Assorted Notes

TUESDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2019

12:48

I am working on the piece “Poisonous plant in the Garden of your Thoughts” from March 2019:

“But what’s easy, and what’s difficult?” came the question again. I knew it was important to answer because for decades I believed it must be hard to make money, to be successful, to make your dreams come true. It must be a struggle. But how difficult? When has one struggled enough?

“The answer you’re looking for even though you haven’t asked the right question,” emerged the thought from the part of my brain that hadn’t actively been talking out loud in the shower, “is that you’ll never make it. That was your actual programming. The struggle part is just because you have to do something. You have to try. Otherwise, what are you doing with your life?”

I thought: It’s almost as if two cosmic characters have been observing what I do over the years, with one asking the other, “Shouldn’t we just tell him?”

“What?” the other guy asks. “That he’s just a machine executing his programming, that he’s not supposed to make it? No, let’s not. His struggles give him something to do. It gives meaning to his life. What else is he going to do – sit around and watch TV all day, get fat, get sick, and die? The struggle gives him hope. Hope gives him something to live for.”

12:57

“Wow, how much longer do I have to struggle? Why is everything so difficult for me? Why does it seem like I know what to do, but I don’t do it? ” asks a fictional version of me from the not-too-distant past.

One of my cosmic observers suddenly shrugs his shoulders, and looks in the direction of the balcony where the other observer is staring into the distance.

“What?” the fictional version of me asks. “Do you know something I don’t?”

The cosmic observer widens his eyes. His eyebrows go up. His head tilts. “Well …”

“Come on! Out with it!” I prompt.

The observer slowly shakes his head. “I can get in trouble for this,” he begins. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything.”

“But you’re here now, and we’re talking, and the other guy is on the balcony, and I already know you want to say something.”

“Okay,” the observer sighs. “The fact of the matter is that you’re not supposed to make it. Sorry … You’re supposed to struggle all your life, and then you die. It’s your programming.”

“My programming?” asks the fictional version of me from the not-too-distant past shocked. “What does it mean? Everything I do is in vain?”

“Well, not quite. You see … you’re basically a machine that’s only executing your programming. All your efforts and projects and struggles … give you something to fill your days with. I mean, what else would you do? It gives you something to believe in. It gives you hope for a better tomorrow. And it’s better to believe in something and hope for something than to have no hope and faith, is not it?”

“So I’m just a machine that follows my programming, and then I die?”

“Well … it may sound strange, but the truth is more complex. To be honest, it’s much better, and much more hopeful than that. It’s just – and all the cosmic observers agree – that most people just follow their programming, live more or less happy lives – some by nature much happier than others, and then they die. So, you’re like most people in this regard. And you are happy most of the time, aren’t you?”

“But there’s so much more I want to do, so much more of life I want to enjoy, so much more I want to experience. And if I can do it … I know how to explain things to other people so they can also have a better understanding, so that they can also solve more of their own problems, and live better lives, and enable their children to live better lives.”

“Well,” the cosmic observer starts again, “nothing has been determined here. That’s what most people never realise. Most people live their lives without ever realising that they can reprogram themselves. There is no central point or figure in the cosmos that programs everyone, and then they just have to slavishly follow their programming. People program each other. Parents program their children. People in positions of authority program people who look to them for guidance. And so the world goes on. Us cosmic observers just keep an eye on everything. We control nothing. You pull your own strings. Most people just never break through the thin paper wall that stands between them and the fuller life that can be theirs at any time. Believe me, you are not the only person with flawed or problematic programming. I mean, there are people with problematic programming when it comes to romantic relationships, when it comes to alcohol and drugs, when it comes to relationships with people who don’t think or live or believe like them. You don’t want to know how many people die every day as victims of their problematic programming. And I’m not saying it’s always easy, but people can look at their own programming, and they can change what’s not working. People have enormous capacity to transform themselves and live lives that are fuller than they could ever dream of. But most people are, sorry to say, to a large extent machines that most of the time just execute their programming. It doesn’t have to be this way. You have access to the keyboard and the interface to change your programming. Nothing is predetermined. You are in control of your own life.”

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MONDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2019

I don’t care what the skin colour, gender or sexual orientation is of the state president or any national leader, as long as they are competent and have the interests of the republic and its citizens at heart.

I don’t care what the skin colour or sexual orientation of the players of any national sports team is, as long as they are the best players the country can offer.

