Assorted Notes

TUESDAY, 1 MAY 2007

A few weeks ago, I noted how vulnerable we all are (“All of us,” I said), and that the only reason we are not completely … ruined is because we find in each other comfort and protection.

Then, on Monday, 16 April 2007 a 23-year-old student in America took two pistols from his drawer, loaded them with bullets, put on his “uniform”, pointed the pistols in the direction of more than sixty people, and pulled the trigger again and again. Easiest thing in the world. Thirty-two people died.

The shooter wasn’t strong. He wasn’t exceptionally intelligent. He wasn’t rich. What he was able to do was to buy two pistols with a credit card, point the loaded pistols in the direction of students and lecturers trapped in their classrooms, and pull the trigger. Thirty-two lives ended, and 32 families are plunged into grief.

We are vulnerable, all right.

Fact is, we all have dark impulses. We all have the ability to kill, and to destroy, and to harm. To find reason not to kill, to find reason not to destroy, and to find reason not to harm, is ultimately our only hope.

* * *

For some people identity becomes a crisis when they realise they have multiple choices, options, and possibilities.

THURSDAY, 3 MAY 2007

Thursday or Monday or Friday, 13 or 5 or 10 April or September or May.

There was the thought about choices and identity. Then the other night I drove past my old neighbourhood and thought: “I lived there.” And then the disconnect: I lived there?

I-now am in terms of responsibility under the law still the same person as the one who lived in that neighbourhood four years ago, the same person who lived in Korea ten years ago, and the same person who arrived with R100 in my pocket in Stellenbosch sixteen years ago. In terms of spiritual and intellectual growth, I-now am however only related to the person who did X, Y and Z, or who lived in A, B or C; a direct descendant, if you want to be more specific.

MONDAY, 21 MAY 2007

“You know how it is: the dust settles, you settle in, and one day you open your eyes and ten years have gone by. That’s how you end up in a place like this.” ~ thought inspired by a dilapidated house in my old neighbourhood

TUESDAY, 22 MAY 2007

A few days ago I talked with [someone close to me], and she told me how bad things are going – money, property on the market, second child on the way, husband that can’t handle stress. I realised I couldn’t really identify with her problems, and because I couldn’t identify, my options for encouragement and advice were limited: “Hang in there!” isn’t always appropriate.

What can you say? If you say one thing, the other person says something else that undermines the relevance of your advice or the effectiveness of your encouragement. So you find yourself in a position where you are looking for something that cannot be argued with, something that does not depend on something else to happen first for the advice or encouragement to be valid. Hang in there … for what? Because things will change? If they don’t change, “Hang in there!” sounds pretty hollow.

“Fight for the fighting spirit,” I suddenly declared, the conviction back in my voice, “for the sake of fighting for the fighting spirit! On that I won’t compromise.”

Why? It is absolute. It does not depend on anything else like better days around the corner to make it valid. It is valid because the alternative is unthinkable. If you do not fight for the Fighting Spirit, the Fighting Spirit will die. And if that happens, you will never live again.

Even if better times really are just around the corner.

FRIDAY, 25 MAY 2007

Natasja is coming back tomorrow, so I am trying to clean up my apartment – specifically the disorder I call my storeroom. It was here where I recently discovered a hot plate, a book bag that has never been used – and my current one is seriously frayed, and a packet of printed papers dating back to a series of classes I did in July and August 2005.

Between the usual boring lists, vocabulary, sentence constructions and dialogues, the following note dating from Tuesday, 2 August 2005: “From the moment you open your eyes in the morning to the moment they shut late at night you are engaged in a struggle for survival – and for happiness, to make the survival worth it.”

______________________

SUNDAY, 18 MARCH 2007

22:27

Beep-beep, beep-beep. Here is the news at 22:28.

Brand Smit, writer of yesteryear, still under house arrest after the shocking and unexpected return to a position of power of the Commercial Dictator  a year ago, has come to the following realisation: After eight years in Taiwan, and two years of true love, he is indeed still in exile.

“I have been in this place for eight years,” he announced to his beloved a few minutes ago, “and two of those years have been with you, my true love. If I still cannot call this place my home, when will I?”

“Where is your home then?” his beloved was on the verge of asking when he pre-empted her. “In no way do I mean to say that South Africa is my home!

“No,” he continued, “I am still in exile because I have no money.”

And as he rubbed his thumb against his crooked index finger, he announced solemnly, “My exile has nothing to do with place; it has to do with ability. I am in exile because I have failed.”

22:45

HOME is not necessarily a single geographical place. HOME is where you have the ability to do what you want. HOME – is where you are free.

