Assorted Notes

WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

Identity and the identity of God

For many who want to sort out their own identity, it is a prerequisite to first sort out the identity of God. God is the “head” of their religion; religion is a primary tool by which they answer who and what they are and what they need or want to do with their lives. If they are not sure about the identity of God, they cannot be sure of their own identity. Also, if they can be sure of who and what God is, they can find certainty about who and what they are or ought to be.

FRIDAY, 6 AUGUST 2004

I-am-who-I-was (even though we’re only related)

Notes from Stellenbosch 1994, Korea 1996 to ‘98, Johannesburg ‘98, and Taiwan 1999 to 2004 indicate that I am still the same person, but it also shows how this “person” has changed. It should instil confidence to know you can change environments and still remain the same … still be “me” … still retain the same identity … continue to function as a person who is essentially related to the “I” of yesterday, and ten years ago, in a half-dozen places on two continents.

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SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST 2004

Who’s that guy in the mirror? (And why is he looking at me?)

The challenge, as I have recited by now so many times that some readers probably feel their heads will start spinning at the mere sight of the words is … to appear as who and what you really are. (There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?)

My point at this moment is that we sometimes fall back on old appearances, no longer really valid, but which can be trusted for a good response. This type of situation usually resolves itself soon enough, in a natural way – or hopefully so, otherwise the self-denial will become an open sore.

It is important, though, if you do appear in a particular situation differently than how you see yourself, you need not seek out the nearest bathroom mirror to scream at yourself in sheer panic, “Who am I … or who are you?!” Know and understand that even if your perception of yourself changes with the passage of time you may still have to appear as your “old self” for the sake of safety, or positive response, or positive result in a specific situation.

The ideal is naturally that your current and hopefully credible self will develop sufficient confidence so you can appear as who and what you are at any particular time of your life.

MONDAY, 2 AUGUST 2004

To grow and to develop and to express – or to choose not to

You experience reality. It is possible to express this particular experience.

You also have an identity. It is possible to improve your grasp of who you are, what you are, and what you want to do with your life.

Your choice, right now, is whether to acknowledge these things, these possibilities, and to continue the process of personal growth and development, or not.

WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

In “Renaissance Man”, Danny De Vito’s character changes his primary work and living environment from a corporate office and suburban home to a military training camp. He finds out he’s not really an advertising guy but a teacher, suddenly becomes committed to what he does, and feels for the first time in years that he belongs. And, since the formula always works perfectly in movies, he also finds the love of his life.

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WEDNESDAY, 4 AUGUST 2004

If you did not have to appear, you would not need much of a so-called identity. Or maybe I should say the way you would think about yourself if you did not need to appear would not have required the approval of the community – meaning in everyday face-to-face appearances.

Identity that is recognised and to a degree approved by the community is therefore primarily required for APPEARANCE. Considering this relationship between identity and appearance at specific time and place, what would be the value of not appearing?

[Note on 10 August 2007: Identity is primarily needed for appearance? I am sitting alone behind my computer, and I need to know who I am at this very moment.]

[Note on 23 May 2012: I am alone behind my computer and I know who I am. Why? Because I appear to people on a daily basis, and between appearances I sit down behind the computer … where I can’t turn off a button to something that flickers who I am. Plus, perhaps the work I do, like this writing, requires that I have identity. Why? Because what I write is representative of me, and will be absolutely meaningless if “I” don’t appear to the reader as a person-with-identity. The reader won’t be able to identify with what I write, and as a result won’t take anything I write seriously. So, even though I am alone at the present moment, I still need identity because I remember who I was during my most recent appearance, and I need to have identity in case I have to appear at short notice – like if someone suddenly knocks on the door. And even when you are alone, you may be doing work that requires identity.]

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SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST 2004

Me: “You are reciting words you’ve been taught in order to confirm your identity – the way in which you are part of the Bigger Picture, and to give expression to your experience of this reality. Your expression of your particular experience of reality is neither creative nor original. Why should I listen to you?”

Mormon missionary: “Because what I have to say may save your life.”

Me: “You don’t know that. You choose to believe that for reasons I have already mentioned. But you don’t know if any of it will work out. You choose to believe that it will.”

* * *

Am I wrong?

I will say this, if the ACTUAL, ABSOLUTE TRUTH is ever revealed to someone in a desert or a cave or in some wilderness and the person starts preaching, I’ll fire off a similar argument … since I’ll be assuming the person has simply heard the words he or she is now “reciting” to the public from someone else.

And then I have to acknowledge, if I want to be reasonable, the possibility that the ACTUAL, ABSOLUTE TRUTH has indeed already been revealed, and that I, as we speak, am launching arguments like the above on the preacher-missionary of this Sacred Truth.

But then, say the ACTUAL TRUTH has already been revealed, would anyone really be able to ignore it? Would it be obscure? Would mere mortals like yours truly be able to formulate arguments left and right, and spin them off at the MESSENGER OF TRUTH like I’m busy arguing with my older sister? I don’t think so. (And if I could do that, what kind of truth would it be?)

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WEDNESDAY, 21 JULY 2004

Appearance is the problem

Insights and frustrations of the past week or so, helped by the fact that I am currently reviewing material I wrote about four years ago, have formed a pattern of discontent with how I appear to the world at the moment – the same problem as four years ago, but largely absent when I arrived in Taiwan and did not need to make meaningful social appearances.[1] This appearance problem is directly related to needs (especially for intimate contact) that are not currently being satisfied.

Previously – like four years ago – I wouldn’t have properly understood it. I would only have known “I’m not happy” or “I’m frustrated,” and I would have wished for more money to buy better clothes and perhaps better transportation and I would have made lists of items that would have hinted at a more ideal self.

Now I know the problem is not necessarily who and what I am, or the specific environment, but how I appear to the world – although my appearance cannot be isolated from other things. I am thus relatively happy with myself, on my own, in my own private quarters in Benevolent Light, but what bothers me is how I appear. APPEARANCE is the problem.

It is an indication of the development of insight, of progress in my own understanding of things during the last four years that I can now identify and express the problem more clearly.

———–

[1] For the reader who did not read the depressing prose of the second half of 2000, or who overlooked or ignored it, briefly: I had to suddenly make social appearances again in 2000, which in 1999 were largely unnecessary because there were virtually no other South Africans in the city.

Just when you thought you knew yourself

Ask someone, “Who are you?” Intensify the pressure slightly by adding, “I suspect you don’t really know who you are.”

The reaction of many an individual to such an impolite question would illustrate the challenge that confronts all of us: Can you articulate who you think you are? Can you express it?

WEDNESDAY, 28 JULY 2004

The warped world

Thought at Crooked Town train station: I don’t have a problem with the so-called beautiful world; I have a problem with the price at which people buy membership in this world.

In a consumer society many people sacrifice on a daily basis their creativity and their hours – they deny their true nature, as it were – to enable themselves to accumulate sufficient credit to purchase membership in the so-called beautiful world.

That was my position a few years ago; it is still my position now.

Beauty without substance is, in the final count, just a pretty shell.

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