Creative, full-time

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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Mistakes, insights, questions, new vocabulary, and advice

SUNDAY, 3 AUGUST 2003

Two mistakes I made in 1998 [during my experimental return to South Africa]:

1. My preparations were insufficient.

2. I buckled in a moment of uncertainty thinking it would give me a little security and … accepted an offer for a job.

And an insight:

The reason why many ordinary working people in the industrialised “First World” is not rich is because they have “good jobs”, and they are satisfied with what they earn. Also, because their lifestyle grows as their income grows, or in many cases even exceeds their income.

What do you do …

* if you are two months behind on your mortgage payments,

* if the water and electricity bills are more than a month in arrears,

* if the kitchen shelves are empty,

* if your bank account is depleted,

* if your car has been repossessed, or will be repossessed by the bank any time in the next week or two,

* if half of your furniture has been repossessed, and

* if the children are getting quieter by the day?

What, at the end of the day, are really your options?

Today I learned some new words:

* atrium – the central court of an ancient Roman house

* niche – a suitable and satisfying role, job, or way of life; an opportunity in business; the conditions in which a species can live successfully

* ethereal – extremely delicate and light, and seeming to be too spiritual or perfect for this world

* translucent – allowing light to pass through but not transparent

and finally …

* colander – a metal or plastic bowl with many small holes in it, used to drain water from vegetables

And one last piece of advice:

Surround yourself with people. It’s much easier to break away from people for a few hours or a few days if you need to spend time on your own, than to try to get people together when you suddenly experience a need for companionship after long periods of isolation.

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Take responsibility for yourself in 2018

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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Dark Tuesday | Lighter Thursday

TUESDAY, 29 JULY 2003

You don’t want to unnecessarily keep hammering on the same note, but I think one of these days I’m going to be in deep shit. My suspicion is strong that I have estranged all four of my friends at different times, and for different reasons. (Is this better than to alienate them for the same reason?) More than that, the suspicion is developing that they’re even going so far as to avoid me. Can you believe it? Innocent old me who always carries on in discussions about “struggle and creation” and who delivers such well-meaning lectures to anyone within earshot about how their lives are worth bugger-all if they can’t stand away from their own creations and like the God of Genesis say, “It’s good!” (And to think I’m just trying to help them lead more fulfilling lives.)

In all honesty, I don’t think my theories and sermons are the only blunt swords that scare off friends and potential acquaintances. I am, except for my highly original theories and associated monologues, a highly boring individual. To be sure, I can join in the conversation around the barbecue fire if the conversation is about history or religion, but I might be tempted to be too clever, and maybe to know too much for the other people to also feel good about their general knowledge. So, unless the conversation is about sin, the Iraq war, Hitler, Stalin, or the Middle Ages, I am in trouble. I don’t have a motorcycle (can’t even ride one), and I don’t go along to beach resorts on weekends. I never tell dirty jokes beside said barbecue fires (can never remember the damn things), and I never do anything on my own that will cause people to tell others about it so I can build up a healthy social reputation.

But let’s stop staggering around the nettle tree. The primary reason I’m persona non grata is because I always arrive at events alone, and I never leave with anyone (mainly of the opposite sex). I am, therefore, by definition, a loner. And as people have known since before the time of John the Baptist, everyone shits in their pants when it looks like a loner is heading in their direction.

The Loner babbles on about things that only he understands and finds interesting. The Loner is a leper. The Loner is a hunchback. The Loner has a skin disease that causes his scent to be picked up from a distance. The Loner has tuberculosis, or AIDS … that drips blood from open sores on his hands that threatens to infect all those standing around barbecue fires telling dirty jokes.

The Loner is a fucking genius. It can’t be any other way. I mean, even if he didn’t hold a degree in history and religious studies, even if he hasn’t written a book of several hundred pages about his own life, even if he wasn’t already working on his second volume of poetry (which, like the first, would be an unpublished masterpiece), even if he hasn’t formulated his own principles of a Meaningful Life, he must necessarily be exceptional: An unknown prophet who are not even recognised in a foreign country, let alone in his own backyard (if he could ever afford such a thing in the country of his birth).

He must be something special, someone who is just not understood and appreciated by the plebs that he would have liked to call his friends. Why? Because god only knows, if he isn’t, he’s nothing. Then he’s a rotting carcass avoided even by other intelligent, sophisticated, enlightened people he had once called “friends”. For instinct forces even the most enlightened among us to turn away from what is dead. To flee away from that which once lived, but that has since first taken a turn for the worst, and then went to die a slow death in the half-lit solitude of his private quarters, somewhere in a neighbourhood where no one who speaks his language ever shows their face.

Oh well. Fuck everyone, then.

THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2003

Who read my piece on hammering on the same note?

Since Tuesday, 29 July 2003 at 1:32 in the morning my one friend phoned to ask if I had time – he wanted to show me a new bicycle shop in town. Later I called one of my other friends. We talked for over an hour about work, and about the uncertainties she struggles with every day. And so on. She’s apparently really busy. She apparently really has more friends than yours truly, and some of her friends keep her busy with up to twenty mobile text messages per day. This morning just after breakfast, my other friend called. She was sorry she’s been so quiet recently, but until the end of this week she’s busy from Chinese class in the morning until half past nine in the evening with work. So, she asked, how about coffee tonight at her place.

Oh well.

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Time for calculations again | About potatoes and vegetables

FRIDAY, 25 JULY 2003

I have, seeing that I love calculations so much, counted my friends in this place: “four” is the number I came up with. Of these four, two are men and two women. I currently don’t have contact with any of these people.

It’s Friday night, already five past midnight (Saturday morning, then). A deserted plain of a weekend stares me in the face. I reckon my spirits will be in the gutter by early tomorrow evening. I’m going to want to watch videos all night while rinsing down deep-fried tofu and calamari with ice cold green tea. Then I’ll accelerate my metabolism with one Nat Sherman after another in the false belief that it would prevent me from getting fat from all the greasy food.

I’ll have to get out. Battle for the Soul. Battle for Survival. I know I need people, but sometimes you’re forced to make another plan.

The weekend is an empty canvass, unsullied by actual events. Time to get creative, otherwise reality may get creative with me …

SATURDAY, 26 JULY 2003

Eat potatoes or die – these are my only choices.

We all know what a balanced diet looks like – protein, dairy products, a variety of vegetables and fruits, and so on. But what do you do if you find yourself in a situation or environment that only has potatoes? Do you sit on a rock and cry, “I want fruit and vegetables, and milk and fish and eggs …”?

We all want to eat a balanced diet! We all know we need it! But there’s no fish or fruit or other vegetables at the moment! There are only potatoes! So eat potatoes or die!

Another thought: If you’re a millionaire, it is very likely the result of images you had nurtured in your mind at some point and actions that you had taken. Most “ordinary” people are convinced that they will always suffer. If they’re lucky, they keep their jobs until they’re 65 and then they retire with their aches and pains, and a small retirement policy or two. The fact is, if you imagine the right things and take the right actions, more than enough money can be one of the fruits you will reap.

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