Author: Brand Smit

THURSDAY, 5 APRIL 2018

The fact that the members of the Smit-Bornman family – my parents, my two sisters and I – have such a complicated relationship with money is most likely related to the fact that our ancestors were mainly livestock farmers for 250-300 years, and were still farming up to two generations ago, although with more than just cattle.

The difference between a livestock and a crop farmer is a difference not only in lifestyle but in farming technique. The crop farmer needs to know when, what and where to plant, and when to harvest, and will think twice before giving up good land and moving away just because pasture for sheep or cattle is getting harder to find. There’s also a difference in labour management – amongst other things, the crop farmer needs more hands on the farm. Another factor is entrepreneurial spirit – the crop farmer needs to know what fruit and vegetables are in demand, how big the demand is and at what price he has to sell his produce to at least break even.

All of these differences are relevant to understanding my own family’s relationship with money because, as I pointed out, my ancestors were steeped in the culture, lifestyle and profession of cattle farming for centuries.

As far as I could determine, not one of my grandparents knew much about the four things that one should do to become wealthy in the city: selling and marketing, extracting value from the labour of people who are more or less your social equals, advertising your service or product, and re-investing your profits so that your wealth increases – with a little luck. My own parents were more or less fresh from the farm, and they had to get to know the city on their own. They had to observe what other townies were doing, and eventually learned to survive in the city to an adequate degree.

But they also didn’t learn much about the things that make you financially independent. What they learned was that you gained a skill, and then made yourself useful to some company or institution, or to the state. And if you were fortunate, you got a “permanent position”, focused on your “career” for the next forty years, and in the meantime started a family in a middle-class suburb with beautifully mowed lawns and clean, quiet streets.

That is what my parents had learned, and that is what they taught me and my two sisters. Study hard, matriculate from high school, go to university, get a degree, make an impression on some company or institution, and continue the whole cycle.

Only problem is, this model doesn’t work well for everyone. Another thing: Very few people ever become financially independent by selling their time to someone else.

There is surely more than one road to the Promised Land, but knowing how to sell and market, how to extract value from the efforts of people who are at a similar social level than you, how to promote a service or product, and how to invest your profits in such a way that you get richer and richer with a little luck is definitely one way.

My grandparents taught my parents few, if any, of these urban skills, and in turn my parents taught us hardly any of this.

Of course, we have been, and are clever enough to master these things on our own. And if you work out soon enough that it is specifically those things that need to be mastered, and luck is at least a little on your side, you can whisper across the vast plains of the Eastern Cape, the Free State and the old Transvaal to you livestock farming ancestors: Don’t worry about me; I’m flourishing in the city. But if you take too long to master these skills and life starts chafing, you’ll be leading the kind of life in the city about which you’d rather not inform your humble forebears.

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MONDAY, 12 MARCH 2018

It’s already March, and I’m only on page 14 of this year’s notebook.

I’m not so sure anymore that I have anything left to say. There was a time when I could argue with great confidence. I’m not sure if I can do that now.

Surely it’s got something to do with the fact that I’m in my late forties.

Then I wondered about previous decades. Given that 1998 – my late twenties – was a year of major upheaval in my life, one might have expected to see more writing from that time. I didn’t write much. The year when I turned 37 – 2008, produced a few pieces, but nothing compared to, for example, 2001 or 2003 and 2004. Will 2018 continue this pattern?

I also thought earlier today that this story of being uncertain about the value of what I write is nonsense. “Be prepared to be wrong!” I reminded myself.

A few minutes later, however, I started doubting whether this was such a good approach.

MONDAY, 19 MARCH 2018

If the choice is between DELUSION and DYING LIKE A WORM, I choose DELUSION.

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MONDAY, 5 MARCH 2018

16:21

I said to [N.] a few days ago, if we make enough from English teaching to put some money away, we teach too many classes. We will never save enough money for retirement by teaching English classes at NT$620 [about USD20] per hour – and that on a part-time schedule over which we have no control.

We simply must spend more time on projects or investments with which we hope to replace our current income in the future – and hopefully to double and possibly triple it. Even if an enterprise only has a 50/50 chance, we must take that chance. More so if it involves the development of skills we currently don’t have but that we can use in the future.

17:46

I am almost 47. [N.] is almost 40. If we think we can rely on our income from the English classes we teach, we live in a fantasy world. Every now and then we are ripped out of this fantasy – like today, when I was informed that there is a delay in the issuance of my work permit and that someone else will have to teach my classes for the next few days. But, soon enough, we are lulled into comfort again by the relative ease of making money with English teaching.

