for the greater part of what is considered a normal workday.

Proper marketing and the talents of other people also played a pivotal role in their commercial success. But if the individual members of the group had to put in eight hours a day at some factory in Liverpool and then work on their music in the evenings – after dinner and a little TV, not even the best wizards of marketing would have been able to sell their necessarily more mediocre work to the masses.

The Beatles were thus as extraordinary as they had become because they succeeded in an ideal synthesis – creative excellence and commercial success.

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[For readers who insist on technical accuracy it should again be emphasised that the Beatles’ story worked as well as it did because what they had spent most of their time on with such passion and enthusiasm had commercial value.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for everyone to spend the biggest part of a “working day” on that for which we save our greatest passion and conviction because we still need money. And if what we spend most of our time on – masterpiece or no masterpiece – cannot occasionally be traded for cash, we still need to do something else for the sake of physical survival.]

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THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2003

The desire to maintain my creative independence is what I’ve held up in recent years as the reason (or excuse) why I should stay in Taiwan. “In South Africa,” so I always recite the line to myself, “one must be prepared to give up your creative independence if you accept a job at the average institution or corporation.” This is how it works most of the time and, I have always believed, how it will work in my case as well, if I wanted to make sure I lay my hands on a sufficient monthly quota of survival coupons.

In the past few weeks I have come to realise that it is precisely this need for creative independence, and above all, the ideal to be master of my own time, that would make me not only capable of earning enough struggle coupons every month, but indeed … roll the drums, crack the whip … to become rich.

To get rich, it is first and foremost important that you want to be rich, that you must know why you want to be rich, and that you need to know what the alternative is to financial well-being. Then a creative nature that will enable you to come up with ideas, and a stubborn belief that you can, shall and must succeed, are essential characteristics. Lastly, if you are the master of your own time, seven days a week, there is only one thing standing in your way to becoming financially independent – you.

If I am financially independent a year from now, or three years or five years from now, it would be the result of a series of images that had formed in my head, decisions I had made on how to turn the images into reality, and steps I had carried out at the right time and in the right ways. If I am not financially independent in a year’s time or in three years’ time or even five years from now, it would be because I did not follow up the images in my head with the right decisions and the right actions.

I, now, am responsible for my success one year and three years and five years from now. Just like I have to hold myself from one and three and five years ago accountable for the good and bad results of what I currently call my life.

The Universe is on my side? I think that might just be possible. The time is now. I am the father of my children three or five years from now. I am the son of a father and a mother who will benefit from my success. I am the brother of two sisters who will also reap value. I am a man from whose success many other people, who are now not even aware of my existence, will benefit.

I must take responsibility right now for my success one and three and fifteen years from now.

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