Assorted Notes

FRIDAY, 25 JUNE 2004

[A term had by this time entered my consciousness that had me so excited that I was almost friendly with a taxi driver one afternoon. Before I continue using it, allow me to once again explain the meaning.

The “given self” is a convenient term to describe the significant impact certain factors – such as genetics, cultural background, language, and time and place of birth – have on what and who an individual is, long before he or she learns big words like “identity”, “self-awareness” or “purpose of my existence”. The “given self” is thus a personal reality, years before the individual begins to ask critical questions such as “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?”]

To reach the level of personal development I call ENLIGHTENMENT, the specific aspects of who you are must first be confronted and accepted to a large extent. The GIVEN SELF can never fully be replaced with the ENLIGHTENED SELF, or any other form of self that can be regarded as more “my own” and therefore more “real”. The GIVEN SELF – or aspects of it – exists until the moment of physical death.

* * *

The Given Self – the product of, among other things, so-called fate factors like gender and time and place of birth, and strongly influenced by the person-model held up as the most appropriate considering fate factors and cultural values and needs of the community – can be manipulated by alternative person-models.

One example is the young woman from a conservative family who, in her early twenties, leaves her home in a small rural town for the big city where she transforms herself after a few years into a flamboyant actress. A more radical example would be the person who is born as a man, who then undergoes surgery, marries and lives out the rest of his/her life as a woman. A less dramatic example is the case of a man from a Calvinist background, who at one point was regarded as someone who might serve the spiritual needs of his community as a pastor or reverend, but who then as an adult leaves the country of his birth to seek a better life (and improved identity) on a different continent, with images of ancient philosophers and long-deceased writers who serve as his alternate self-models.

What happens is that the individual confronts the given building blocks of who and what he or she is. If this existential moment is reached, the person can once again look at the world around them and ask themselves (again) two questions: “Who am I?” and “Who do I want to be?” Physical limitations of the Original or then Given Self that cannot be changed, as well as particularity of origin (time and place of birth, as well as socio-economic background and all the other things already listed), must necessarily be accepted.

The moment the person reaches the point when they state that they see their given building blocks, that they accept what they never had a choice about and what they (really) cannot change (whether they want to or not), they will have arrived at a new appreciation of themselves in their particular environment – IF, that is, they believe in the potential to transform themselves, albeit still within the framework of actual given constraints.

* * *

To confront what you’ve been given, to recognise it, and to believe in the astonishing possibilities that are within the reach of a relatively intelligent person are vital elements of the Process of Rebirth – and possibly, albeit not necessarily, the birth of the ENLIGHTENED SELF.

* * *

By the way, what does it mean when someone says he’s a “born again Christian”? It means that he has “crucified” his “old self”, with a “new self” taking the place of the old. Naturally it is assumed that the “new self” is better and cleansed of the “sin” of the “old self”. The faith community also expects that this person – the newly converted – should, in fact, be his “new self”, to lend credibility to his claim of being “born again”. Philosophically and as a literary concept, it is brilliant, and colourful …

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FRIDAY, 25 JUNE 2004

(How little can you know about yourself and still function, as an adult, within the limits of what is considered “normal” by society?)

Without people, no community can exist. Without sufficient numbers of men and women, and people with different talents and abilities, no community can stay healthy and prosper.

The Community – the body of people who share a set of cultural, linguistic and other values in a particular place – provide the individual with a (sometimes temporary) working identity/self-model composed of birth data, cultural data, and as the years go by, needs of that particular community at that particular time. Most people accept this GIVEN model of who and what they are – to varying degrees, but the required minimum quota of acceptance is reached among the population for the community to at least remain standing.

What then of those people who are sceptical and critical, who are always scratching around for answers to questions many regard as unnecessary; people for whom it seems a lifetime ambition to discover the formulas of how things work, people who do not want to accept things as they currently are? Ultimately, the Community can also not remain standing without the contribution of these people – including some scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, philosophers and academics from other fields, writers, poets, artists and musicians.

The primary contribution of these individuals is to provide people with ideas through which they might develop a better understanding of their existence. These individuals must also serve as a counterweight to irrational group politics, and associated violent movements that provide people in uncertain times with a firmer understanding of who and what they are, what their roles in society should be, and how the value and meaning of their lives ought to be interpreted. Of course, there are intellectuals who themselves are guilty of driving destructive ideologies into the minds of people. For precisely this reason, it is vital to promote constructive ideas, and to encourage the advocates of these ideas.