Fact is, we can’t count on it! And this applies equally to any of our friends who also earn their bread and butter here in Taiwan as English teachers! Unless you have a permanent position, with a pension plan and three weeks of paid leave every year, and paid public holidays, you’re simply asking to be cruelly disillusioned if you think everything is hunky-dory!

Of course, I’ve been saying these things for almost as long as I’ve been in Taiwan. And I’ve spent so much life energy and time and money trying to earn money in ways other than teaching, I’d rather not think about it to save myself the emotional discomfort.

Every now and then, the possibility comes up to accept another class, another evening you could otherwise spend working on other projects that will have to be sacrificed to earn NT$600 or NT$900. Here’s what you should ask yourself: Can I not pay my rent? Is this why I have to take the extra class? Do I not have enough to eat? Are my clothes peeling off my body and I need the extra cash to buy myself a pair of jeans at Costco? If you answer “No” to all these questions, if you answer that you just think it would be good to get an extra NT$X or NT$Y per month, I suggest you go to the beach one weekend, sit down on the sand, and stare at the horizon for a couple of hours. Because it is clear that you have not thought enough about your life and the consequences of the way you’re living it.

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SATURDAY, 3 MARCH 2018

Money is Boss. Money is King. Money – let’s be honest about it – is God. People devote their lives to it. People die for it, and people kill for it.

If I could have my way, I would organise my life in such a way that I don’t need much money, and therefore don’t need to make much money. But because I understand the pressures of modern civilisation, I’m also trying to add to my little bundle of cash as often as possible. In fact, I have been trying for a very long time to make a lot more money than I really need, so that I can assist my parents in their old age, amongst other things.

For various reasons I haven’t been terribly successful yet. I make enough money to survive, but not much more. So I needed to set my life up in such a way that I can survive with less. I can thus say that I lead a good life and that I’m relatively happy because I learned to live a good life and to be happy with what I have – which is not very much, materialistically speaking.

Unfortunately, money is God. Your elderly parents cannot be helped with your ideas about a simple life. Your elderly parents cannot buy food with your creative skills. Your elderly parents’ medical plan cannot be paid with your poems or your notes about human existence. Only cash is good enough. When the bill arrives and you can’t pull enough cash from your closet, from under your mattress, from under your pillow, out of your desk, out of your shoe, out of your pocket or wallet, or from the bank, you can just as well go to hell. Because money is God.

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THURSDAY, 1 MARCH 2018

Personality (given), circumstance (given), culture and religion (both given) programmed me to a great extent* to, at least initially as an adult, not pursue material gain.

What was I programmed for? “God”, “The Truth”, “Stay on the Right Path”, play your part in helping people “see the light”. The pursuit of material comfort, money and status was of lesser importance. Not my choice, mind you, but how I was programmed. Or, I certainly had a choice, like when the reverend tells you to choose between Jesus or Satan when you’re sixteen years old. It’s a choice, all right.

I say that initially personality, circumstance, culture and religion programmed me – or as one religious leader loved to say, compelled me – to do certain things and not others, because eventually I did try harder and harder to make money, and I spent more and more time on it. But, what was my training for it? Did I learn about investments at school? Was I exposed to successful ventures at home as a teenager or young adult? No, and no. What I was exposed to was parents who worked themselves into a stupor to make enough money to pay rent and school fees, and to buy food and clothing and other necessities, but if “God” decided “he” wanted to test you to see how you would respond in a certain situation, “he” simply rolled a stone in your path and then you stumbled. That was my education. That was what I was exposed to.

Of course, I have been deprogramming myself for years. But let’s not imagine we grow up in a vacuum. Yes, you move on and you improve yourself and your life despite psychological stones that had been rolled in your path when your brain and personality were still taking shape. But let’s not imagine who you were as a teenager did not influence how you thought when you crossed over into adulthood, and that decisions you had made then don’t still have an impact on your life twenty years later.

* I know “to a large extent” is a weasel phrase, but we are talking about indoctrination and the influence of the environment on the psyche here – not something you can measure like ingredients for a cake.

[I seem bothered in this text, and in a few other pieces before this one, and after this one. Actually, I was. And I’m not in the habit of discarding notes I wrote in a bad mood when I feel better. They are just as much part of my truth as notes where I’m positive and happy.]

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