Assorted Notes

WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2011

Why am I not making money with my writing? Why do I hardly ever think about it? And why is it that it can almost be considered a “stupid” question?

One of the main lessons I have learned about marketing and entrepreneurial ventures is the following: to be successful, the entrepreneur identifies a group of people who are either keen to move away from something (like being overweight), or eager to move to a certain point (for example, to improve a golf handicap). A further requirement is that this group of people should be willing to pay to get what they want, or to go where they want to be. The idea is for the entrepreneur to think of a way to assist these people to get away from the bad, or to feed their need; or for the marketer to identify a product that will make it possible, and to then convince the right people to purchase this product.

How do my writing projects fit into this understanding? Who would be my market? What demographic target group will I set my sights on? How aggressive should I market my “product” as the “solution” to their problems or aspirations?

The fact of the matter is that I am uncomfortable thinking of my notes on identity, on the struggle to find sense and possibly meaning in life, and on finding my place in the world as a product. I am okay with ultimately publishing selections of my material in print or electronic form and slapping a price on it. I am not okay with thinking of it as a product, similar to a guide that teaches you how to improve your tennis serve, or how to lose weight (important as these things may be).

But I still need to answer the question. Is there any way I can produce material that has commercial value? Are there topics I can write about that will draw the attention of a larger market? Is it possible that I can write for a market willing to pay for what I produce?

At one point I had the idea of doing something that has nothing to do with literature that will give me rent and food money, and then to spend the rest of my time on the free expression of my experience of reality, free of the contamination that comes with concern about whether the agents of commercial value will find acceptable what I write.

To some extent this is what I do by earning my bread and butter as an English teacher.

Still, I think the time is ripe to at least contemplate again whether or not I can make a living as a writer. Can I keep myself alive if my earthly existence depended on what I write?

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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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