Intellectuals take it upon themselves to make members of the wider community aware of the destructive nature of certain beliefs, ideologies and related movements. They also play a leading role in the process of distinguishing between what keeps Civilised Society anchored in soil fertile for growth and progress, and what causes it to tear apart at the seams.

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[How much does the “ordinary” man or woman on the street understand of what causes their community to tear apart at the seams? And at what point should the Intellectual Vanguard in the Battle for Healthy Society jump on their soapboxes?

I believe that if most working adults are too busy to contemplate supposedly more academic issues such as the relationship between language and “truth”, they probably would be too busy to see Rome fall around them – which, as most people know, never happens in one day.

Intelligence is not what is relevant here – a medical doctor is not necessarily smarter than a chemical engineer because he understands why the latter’s stomach keeps aching. So, too, with the Intellectual Vanguard, whose interests and passion for certain issues sharpen their eyes to see things before they become painfully obvious to everyone, and possibly too late.]

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WEDNESDAY, 23 JUNE 2004

Four years ago, I also thought of myself as a writer, but on a daily basis, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, I was, for all practical purposes, my income-generating profession. What was this income-generating profession? I was an English teacher who, in all honesty, mostly failed in the job I was hired to do, five days a week. I thought of myself as a writer, and I did write (the entire “Personal Agenda: Book One” is proof), but I did not have the confidence in myself and my identity that I have now. I was, to a large extent, an unfulfilled, frustrated person, because I was unfulfilled and frustrated in my job.

Five hundred years ago in Europe – during the pre-industrial era, the position of the family in the feudal hierarchy was one of the key determinants of personal identity, at least as far as the community was concerned in whose midst the person found him- or herself. The economic role a person had to fulfil (if it were necessary at all for him or her to perform any kind of labour) was also linked, to a significant degree, to birth.

It can therefore be said that identity in Europe 500 years ago was largely dictated by chance – where the person was born, and the position of his or her family in the feudal hierarchy, and also by the needs of the community – which, together with parentage, determined the person’s economic role.

Since the voyages of discovery and the subsequent economic, political, scientific and industrial revolutions, profession has entered the arena as an additional and crucial determinant of identity. People who live out their lives in the industrialised world have, to some extent, a choice of what role they want to play in the community, which specific needs of the community they want to fulfil, and even where they want to play this role and fulfil these needs, or in what community. Financial ability can also be mentioned as a further factor affecting people’s view of themselves and how they define their identity. Money is also a great equaliser – stories of people who were born in the gutter and end up in palaces are still rare, but they do occur.

When it comes to the question of who you are, most people still look at the cards they were dealt that determine status and role in society – place of birth, gender, appearance and talents, socio-economic status of the family, and specifically in the case of adults, profession.

Most of these thoughts have already been noted in this literary project. What is the point of mentioning them again?

It was until recently a private pleasure for me to believe I expose the “truth” to people who have perhaps believed that a good job and lots of money are the best they can ever hope to strive for in life. I wanted to beckon such people closer, unlock a small antique box, and inside they would see a Greater Truth: “You do not know your TRUE self! What you are at this stage of your life is just a result of fate, your environment, and events that differentiate your life from that of the next person. You live under the illusion that you know who you are; an illusion that nevertheless enables you to function as an Individual in This Time and Place.”

The implication was that only when you look into your own soul and identify your “true self” can you finally claim full humanity, can you declare that you (finally) know who you “really” are. I thought that to discover – or to define – your “true self” was the Grand Prize at the end of a long and intensely personal journey.

However, new insights have started to undermine these views. (These fresh insights have also already been mentioned, but seeing that this touches on the topic of the value of a single human life, I reckon it is okay to revisit the issue.) What then, would I regard as more important than the discovery and defining of the “true self”? The answer: RESULTS OF YOUR LIFE.

We all arrive as small bundles of flesh and blood on this planet, we scream out our humanity to anyone who wants to hear, get older and bigger and eventually the day arrives when we leave the show. The question, at the final count, should not be whether you existed and functioned as your own True Self, but what results you leave behind from your time on this planet.

Has your life produced more positive than negative results? Will the world breathe a sigh of relief when you finally utter your last words? Have you only endeavoured to satisfy your own needs, and to be as happy as possible for as long as possible? Is it important for you to leave behind positive results of your existence? What, indeed, are positive results? These are questions that every person can and should answer for him or herself.

