Assorted Notes

FRIDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2012

As a child, you don’t automatically know how to play chess. You don’t know how to ride a bike, or how to do ballet or play football. You don’t know how to use a computer. You don’t even know how to read or write until you’re taught how.

As a child, you almost never wavered when it came to something new you had to master. You just did what you were told. You kept trying, and after a few months or a few years you could play chess, ride a bike, play football, or do ballet. You learned to read and write, and eventually you learned how to use a computer.

Why then, as adults, do so many people doubt their ability to learn something new?

“I don’t know how,” the man or woman will mutter.

“I’m too old to learn something new,” the thirty or forty or fifty-year-old man or woman will say.

“No, good grief! There’s no chance that I’ll be able to do that!” one person will opine, safe in the knowledge that at least a handful of other adults in the area will support them in their belief that they are unable to do something.

Can you imagine if children suffered from the same malady?

“Oh no, Daddy, that bicycle is so big. I’m going to fall off and hurt my toe,” little Johnny might say, and then he’ll walk away and go sit under a tree.

“Those dances look so difficult, Mommy! I can’t do them!” little Joanna might say, and then refuse to get out of the car at the ballet class.

“Chess seems so complicated …”

“I don’t know how to draw those curls and lines like the other boys and girls in class …”

“You know I’m afraid of mice, and the computer always makes such funny noises …”

The end of civilisation as we know it. The beginning of Zombieland.

“If you think you can do something, or if you think you cannot do something, you’re right,” Henry Ford advised.

What I want to know is what kind of example do people think they set for the next generation if, at the age of 25 or 40 or 50, they stop believing they can master anything new.

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TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2012

In 1998 I had a few plans that didn’t quite work out. I wanted my own place of residence, even if it were only a small apartment. I wanted to earn a regular income, even if it weren’t a fortune. I wanted a car, even if it were a piece of junk. I did not want to pack my bags and go abroad again. I did not want to return to English teaching. And I did not have a burning desire to come to Taiwan.

Taiwan ultimately worked out much better than I could ever have imagined – partly the result of my own decisions, and actions I have taken; partly luck. However, it is important that you sometimes remind yourself that at some stage you did have other plans, even if those plans would probably have led to a dead end.

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FRIDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2012

I always find it fascinating: the embarrassment of not being busy with something that is supposed to make money, when it is expected of you, or when you yourself expected to engage in such an activity.

I had a busy morning. I took laundry to the laundromat, did some print work at the 7-Eleven, continued my preparation for a private class tonight, and by noon started getting ready for a meeting at a school. I knew that when I got back from the meeting, I had to finish my preparations for tonight’s class, get something for dinner, and then after dinner leave for my last commercial activity of the day.

Just before the meeting, I saw that I had missed a call. A two-minute conversation enlightened me to the fact that the private student I was supposed to teach tonight is still in Taipei, and that the class is thus cancelled.

By three-thirty, N. and I were back from our meeting (we teach at the same school). We stopped at the 7-Eleven at our apartment building so that she could buy something to eat, before heading off to another school to teach there for a few hours. I wished her a pleasant remainder of the afternoon, reminded her to drive safely and to eat something proper for dinner, then turned towards our apartment building. It was a rainy, chilly Friday afternoon. My “work” for the day was done. And I felt guilty. And ashamed.

Could it be that I have not yet advanced further than the robot-like programming of the materialistic world? After all these years of weighing up values, is it still appropriate to feel ashamed just because I am staring a final few hours of a “work week” in the face in which I won’t fulfil any visibly commercial role? Where – can you imagine? – I might just take it easy?

Why do some people manage not to think twice about it? They get a Friday afternoon off, give an unashamed whoop of relief, and rush home. Why is it that I feel ashamed about something like this, even though I know I am most likely still going to work on something else?

The answer is boring. The answer has shown its face too many times.

Most of the work I keep myself busy with has little or no commercial value, or has yet to bear fruit of any material significance. In a materialistic world where your personal value is determined by how much commercial value you create, or how much commercial value you carry in your handbag or wallet, even the lone-working entrepreneur and writer of non-commercial material occasionally then buckles before the temptation to show the world that he, too, is “busy”. “Look everyone! I’m not just sitting at my computer all day writing, and working on internet projects and things like that! I also go out sometimes and do things primarily for the money, like other people!”

And what happens when you miss an opportunity to do something primarily for monetary gain when it was expected of you, and when you anticipated having this opportunity? The old programming kicks in – as if you have never even tried to think differently about it.

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SATURDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2012

When someone asks my advice on career, work or ways to make money – or when I give it on my own accord, I always base my opinion on a certain model that I have in my head. This model says: don’t put too much weight on what will give you higher status in the community; think twice before you insist on trying to make money with something you’re passionate about – there’s not necessarily a market for it, and even if there is, you might find after a few years of commercial activity that you’re not that passionate about it anymore; do not commit yourself to a career or a commercial activity where you will do the same thing over and over and over again, Monday to Friday, until someone finally taps you on the shoulder and says, “Stop! You’re 65. Retire, for crying out loud!”

I believe this model makes sense, and have thought so for a long time. I can therefore never understand when someone hears my well-meaning advice, and then do the exact opposite.

But there’s something I tend to forget.

In many cases, people get something back when they follow their own instinct and consider status in the community, when they go for something they have always had a passion for, and when they choose a profession or business where they will do the same thing over and over, ad nauseam. They establish a regular stream of income that puts food on the table and pays the rent. They develop a relationship with other people in the community. They become part of something. They will tell me: “You know what? It’s true that sometimes the work is boring, but we like what we get back at the end of the day and at the end of the month. What we get for our labour, not only money but also the connection and sometimes friendship with people we work with, make up for the things we don’t like. We simply endure the less pleasant aspects of our labour.”

My model works for the individual who wants to be left alone, for the person who doesn’t want to compromise his passion with commercial packaging, and who definitely does not want to do the same boring job every day, over and over until he goes out of his mind. My model works for the person who is not concerned on a daily basis with keeping a family alive, who doesn’t want to endure tedious and boring work.

So, am I wrong?

No. I just don’t always take into account what works for other people, what other people want, and what they’re willing to give up for what they get in return.

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SATURDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2012

Here is my cursory opinion on “creation”, evolution, and “intelligent design”. Like any reasonable opinion, it is open to debate and counter-arguments.

I don’t believe the development of life on Earth was a series of random events. I believe there was some form of intelligence behind the earliest forms of life.

I further believe the creation mythology propagated by institutionalised religions serves the same purpose as it did two and three and four thousand years ago. Something that can form part of people’s integrated world views must explain the origin of life. The creation story provides followers of these religions with exactly that.

Nevertheless, I believe it is highly unlikely that life forms developed without … some form of intelligence.

Finally, I believe even the efforts of learned people to explain the development of early life forms is comparable to the type of conversation that Org the Cave Man might have had with his cousin about the sun and the stars 10,000 years ago. Even if Org and his cousin had command of adequate vocabulary, the data available to them was incomplete – to put it academically.

Of course, as it is with more things than many people are willing to admit, language plays a crucial role in this matter. What exactly do people mean when they say “intelligence” or “intelligent”? What do people mean by “design”? And what exactly is meant by “random event”?

The good news? There is a strong possibility that we’ll develop a better understanding of things in the next couple hundred years – as long as our minds remain open, and the conversation is kept going.

Read more:

Intelligent Design Creationism: Fraudulent Science, Bad Philosophy.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: 6 Bones of Contention

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