MONDAY, 26 MARCH 2007

Last weekend, just before I fell asleep one night, the idea of rebirth struck again. And I know: as the current incarnation of BRAND SMIT is slowly dying, so the next, stronger incarnation is growing.

Sunday I thought back to my July 2003 holiday in South Africa, and how I had felt about my life at that time. I read Natasja a few pages from “Exile 14” – including text about the rebirth that had taken place in the first half of 2003. I realised that there was something about that time that is absent now. The only possibility: “Personal Agenda”.

Then it hit me: focal point of identity.

From March 2003 until the beginning of last year, “Personal Agenda” and other literary projects were the axis around which my identity revolved. I was a writer, and I could show what I meant.

Who and what am I now if daily activities are an indication of identity? I am an entrepreneur – without money; and I am a master of projects – who can’t seem to finish anything he works on.

SATURDAY, 31 MARCH 2007

It is simply amazing: Reality is always ZERO. Things will change, your life will improve, sometimes by leaps and bounds, but the next day your reality is still ZERO.

You will protest and say, “How can it still be ZERO after what happened yesterday, or with this new technology that I have acquired that will make my life so much easier?”

The fact is, things that change get absorbed; the circle closes, and the New Reality becomes the New ZERO. As if things have always been like that.

THURSDAY, 5 APRIL 2007

An idea hit me a few days ago: Everyone is vulnerable. Everyone. There is not a single soul on this planet who is not vulnerable in some way, at some or other time.

This may compel one to recognise that we are all in trouble – or in slightly alternative wording, that we are all fucked. Is it not so?

Only one possibility remains: to look out for each other.

MONDAY, 9 APRIL 2007

Has to make money, don’t want to do nine-to-five, don’t want to call anyone “Boss”, don’t want to be bored or stuck in a place with rules that dictate when you may go outside. Has written much, but doesn’t want to submit material for commercial approval, or make changes to material for the sake of commercial acceptability.

Until recently I thought I was in trouble, and then I discovered that you can do more on the Internet than just e-mail and search for information.

[Two undated notes from later in 2007]

Says one guy: Multiple sources of income are all fair and well, but if you give people looking for opportunities to make money on the Internet too many options, they will choose not to decide.

* * *

It would always have been a dangerous combination: dozens of possibilities and my strong inclination towards excessive ambition. This combination struck in February 2006.

THURSDAY, 12 APRIL 2007

1. Thirteen years ago I wanted to be a hermit.

2. An aversion to any conventional position of employment is virtually a characteristic of my personality.

3. Three years ago I wrote a lot about non-appearance (“Desert or City?”)

4. I feel drained, and wonder if it’s time for my annual “Big Fatigue”.

5. Tuesday on the train the idea of retirement hit me as an ultimate ideal.

The pattern is clear enough. But in the meantime I have to survive.

______________________

MONDAY, 29 JANUARY 2007

In the last hour, I had a vision of myself suddenly old, five or so years from now. Tired, not in the mood anymore for messing around or struggling; sitting in a chair, enjoying the view, blanket covering my legs.

I say, if someone looks at my life right now, it may seem peaceful, but a war is raging. And the fact that I am busy winning doesn’t mean it’s getting easier.

MONDAY, 26 FEBRUARY 2007

Natasja G.: Inner strength, and a strong sense of doing the right thing, doing things right, and taking pride in what she does.

TUESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2007

A substantial change takes place in a person’s life, and the earth keeps turning without missing a beat. You want to scream, “Hold the ball! Sun, give me a second! Everybody just hang on – I just have a think a while …”

Unfortunately, this is how it happens: breakfast, lunch, dinner, TV, bedtime, breakfast, massive change, lunch, dinner, TV, bedtime, morning, food, TV, night, sleep, breakfast …

SUNDAY, 11 MARCH 2007

“Says who?” and “Who are you?” – the building blocks of my personal ideology.

TUESDAY, 13 MARCH 2007

At times I feel like saying, “Go lie down! Sleep until two o’ clock and watch TV the rest of the day! Assume that you will forever throw obstacles in your own way! Confess! Admit that you’ve failed!”

Then I think of something else – and I cannot but say, “Keep your perspective. My success six months from now and two years from now, and ten years from now will always be rooted in the past twelve months, and the number of years that gave birth to the last twelve months.”

* * *

So time passes. I get up. I switch everything on, open the curtains, work – and fifteen hours later I turn everything off, draw the curtains, and go to sleep. And when I open my eyes again, another two months have gone by.

______________________

FRIDAY, 9 MARCH 2007

[Background: When I was student, my older sister signed surety for me one year so that I could get a loan.]

Got a call from my mother today: “Has your sister called you yet?”

In the first place, my mother calls me from South Africa? I think crisis. Has my sister called me yet? I think crisis with my sister.