I have discovered a few principles and implemented a few measures that make it possible for me to function as a fairly normal adult in the world and time in which I was born. I have also discovered that life outside my apartment door is to a large extent a game and that if you manage to decipher the rules and reconcile yourself to these rules to a satisfactory degree, it may just be possible for you to lead a happy life, and to declare at the end of it that your life was worth living.

Yet, if I have the option, I would want to live my life as a conscious effort to achieve more positive than negative results that I can leave behind, rather than to just know I was happy, and that my life was worth living, or even that I succeeded in finding my “true self”. (What is the value of a highly developed awareness of your own self, if it is not ultimately conducive to leaving behind positive results from your time on this planet?)

Can one go further and ask about the results of every day? Every week? Okay then, the average results of every year? Can you purchase “positive results” shortly before the end of your life? Who determines the quality of these results? And what is the possibility that the beauty of a single day or even a single moment can get lost in the rush to leave behind a positive legacy of your existence?

Regardless of what you believe about the value and meaning of your own life, or about what makes your life worth living, regardless of the weight you attach to results of your life, one thing remains: YOUR LIFE WILL ULTIMATELY PRODUCE RESULTS. Whether these results will be more positive than negative depends to a large extent on yourself and the choices you make on a daily basis.

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SUNDAY, 20 JUNE 2004

I think I’m ready to declare that life is to a great extent a game.

It works like this: you define for yourself a character from the human character material you observe in your environment and from what you are exposed to from other sources (alternatively you become, to a large extent, the character your environment forces on you or which it requires from you), and then you play a role you define for yourself, or that you choose from the possibilities (or you play the role forced on you by the environment or the one required of you).

Differences between the ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUAL and the OTHER INDIVIDUAL can be found in the above explanation: The former defines to a considerable extent his or her own character as well as the role they want to play, while the latter mainly plays the role of the character the community imposes on them or requires from them. The ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUAL knows who and what they are, because in a practical expression of their free will they choose among many possibilities the role and character they deem fit for themselves. They can also explain why they chose a specific role and character, and not someone or something else.

How well both types of individuals function in the world depends on how well they know the Rules Of The Game Of Life, and how willing they are to play accordingly.

It is also true that many ENLIGHTENED people do not have a high opinion of the Rules. However, only a moderate degree of intelligence is required to decipher the rules of the Main Game, and of the various sub-games in which both ENLIGHTENED people and OTHER people are sometimes obliged to take part. In other words, there is always hope.

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[Additional note: The role and character chosen by the type of person I call enlightened are not necessarily better – in a moral sense – than the role and character that is required by the community of another individual, or a role they feel compelled to choose at the expense of other ambitions they may have harboured. The role in the latter case might be one of leadership in an extraordinary difficult time for the community, while the chosen role (and character) of the so-called enlightened individual in similar circumstances may be one that is characterised by non-involvement. I mention these possibilities because, despite the fact that the enlightened individual is my chosen hero figure, I am not blind to heroic acts of so-called other individuals.]

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[One more note: Just because a person does not define his or her own character and role, is not to say that he or she is not enlightened. Such a person may be fully aware of alternative characters that they could be or could have become, or alternative, even more enjoyable roles they are more than capable of playing. Due to the best of reasons they might accept their prescribed roles and characters (or the roles and characters that society expects of them), for the sake of service to the community, and for the sake of leaving behind positive results of their existence.]

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THURSDAY, 17 JUNE 2004

Some people end up as caricatures of the information they receive from the environment about what they should be and how they should act. These puzzle caricatures are seemingly unaware of how clearly the seams show between the sometimes hackneyed parts from which their socially functioning personas are compiled.

How about myself? I am aware of the puzzle pieces from which my own socially functioning persona has been compiled. I also know that I can choose to reject many of these bits of information about myself at any time (or if I don’t want to be that extreme, to at least make some changes).

If I speak and write in Language A, it is not because I believe Language A is a better communication medium than Language B, it is because I am more comfortable with it because of my background, and as a result of a lifetime of exposure that has left me more apt to express myself in this particular language. My preference for Language A is a choice for the sake of efficiency, with sentiment – a common attitude when it comes to the language with which you grew up – of secondary importance.

Are not all of us in the end to a significant degree puzzle caricatures for as long as it remains effective? If we replace one set of puzzle pieces in a more self-critical phase of our lives with a set that fits more comfortably or with one that looks better, we may not be caricatures anymore, but are we not still made up of pieces cut and shaped by those who came before us?

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