Assorted Notes

TUESDAY, 6 MARCH 2012

Reading through my July 2004 notes about the SELF reminds me that the concept of the “person” is difficult to capture.

Physically, a person is a collection of cells (more than ten trillion of them), which in turn consists of protein and nucleic acids and other biomolecules, which in turn consist of smaller parts called atoms, which consist of subatomic particles. Most of the cells that make up a human being, which form hair and skin, and nails and blood and a skeleton, are replaced at varying speeds – from every few days to every few years. Physically, a meaningful percentage of you is not really older than a few years. You are to a large extent not the same collection of cells you were ten years ago!

If you think the physical nature of humans is hard to capture, the psychic nature of humans will make you want to hold onto something even more. How exactly does memory work? How do you know who you are? How does personality take shape, and how does it change? How do you make choices? How do you decide on your preferences and your dislikes? Why do you like certain things or certain people or places, and hate other things or places, and avoid certain people like the plague? How much do you actually decide, and how much do you discover? To what extent is so-called free will an illusion?

WEDNESDAY, 7 MARCH 2012

Possibilities for the source of the SELF:

Possibility one: Within a few moments after the child is born a “wind” blows through the room. The new-born’s consciousness of self is, as it were, activated shortly after that. In this case, it would make sense to ask, “Who or what caused it?” It would also make sense that one would want to seek answers, or at least clues, about the purpose and meaning of your existence from this consciousness activator (or Consciousness Activator).

Possibility two: It is a slow process that occurs in small increments: initially nothing, or almost nothing; later one could say “somewhere between March and June” the child developed an awareness of himself. It might explain why new-born babies cause such a ruckus. If they knew the words, they would probably scream: “What the hell?! … was part of something one moment … and the next moment … What is going on here? What am I?!” In this case, there is no dramatic moment in which consciousness is activated, so there is nobody or nothing to try to contact for answers.

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SATURDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2012

It’s late afternoon, and I am heading home on the subway. In the window opposite me, I see the reflection of a young woman, two seats away from me. I notice that she has a giant pink roller stuck to her forehead, held in place by a lock of hair curled around it.

One possibility, it shoots through my mind, is that she’s a fashion slave. A year ago, walking around with a gigantic pink roller stuck to your forehead was considered ridiculous by most of society, including fashion junkies. Then, out of the blue, an authority figure in the fashion world pitched up at a fashion show with one stuck to her forehead, and since then every disciple of the authority figure worth his or her salt has been slavishly following the trend.

If that is the case, if the young woman is indeed a slave to everything that is fashionable, my opinion of her cannot rise above zero because she is clearly not someone who thinks for herself.

(I also wonder who determines what is ridiculous and what is not. I squeeze a piece of cloth over my bare scalp every day and call it a cap. Is that not ridiculous?)

The second possibility, I imagine, is that she is the one who has started the fashion trend – or is in the process of doing so. This means she does not look at the arbitrary, ridiculous things other people do and then follow them to a tee because the person is seen as a figure of authority.

If so, my view of her would rise significantly. She would then clearly be manifesting that she is someone who thinks for herself and who makes her own decisions, and then appears in public in a way she believes in and that she finds good – even if others see it as ridiculous, for now.

As we are nearing Formosa station, I take one last look in the direction of my potentially interesting fellow passenger. I see the hair roller is gone. Apparently, it merely served a practical purpose.

Half a minute later, she moves closer to the door, and I get my first decent look at her – just for a moment, because when the doors open, she pushes slightly past another passenger. Within seconds, she has disappeared into the stream of people, with her fringe now cheekily arching away from her forehead.

Note to myself: Making assumptions about people before you know the whole story may not be terribly smart, but at least it’s better than staring at your own reflection in the subway train’s window.

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WEDNESDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2012

One of the few popular sayings I hold as a universal truth is that one should never give up. I’ve believed in this for many years, and I recite it to myself on such a regular basis that it could almost qualify as religious incantation. Everyone I respect who has anything to say about life confirms this: You do not give up. You should never, ever give up. If you give up, it’s over. You put posters on your walls that remind you of this. You buy T-shirts with wording that confirms this. You forward links to videos with this message, and you share stories on Facebook so that friends and family never forget. If necessary, you write it with a black marker on the soles of your sneakers: “Never give up.”

The giving up to which these sayings refer is the fatal type, the existential type. It refers to a decision to stop taking action; you’re done with everything, done with trying.

Yet, despite the vital conviction you keep so close to your heart, occasionally you do come to a point where you don’t have much of a choice. Difference, though, what you give up on is not life, and it doesn’t mean you will never try again.

Sometimes you have to give up on things that do not work anymore, or things that have never really worked. Sometimes people give up on a relationship, or a marriage. Sometimes, after trying for years to hang on at a company because heaven knows you needed the money, you give up. You quit. You wipe your hands of something you gave your best to make work.

And sometimes you let go of the steering wheel of projects you have driven over a thousand rocky roads. You let go of the wheel, you unbuckle your seatbelt, and you jump out of the car before it comes to a crashing halt at the base of a wall, or before it shoots off the edge of a cliff.

Because sometimes you have to give up to survive.

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WEDNESDAY, 3 AUGUST 2011

There is not enough for everyone in South Africa – not enough nutritious food, not enough cash for everyone to have some money in the bank, not enough homes for everyone to sleep safely and warmly, not enough clothes for everyone to feel good about how they appear in public, not enough jobs for everyone to earn a decent income, not enough hospital beds for all the sick and injured, and not enough well-equipped classrooms for all the children to get a good education. A hundred years ago, there was not enough for the British and the Afrikaners, or the Boers. Fifty years ago there was not enough for the whites AND all of those who were not white. And today there is not enough for ALL the people who suffered under the previous dispensation.

So, if you made money during the previous era – regardless of race, and you managed to hold on to it, you’re in. So too if you’ve built up the right business and political connections over the last fifteen to twenty years and the cash is flowing uncontrollably into your bank accounts. You have clearly done the right things, and/or knew the right people – you, too, are in.

For the rest, white and poor in a squatter caravan park, black and poor in squatter camps or in hamlets somewhere in the countryside, and all other colours that are not white or black but still poor, there is simply NOT ENOUGH.

There will be talk. Bandages will be applied to broken bones. But at the end of the day, this reality remains: There is simply not enough for everyone. (Or is there?)

THURSDAY, 29 DECEMBER 2011

I get that there isn’t enough for everyone. But that’s not the only problem. Even if you manage a more just distribution of resources, a portion of the populace will end up squandering resources and opportunities, due to lack of training and education, or will, or talent, or a combination of these.

Then there’ll be some people who will be more industrious, more resourceful. These people will, within a generation or two, be at the pinnacle of society, as both rulers and prime beneficiaries of opportunities.

One or two generations later, the descendants of those who had performed less well will protest injustice, and will ready their protest banners in a call for a more just society, for a more equal distribution of resources.

Counter-argument: Do the lazy, talentless and unimaginative offspring of successful earlier generations deserve better education and opportunities than the hard-working, talented, and industrious offspring of less successful earlier generations?

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