Turns out it is [redacted] Bank who has, as they call it, “tracked down” my sister, telling her they cannot find me anywhere, and despite the fact that I – who cannot be “found” – is giving them money every single month, they want more. And my sister has to give them more right now, otherwise they are going to make a complaint and open a case with the police and my sister’s employer will have to be notified and it will be a blot on her name and it’s one hell of a crisis. And then the inevitable: “Your sister is hysterical.”

I sat and I listened, and then after a few minutes, I exploded. I pay them each and every month and they have my email and I am tired of this, and I didn’t ask for the loan in the first place and I have already paid them more than R100,000 and what else do I have to do …

After an hour, a 7-Eleven chicken burger, a brown rice milk and two cigarettes I had calmed down sufficiently to call “Christina” and tell her to write me up for more money from the end of next month.

A few important points:

Point 1. Why did I lose my cool? Embarrassment, the shame that bears down on you when you are “caught out”, when you fail to do “what you are supposed to do”, when you want to play according to your own rules and it’s not yet working out. Oh, and because you are suddenly standing in front of the establishment again, hat in hand, to be reprimanded because you committed that primal sin: you took money from the bank – and you are not giving it back fast enough. (Forget about the fact that I have paid them back double the original amount a long time ago, because as a result of interest I still “owe” them money.)

Point 2. A bank is not much more than a government-supported organised crime syndicate, even when they play according to the accepted rules. Smiling, shiny faces on billboards notwithstanding.

Point 3. All of us – my sister, the bank, and I – have a leg to stand on. However, I believe throwing a poison pill in the soup by claiming they couldn’t find me was an immoral tactic for which someone at the bank should take responsibility.

Point 4. This situation reminds me of the film, The Crying Game, where the guy tells the story of the frog and the scorpion, with the frog agreeing to help the scorpion cross the river. Despite assurances and promises that he won’t do it, the scorpion stings the frog halfway across the river. “Why did you do that?” the frog asks. “Because it’s in my nature,” the scorpion replies. “What did you expect?” So, I think, it is with banks, debt, and the way banks deal with people who owe them money. It is, after all, a bank. It is in the nature of their business to do whatever they deem necessary, no matter how immoral, when it is in their interest. What else can we expect? (Ends: Monday, 12 March 2007)

______________________

FRIDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2006

What I want to become, what I want to be, the lifestyle I want to make my own, the type of days and nights I would like to make typical of my life is not meant for everyone.

Here is my advice, to myself and any other person with a dream: Keep on believing, keep working on it, comfort yourself when you have to work long days and nights on projects with no end in sight, and with no fruit waiting to be picked and enjoyed. Ease your frustrations, especially those times when you think you are a Moses who would see the Promised Land but never enter it.

Things will come together. Believe in that … and keep working on making it a reality.

MONDAY, 11 DECEMBER 2006

This is what I want: A stone house on top of a hill, on an island a good distance from the nearest mainland. It must be windy – not necessarily all day, but it should pick up from, say, late afternoon, and the evenings must be at least cool if not cold.

All morning and afternoon I’ll be in my office working on my projects. At four o’clock or so – just as the wind starts picking up – I will take a break, first for some tea, then for a walk on the beach, then dinner. (Maybe I can also fit in a nap on the living room couch with the TV’s sound turned down.)

After dinner and a little TV, I will continue working. Weekends we will go to the mainland, stay in a small hotel, spend some time with friends and family, go shopping, walk around, eat at some decent restaurants … and by Sunday afternoon we’ll head back to the island.

Translation: I want to have enough money so that I can get on with what every soul on this planet would do if they knew of the possibility, or: if everyone had a desire to do more with their earthly existence than a pet or a vulture does with theirs. I would work on my own education, expand my knowledge and sharpen my abilities, and apply my knowledge and skills to work that fit my aptitude and personality.

How can this life ever be possible?

It can only be possible with a money machine that will generate income with the minimum of maintenance – year in and year out.

TUESDAY, 19 DECEMBER 2006

Ideas are like butterflies, and I am like a child chasing all of them and therefore failing to catch a single one – despite the large number of possibilities.

FRIDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2006

Taiwan is not in my room – reflections from the inside

OR: A personal agenda: shortened, with added detail

THURSDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2006

Is spiritual development in the modern world possible without financial independence? Would son of a local ruler, Siddhartha Gautama ever have been able to start on the journey to become Lord Buddha if he didn’t come from a position of financial comfort?

SUNDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2006

One of many lessons learned during 2006: Two ways to make money:

1. You sell – your time, your knowledge, your skills, your experience, even your body.

2. You speculate – in shares, casino games, property, foreign exchange, horse races, a coffee shop, and other opportunities where there is a possibility to get away with a profit.

______________________