Many people don’t know what they’re doing with their lives

THURSDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2025

I am 54 years old. I am blessed and burdened (can’t say cursed) with the tendency to reflect on my existence: What am I doing with my life? How does this activity fit into the bigger picture? What ought I be doing?

I did it when I was 24. I still do it today.

So, what am I doing?

I make money – to survive and maintain a relatively good standard of living – nothing fancy, but decent enough. I am also constantly thinking of ways to improve my income, and make it part of a daily routine. I don’t want to stand on the proverbial street corner hustling. I want to operate well-oiled, income-generating machines. I don’t mind operating the knobs and levers and switches myself, but my hope is that some of the machines will eventually run on autopilot. Many of my hours each week, if not each day, are currently spent not on maintaining such machines, but on thinking about how I can build such machines – and of course on the actual building of the apparatus.

I need to scrape together approximately a hundred million units so we can start thinking about retirement in ten years or so. What will retirement mean in 2036? Who knows. But I hope we’ll be living in a safe community; that we’ll have enough to eat; that we’ll be able to maintain a simple but good lifestyle; that we’ll be able to get medical care without panicking about the cost; that we could travel locally every now and then, and every so often spend a week or two in another country. If one could do all these things without a small fortune in 2036, fantastic. If not, my wife and I are going to have to save a lot more money over the next decade than we currently do.

Then, things that go beyond money. I hope to maintain my positive outlook and reasonably good health as long as possible. I hope to support my partner in her quest to stay happy and healthy. And then I hope to share some knowledge and insight in my own modest way with whoever crosses my path – and of course, to pick up some knowledge and insight from these individuals. I also hope to be a facilitator of the processes, to whatever tiny degree, by which other people develop, or refine, their ability to survive and live productive and happy lives.

This is what my life is about on Thursday, 4 September 2025. To a large extent, it is the broad outline of my entire adult existence thus far – although, thirty years ago I was naturally more concerned about having enough money to be “free” than about retiring comfortably.

Back to the well-oiled, income-generating machines. It feels like I have hundreds of pieces on the floor around my desk, and on the shelves next to the desk, and unpacked in little piles on my desk. And I have dozens of notes like this one that attempt to create order from the hundreds of parts, in all sorts of “private” and “official” Word documents. I also have lists.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that a lot of people don’t know what they’re doing with their lives. Some of these people are 24. Some are 54. And I’m sure some of them are 64.

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You may be right, but you’re not honest

TUESDAY, 10 JUNE 2025

I don’t write much about people’s religious beliefs anymore, but recently a thought occurred about honesty.

A few weeks ago, I heard a story about a man who had quit his job. During a religious gathering, he told everyone present that from then on, he would rely on God for his bread and butter. Shortly after, someone in the congregation stood up and declared that he owned a farm, and that he would leave the management of it to the man who was now unemployed.

“Praise the Lord!” dozens of people exclaimed. God had provided.

An alternative explanation is that it was in the best interest of everyone present that “God would provide.” The man who owned the farm thought: I need someone to manage the farm. If I stand up now and make it known, God will have provided for the man’s needs.

What he might not have thought, but what would still be true: His standing in the faith community would also rise, because he would be seen as an “instrument in God’s hands.”

That’s where honesty comes in.

Suppose a person who identifies as a Christian says, “I see what you mean. Maybe it’s just a case of a group of people wanting certain things to be true, and it’s in their best interest to do things that will give the impression that they are true. I can see how it could be understood that way. Nevertheless, I still choose to believe that God did indeed provide, and that He had worked through the man with the farm.”

If such a person made this statement, the argument would be over. I would have nothing further to add. I would shake the man’s hand, thank him for his honesty, and wish him a good life.

Now suppose such a person who identifies as a Christian takes a different position, insisting that it was indeed God who had provided, and that he refused to see any other possibility.

To this person I would say: “You may be right, but you are not honest.”

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Hope for a good and happy life – even in Gaza

WEDNESDAY, 30 APRIL 2025

Goal: A good and happy life, now. And a comfortable retirement in old age – if one makes it that far.

Isn’t that what everyone hopes for?

“Not people in Gaza,” someone will say. “They just hope for peace, and for the bombs to stop.”

Correct, I will answer. For now, they desperately hope every single day for peace and quiet, and for food and medicine and other supplies to reach them. And to be able to start rebuilding their homes and schools and hospitals and other infrastructure.

But what will they wish for if the psychotic-terrorist European colonial project called Israel is finally defeated in its efforts to wipe out Palestinians and steal their land? What will they hope for when their homes and hospitals and schools and mosques and churches are rebuilt?

They will most likely hope for a good and happy life, and a comfortable retirement in old age, if their lives stretch that far.

What I say and what I do

MONDAY, 14 APRIL 2025

If I had to ask myself what my primary goal has been for the past … say, twenty years, I would say it’s to make money. Twenty years ago, I was suddenly no longer alone. A young woman had decided to take a chance on me, and I had to justify her incredibly optimistic hope.

The last thing I want to do is bore the reader again with a list of projects and schemes with which I have attempted to make money over the past two decades. Point is, plenty of the endeavours had nothing to do with gathering knowledge or insight, much less with sharing knowledge and insight with people who might have needed it.

Now, when I teach, I don’t just explain grammar or vocabulary – I use every opportunity I get to inject a little history. Or I try to give a slightly non-cliched opinion when the conversation is about relationships, or other aspects of human existence about which I may have had an intelligent thought in the past. Most of the material I have created so far for ESL students, and the social media material I publish these days, reveal the ambition of the person behind it to share knowledge. (Of course, I assume most people don’t already know what I have to say.)

Other personal projects, like Asian Histories of Listed History, and even Familiegeskiedenis (an Afrikaans site about family history), are not exactly supposed to make money. The ambition has always been more noble-minded.

My primary task – by default, although I don’t think of it that way every day – is to gather knowledge and insight. And when I have managed to obtain another kernel of knowledge or insight, to then share it in a way that is a little different from the next collector of knowledge and insight, in order to hopefully make it somewhat easier for the person receiving the knowledge and insight to lead a happier and more productive life.

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Old, small, powerless, and useless

WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH 2025

I dreamt last night that I had to stand in for a teacher at a high school. I found myself surrounded by hundreds of teenagers.

After a few minutes, I was scammed out of my cell phone. For some reason, I was also persuaded to take off my shoes. The shoes promptly disappeared.

Next thing I was walking around in my socks asking about my cell phone. I said that I needed to contact my family in South Africa, and how could I do that if I didn’t have my phone.

I was ignored, and every now and then laughed at by groups of teenagers standing around everywhere.

After a confusing hour of wandering around among what now felt like thousands of teenagers, someone helped me find my phone. All the phone numbers and WhatsApp messages and so on had been deleted.

I still couldn’t find my shoes.

Two young ladies who were responsible for the disappearance of my phone tried to explain that their lives were not easy either.

Not only did I have no sympathy for them, but I had a strong desire to wish them an early death. (Note that I did not consciously think these thoughts. Nevertheless, the full thought was that I wanted to wish the teenagers not just an early death, but a painful early death.)

I woke up with a headache, thinking: What a nightmare.

The feeling that pressed even after I had lifted my head from the pillow was that I was old, and small, and powerless, and useless.

(Roll the drums for a Grok-created image of a happy, smiling, bald, middle-aged man.)

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