Assorted Notes

TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2011

Looking back over the last fifteen years (it suddenly doesn’t seem that long), I almost feel like saying: I should never have bothered with trying to make money. It’s obviously not my thing. It’s not what I’m supposed to do …

Of course, I can’t take the whole “what I’m supposed to do” story too far. It would imply Divine Calling, or Cosmic Assignment, and although I do occasionally touch on these themes for literary value, I cannot make them part of a rational argument – or I can, but this piece is not the place for it.

The question that does come to mind when I think of an alternative personal history since 1996 is what would I have written about?

The fact that I had to make money to survive, forced me, uncomfortable as it was, to negotiate with the world, as I have seen the world over the last fifteen years. I had to somehow find my place, or define my place, or scratch out a piece of turf for myself. I had to find out who and what I was – and is – IN THIS WORLD.

I had to do it because I needed money, and nobody offered any for nothing in return. Like most others of my generation and those before me, I had to exhibit my own potential value on the open labour market in the hope that someone would see something they could profit from. If this process failed to produce results in the land of my birth, then I had to look in other places.

To say that this process of making yourself useful for someone with money or become a homeless bum was not what I wanted to spend my time on for the last decade and a half is to merely scratch the surface. But, I had to do it. And this became my story: How I’ve been trying, since my mid-twenties, to negotiate with the so-called establishment. How I’ve been trying, as I wrote in May 1998, to settle my account with the establishment – to have the freedom to choose where, how and on what terms I will have a relationship with this world.

What would I have written about if I had come from an established, “old money” family, if I had the option to retreat to a cottage on the family estate? Would my writing have been any better? Would it have been more interesting? Would it have had more literary value? Would I have produced material with more commercial value?

Who knows? Perhaps it wasn’t, and still isn’t, part of my Cosmic Assignment, or my Divine Calling.

And if there is no assignment, or calling?

Then I still know: I have to write.

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TUESDAY, 21 JUNE 2011

It bothers me silly that I’m almost forty, and I [have very little money]. I remember ten years ago, on my thirtieth birthday, I was more or less broke. I thought: “Wow, thirty and broke.” Next Wednesday I’ll be forty.

To crown everything, I often think I am wasting my time chasing after money while my real task in life is – or perhaps used to be – to write. It is almost as if I have been taking a chance since 2006 to pursue money full-time, with the idea that I can return to my writing at a later stage. Five years on, and I’m starting to panic. For more than one reason.

WEDNESDAY, 22 JUNE 2011

One discovers what other 39/40-year-olds have already realised: The struggle continues.

MONDAY, 27 JUNE 2011

It happened to the hippies of ’69, and with the punks of ’79. It happened to the grunge rockers of the early nineties. It happens to super models, and it happened to a tennis player who won Wimbledon five times in a row in the late seventies and early eighties. It even happened to the teenage queens that Roger Waters sang about in 1992. Everyone gets older. (Except of course if you die young.)

THURSDAY, 28 JUNE 2011

The last day of my thirties. It’s been a long decade. A good one …

I suspect I feel like many other 39-year-olds have felt on the eve of a new decade: Can’t we just get it over and done with? I really just want to get on with the rest of my life.

What does it mean in any case to turn forty? Is there a universal meaning that applies to everyone who wonders about their lives on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of their entry into life?

What does it mean to me that I am forty years old tomorrow? What would it mean tomorrow to say I’m forty years old today?

I am alive.

I am grateful for that.

I love someone, and for this I am very grateful.

The same person loves me. I am particularly grateful for that.

I still believe in things. I still believe in my own potential. I still believe in my dreams.

And for this I am grateful.

The struggle continues – to be who and what I can be. And for that to be good.

SATURDAY, 2 JULY 2011

Whilst working up some anxiety about all the things I have to get done before I hit fifty, I crossed another obscure milestone: Fifteen years (and two days) ago I arrived in Northeast Asia.

I had turned 25 the previous day.

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FRIDAY, 10 JUNE 2011

A scourge has been haunting public debate in recent months – on TV, on the internet, on radio, and on other media. This scourge can only be described in one way: false intellectuals.

These people will never make themselves vulnerable in public debates by playing according to the rules of intellectual discourse. Verifiable facts are rarely mentioned during their performances. Self-confidence and tone of voice are used as weapons to “win” the argument – or to at least create the impression that this is the case.

