Assorted Notes

SATURDAY, 18 AUGUST 2012

That is the advantage of someone else reading your material for once: they comment on it, which gives you an opportunity to add a thought or two to the original idea.

So it happened that a good friend recently sent me an e-mail about a piece I wrote in 1998 entitled, “Story of two travellers”. The “story” was about one “traveller” at a crossroads, unable to decide what direction to take, who then sits down on a rock near the crossroads – from where he then observes over the next few months (or years) other people making decisions, making mistakes, and generally getting on with their lives, while he continues thinking about what to do. One day another traveller arrives at the crossroads, sits down on his haunches, looks this way and that, sniffs the air, gets up and starts walking, apparently convinced that he is taking the right path. A conversation then follows shortly after between the “walker” and the “sitter”.

Eventually, my opinion was that the guy who had been sitting on the rock for so long had to stop thinking and taking notes, and move his arse. He had to decide on a direction even though he could not be sure how it would work out, and dedicate himself to that path.

My friend had more sympathy, to some extent, with the guy on the rock. She sees him as someone who chooses not to participate until he is sure where he wants to go. She likes his willingness to say: “Wait a minute. I’d like to think about it first.”

When I wrote the text in Korea, in March 1998, I was feeling very frustrated with myself. I had been making plans for months at that stage, and I still had no clue what I was going to do next. I was the guy on the rock, but I wanted to be the other guy – the one who sniffed the air, threw a handful of dirt into the air, and then walked off into the sunset.

My friend suggested that I write a follow-up that will describe what happened later in the “story”. This reminded me of the fact that eight months after I had left Korea, I was back at the crossroads (January 1999), again making myself comfortable on the rock by the side of the road, thinking: “I know where I want to be. I just don’t know what road to take to get there. And I don’t want to waste time by just rushing off in some direction, and possibly realising too late that the road is taking me further away from where I want to be.”

Then I realised: Maybe the rock is my place in the bigger scheme of things. The rock, at the crossroads, is perhaps where I was supposed to end up. Maybe this is where I belong. Maybe I did choose a road, walked it, and it led back to the crossroads. Back to the rock.

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SATURDAY, 11 AUGUST 2012

RESULT is what matters. And RESULT does not only refer to the calculations that are made the day after your passing; it also refers to the outcome of every task you attempt to fulfil, every undertaking, every project you take on.

PROCESS precedes RESULT. PROCESS is either conducive to good RESULT, or it is not conducive to it.

IDENTITY is what enables you to function as a human being during the historical period when your existence plays out, and in the place where you were born and raised, or where you find yourself as an adult. Your IDENTITY is good enough if it enables you to survive, and if it enables you to pursue good RESULT.

HAPPINESS is one of the conditions that make PROCESS worth the effort.

BEING HAPPY makes it more likely – although there are exceptions – that the PROCESS will lead to good RESULT.

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Preceding thought:

This week I started moving my workspace to a home about fifty metres from my old apartment. The new place – actually only two empty rooms on the second floor of a house where the couple who owns the place overnights once every two months or so when they have business in the city – is okay, but not perfect.

“The result of the process is ultimately what is important,” I thought to myself on my way back home earlier tonight, “and the new place is good enough to at least not undermine the process.”

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SUNDAY, 29 JULY 2012

I am sure I have previously made a similar statement on Facebook – or to total strangers on Twitter, but here it is again: My personal 1972 playlist kicks dust in the eyes of anything that anyone else can conjure up on their iPod.

Okay, that’s a little childish. In the first place, it creates the false impression that I own an iPod, and in the second place I, myself, can think of quite a few other good years in terms of popular music – and that’s just between the years 1960 and 2010.

Nevertheless, what makes 1972 so special? Cat Stevens, Elton John, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, Carly Simon, and to close the list, memorable contributions from Johnny Nash (“I Can See Clearly Now”), Bill Withers (“Lean On Me”), Al Green (“Let’s Stay Together”), Stealers Wheel (“Stuck In The Middle With You”), and one of the first tunes that caused me to sit up straight in the back seat of our green Datsun, Hot Butter’s “Popcorn”.

And the icing on the rich chocolate and vanilla cake of 1972? The fact that it seamlessly passes over into 1973 – more Pink Floyd, more Elton John, more David Bowie, and then Springsteen, Tom Waits, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gladys Knight & The Pips, ZZ Top, and a song that will always remind me of my father, “My Friend the Wind” by the Greek vocalist, Demis Roussos.

Thank goodness for music.

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MUZORIAN: 1972 from MUZORIAN on 8tracks.

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SATURDAY, 28 JULY 2012

Damn … sixteen before midnight.

The word “hate” is strong, so let’s just say this is not my favourite time of the day. I am tired … and my eyelids are about to give in. But inside my head there’s still a stirring of things that can be done, things that need to be done, things that will be fun and interesting to do.

In my mind’s eye, I see a bazaar, or a night market in Taiwan. You hear hundreds of people, food thrown on hot plates, sausages and pancakes and fried chicken and samosas being prepared for people waiting hungrily at plastic tables. You know it’s there, but you are not.

That’s how it is, for me, late at night.

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TUESDAY, 24 JULY 2012

Spending money is not something that makes me particularly happy. I know having money to spend on the odd luxury is in theory important for happiness. In practice, though, I have conjured up a lot of personal happiness for months on end without having money to spend on things I did not absolutely need. I can sacrifice personal comfort, better clothes, a bicycle that does not creak when I ride on it and that doesn’t have to be left standing against a telephone pole, even to an extent my health. And I have already sacrificed a lot, just so I can work on my own projects during the best hours of every day.

Yet, for more than five years I worked six, and regularly seven days a week on my own projects – without the accompanying happiness I expected from it. Why so? Virtually all my projects over that period were about making money. Everything was about selling or marketing stuff to people. I did that because I wanted to create a better life for my partner and me. Week in and week out I told her, just wait a little longer, the money will start coming in soon. For more than five years I kept reciting this line over and over, I kept predicting, kept explaining: Just wait a little while longer.

I know writing makes me happy. I also believe writing is part of a higher level of existence for me. I can even believe I serve a higher purpose when I write – especially when I write about certain topics. In the more than five years that I spent almost all my time trying to make more money, for the most part, I relegated my writing to the background. It deprived me of the happiness that was always the result of the writing process. It deprived me of the belief that I was living on a higher level than when I only struggle for survival.

February last year [2011] I decided, or realised, I couldn’t take life for granted anymore. Life ends every day for a multitude of people who were still thinking about doing what truly made them happy. So, starting last February, I have again been spending time on my writing almost every day. And again I have been experiencing the happiness that I knew would be the result.

But it remains hanging like a millstone around my neck, like a scandalous letter against my chest: I don’t make enough money.

Which means my partner – the woman I love – has to work harder to make money.

Which means I am happy at her expense.

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