I don’t care what the skin colour, gender or sexual orientation is of the mayor, or the members of the town or city council, or the representatives of the community in parliament or any other council, as long as they are competent and know what they are doing, and carry the interests of the people they represent at heart.

I also do not care what the skin colour, gender or sexual orientation is of my boss, or manager, or supervisor, as long as he or she is competent, and has the interests of the business, the customers, and the employees at heart.

Lastly, I don’t care what the skin colour, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language or cultural background is of the commercial farmer who supplies the food I buy in the supermarket – as long as they continue to provide food.

After all, what white person would not care if an incompetent, corrupt person is in charge of the national government or the local municipality, or the town or city or province’s water or garbage removal or infrastructure or health services or schools, as long as the person is white? What person in their sanity would want that? Any reasonable person would say: Give the position to the most competent person who will look after the interests of the community, regardless of their skin colour, gender, or sexual orientation.

Why, then, should one be careful when complaining about incompetent people in leadership positions, just because the person you are complaining about is black? Incompetent is incompetent, corrupt is corrupt, dishonest is dishonest, and deceptive is deceptive, no matter if you are white and the person you are complaining about is also white, or if you are black and the person you are complaining about is black.

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MONDAY 7 OCTOBER 2019

It can ultimately be said that Taiwan is and has been my ship for the last more than two decades, like in the movie The Legend of 1900 where the eponymous character lived out his life on an ocean liner.

The main idea is clear from this monologue by “1900”: “Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end. You know there are 88 of them and no-one can tell you differently. They are not infinite; you are infinite. And on those 88 keys the music that you can make is infinite. I like that. That I can live by. But you get me up on that gangway and roll out a keyboard with millions of keys, and that’s the truth, there’s no end to them. That keyboard is infinite. But if that keyboard is infinite there’s no music you can play. You’re sitting on the wrong bench. That’s God’s piano. Christ, did you see the streets? There were thousands of them! How do you choose just one? One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own, one landscape to look at, one way to die. All that world weighing down on you without you knowing where it ends. Aren’t you scared of just breaking apart just thinking about it, the enormity of living in it? I was born on this ship. The world passed me by, but two thousand people at a time. And there were wishes here, but never more than could fit on a ship, between prow and stern. You played out your happiness on a piano that was not infinite. I learned to live that way.”

As early as December 2000 I had written a piece referencing the last sentence of the above quote. I was already struggling with the idea that if the world is your oyster, where do you end? If the possibilities are endless, why stop at one place, one house, one partner and one set of children, at one occupation? How can you justify, when there are so many other possibilities, saying, “It’s okay, I’ve found my place, and the person at whose side I want to be until the end”?

Taiwan is the ship I ultimately stayed on, like the character in the movie. There were times I very nearly got off, but at the last minute decided to stay. And like the character in the film, I also learned to play my happiness on a piano that did not stretch out endlessly with possibilities.

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THURSDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2019

What do you write about?

If you look at stories that have appeared in the last year, you see books on drugs and people hooking up, children who disappear and people hooking up, and small towns and people hooking up; you see stories about poverty, wealth, and the dreams of middle-class people. If you look at storylines from movies that have appeared over the past couple of years, you see superheroes, action heroes, fantasy worlds, dinosaurs, murderous machines, and people hiding in the woods. If you’re interested in non-fiction, themes covered in books that have appeared in the last year include politicians, politicians’ wives, world wars, other wars, religion, ways to improve yourself, ways to make money, and the things you learn when you travel the world. Same with material on the Internet. There are popular websites covering just about any fad, hobby, interest or obsession you can think of.

So what do you write about then?

You still write stories you want to tell, even though similar stories have already appeared. And if you don’t consider yourself much of a storyteller but you feel you have an opinion or two you want to share, you write about matters that are important to you, no matter how many books or articles on the topic have already appeared.

Why? Because your perspective is different from that of the next man or woman. And even if it’s similar, you’ll probably write about it differently, with other examples or case studies, or you’ll describe situations or state your views in other words.

Ultimately, you share yourself with people who share the planet with you, or who will inhabit the planet long after you’ve left Earth for a colony on Mars or a place in the Nothingness. You share with others what you believe, how you see things, how you experience things, what you think of what other people believe, even what you think of stories written by other people, or films made by other people, or political manifestos published by others.

You are not the next person, and your experience of the human condition on planet Earth is to a great extent unique. Write about it – for yourself, for your neighbours, your friends, your family, and for people you will never meet because they will discover your writing fifty years from now in a digital form that will only be developed ten years from now. And just maybe one person finds one thing you said, or the way you explained something, entertaining, or encouraging, or educational.