These people contribute nothing to the conversation. Or rather, what they do sometimes contribute is completely overwhelmed by their unsubstantiated allegations, criticism that is not supported by a reasonable, well laid-out argument, and statements that bear little or no semblance to reality – statements made merely for entertainment value, to get applause from their fans.

False intellectuals are indeed the enemy of intelligent discourse.

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THURSDAY, 19 MAY 2011

My bicycle’s inner tube exploded on the way home last night, so this morning I had to push the bike to my old neighbourhood where my “office” is located. When I arrived at the bicycle repair shop near my old apartment, it was closed. Two hours later when I checked again, it was still closed. So, I had to walk to school this afternoon. And back. On my way back, I walked past the shop – which had finally opened its doors. Ten minutes later I was there with my bicycle and the busted inner tube.

“NT$450,” the owner tried to rob me when I asked him how much it would cost to replace the inner tube.

Seconds later, I was pushing my bike back to my office, and soon afterwards I again walked the two kilometres back home. In my sandals.

Two insights:

1. It’s a sad truth that not every dark cloud has a silver lining. But if you don’t see the silver lining because of your attitude, ask yourself: Is my problem terminal, or can I do something about it?

2. “Every man has his price, Bob, and yours was pretty low,” sings Roger Waters. So every person has their limit where they say: “I can’t go any further. I can’t do it anymore …”

Question: Where is your limit?

Perhaps your bitter experience is over in five minutes, or in two days, or in a week. Are you going to look back, when it’s over, and say: “Damn, I shouldn’t have given up so soon … I really wish I hadn’t started moaning and complaining so hard at that point already …”

Near the end of my hike this afternoon my legs were stiff, and tiny little pebbles had gotten stuck in my sandals as I shuffled along the sidewalk. I thought of soldiers who had to march miles in miserable conditions, just to lie down in a ditch the next morning and shoot at other soldiers who had also hiked a long way to get there.

That’s when I thought of the Roger Waters lyrics: “Every man has his price … and yours was pretty low.”

I realised if I had started moaning at that point, it would have been my limit. And it would have been pretty damn low.

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FRIDAY, 29 APRIL 2011

An Internet marketer whose advice I occasionally follow writes in the article, “Sheena was a man”*, why most people who try to “Internet market” fail. I knew I was the target audience.

She also refers to Merlin Mann’s excellent article, “Cranking”, and a good article by Ed Dale entitled, “Burn the ships and Hail Mary’s”*.

After a few minutes I came to the realisation that what I am also doing, with my commercial projects that are supposed to be generating income, is “cranking” – like Merlin Mann’s mother that constantly cranked her husband’s hospital bed in a hopeless attempt to make him a little more comfortable. I’m constantly learning, constantly messing things up, constantly motivating myself to keep going. My efforts fall flat at regular intervals, and every time I have to pull myself up by the collar.

I know why I do these things. I have to make money, because it’s unfair to expect of my partner to cover most of our household expenses, and for her to ride out to a business day after day to do a job for which she has long lost any motivation. I have to make money for myself, for a better life, and to ensure that the woman I love doesn’t suffer because of me.

Yet, again, I cannot fail to see the difference between what I call “business” and my writing projects. With the latter, it’s like getting into a car that stands idle for months at a time gathering dust under a tree. I’ll shoo away the pigeons that have nested on the roof, lift the dog from the driver’s seat, turn the key … and a second later the car will pull away like a recently overhauled seventies model sports car, tyres screeching. I don’t need pep talks to motivate myself. I don’t need to read informative articles about what I do wrong, and what I should do to get back on track. I don’t need to crank anything up.

I constantly tweak my material; I never crank. I waste little time with my writing projects. I know where I’m heading. I see in my mind’s eye the end result, and I pursue this vision. I don’t get to a point where I’m unsure of what I should do next. I don’t lose my way.

The reality, however, is that I have to make money. I have to make money not for status or luxury, but to better take care of myself. I have to make money to provide assistance to my partner’s attempts to bring about a better life for herself.

Because I need to make money for the right reasons, I’m compelled to occasionally learn what I do wrong, and to constantly try to better my efforts.

The hope, in the end, is that I’m not merely making cosmetic changes to what at times appears to be a rather hopeless situation.

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* These articles are not available online anymore.

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