In short, keep writing.

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WEDNESDAY, 15 MAY 2019

The problem with earning your money with creative work is that you’re either very lucky that people continue to buy your creative work even if you do what you want and in the style you want, or you do end up looking at what’s in demand for the sake of your survival – types of products and styles, and then producing what the market wants to buy – which means you’re not doing free creative work anymore.

So, you’re either very lucky that people keep buying your free creative work, or you’re not so lucky and you end up doing what the market wants, and how they want it. And even if you fall in the lucky category, how long do you expect it to last?

TUESDAY, 28 MAY 2019

01:30

To make money, you only need to know a few important things. Problem is, you need to discover these few things in an ocean of information.

10:02

The problem is therefore not the amount of knowledge or information you need to discover and learn, but to discover a handful of specific snippets among dozens, even hundreds of snippets of information, and to choose between a variety of options, opportunities and possibilities.

THURSDAY, 6 JUNE 2019

A friend of mine who had already been in Taiwan since early 1998 offered to loan me money in October of that year for a plane ticket to Taiwan – in case I wanted to get out of my office job and return to English teaching. If he had offered me money for a plane ticket to any city in Northeast Asia … I might never have left Johannesburg. Fortunately for me the offer and therefore the choice was simple: Taiwan, Kaohsiung – take it or leave it. And just look at how well things worked out.

MONDAY 10 JUNE 2019

00:17

What does success look like? The process that leads to it is boring and monotonous, and you only see the result after months or years of hard, boring, monotonous work.

I always thought it could be seen in one brilliant flash, one day that stands out – and then you know.

I reckon there are many people who have stared success in a career or in an endeavour in the face more than once in their lives, but who have walked away time and again because they didn’t recognize it for what it was: the result of monotonous and boring, repetitive steps, five or six days a week, week in and week out, one year after another.

23:03

I’m reading the piece, “The correct answer, and what to do with my exercise bike”. Couldn’t help to highlight a piece of text: “The problem is that I started cultivating and living the lifestyle here [in Taiwan] that I said back in Korea I wanted to live in South Africa. In other words, I got the lifestyle right; it’s just the environment that is wrong.”

FRIDAY, 14 JUNE 2019

Quote from Onder-Kouga – Bakermat van Gerbers en Ferreiras [Lower Kouga – Cradle of the Gerbers and Ferreiras], by O.J.O Ferreira:

“The philosopher Marthinus Versfeld saw the function of a home like this: ‘Your home places you in the world. It gives you an address, somewhere where you can be addressed. Just as your soul needs your body to place it in the world and keep it warm, so a body requires a home to keep it warm. Therefore, your home is also a kind of flesh and blood from which you accept and build up the world. You go in to go out, and you go out to go in. Where your home stands determines your view, and how it looks inside determines how you will see the world beyond.’”

Seeing it that way makes it no wonder that I settled down in Taiwan. I was almost 28 when I arrived here. I was a soul desperate for a body; a body desperate for a home. My inner conflict stemmed from the desire to find this home in South Africa rather than in Taiwan, where it became more tangible by the day. The conflict was finally resolved when I accepted that I had already found, or created my home in Taiwan.

MONDAY, 17 JUNE 2019

The steps you finally take to receive money are, I believe, quite simple, and could surely even be described as easy. Eventually. But to discover, or to learn, or to work out, exactly what steps to take, when, and how – this I know, is not easy, and not simple.

WEDNESDAY, 19 JUNE 2019

I went to see a movie this afternoon at the Kaohsiung Film Archive. There were three movies to choose from. The showing just after lunch suited me better, so that was the one I chose. I was actually relieved that there weren’t more options. I enjoyed the movie – if you can describe a romantic drama about two sick young people as enjoyable. I was also aware that, had I had more options, I would not have chosen this movie.

* * *

Because it might be a lesson for someone else, three reasons why financial prosperity … let’s just say, has been a struggle for me to achieve:

1. I made assumptions too quickly.

2. I followed my own head too easily instead of following instructions.

3. Difficult to admit because choices are so important in one’s life, but … I had too many options. If someone had said, “We took the liberty to choose on your behalf: this one, or nothing; nothing or this one,” I would have said, “Well, then I choose this one.” Chances are it would have worked out well enough.

THURSDAY, 20 JUNE 2019

Sometimes it feels like every week is like the one that preceded it, as if days and weeks and months flow together as one.

Here’s an alternative wording for this situation: Stay strong and healthy.

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