Assorted Notes

FRIDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2006

[Background: In October 2006, I read in an e-book about a certain Roulette strategy that people apparently use to make money at online casinos. The strategy requires that you wait for something to not happen for a few spins and then you start placing a series of bets on that thing happening shortly. If you do not win on the first spin of the wheel, you increase your stake a little bit. If you do not win on the second spin, you do it again. In theory, you are supposed to win after a few spins, and because you progressively bet more with each spin, you should win all the money back that you have lost until that point. The progression of increasingly higher stakes goes up to eleven bets. But, explains the guy from the e-book, don’t worry too much about this because the progression of bets rarely goes that high.]

I’ll be quick.

Last Friday I made a deposit at [an online casino], and by Wednesday I started “working”. Thursday (yesterday) I deposited R200 at [another casino], and half an hour later I started playing there as well.

One thing did make me a little nervous: What happens if the column where I place increasingly higher stakes still hasn’t come up after eleven spins? I knew this was technically possible, and the e-book guy who initially brought the Roulette story to my attention said something about 94.6%.

Third session at [the first casino], it happens: seventh spin, eighth spin (I gulp), ninth spin … tenth spin … “Now it has to work …” I place R67 on the column for the eleventh and hopefully final round of the series. Click “Spin” … and it loses.

“Okay,” I thought, “the other day I worked out you play R101 if you lose eleven times in a row.” Place the bet. Click. Spin. Lose. White in the face. Move a R25-chip with a shaky hand to the edge of the offending column. Spin. Win. R75. I have R99 left in my account. I just lost R241.

MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2006

I am tired. I am tired of so-called money projects that either never get done, or that move three steps forward, and 2.999 steps back.

I want – I need to and I want to forget about money for just one evening, or for just one night and a day, or maybe even for one night and the rest of the week. Because at this stage, tonight, even success may be too much for me.

WEDNESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2006

Brand thinks his life is boring and he doesn’t spend enough time doing what he enjoys. The only way he can make his daily life bearable is to convince himself that things will be different in six months’ time. In six months’ time his life will be more exciting; in six months he will spend more time on the things he enjoys – writing, studying, and so on.

What Brand does not realise – or maybe he does realise this, but he is apparently powerless or unwilling to do anything about it – is that “six months” is renewed every six months. Every six months he swears anew: “In six months’ time …”

Or, closer to reality: Every day a previous six-month period ends. Every day he solemnly commits himself to the following six months.

Every day, every month, every year. Every six months.

Is he powerless to break this seemingly endless cycle? Is he going to turn 37, and 40, and 45 and 50 and still believe that everything will be different in six months’ time?

No one can be blamed if they thought, “I sure am glad I’m not this Brand fellow.”

I don’t have that option. I have no choice but to look myself in the mirror and say: “It is me, this ‘Brand’. It is I who cannot turn my goals into reality.” Or can I? (Just had to ask, otherwise it looks like I don’t have any faith in myself.)

FRIDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2006

The students are busy with their writing exercises, so I am sitting here doing nothing. I have nothing to say. I am tired, and a little discouraged. I am 35 years old. My biggest writing project thus far is finished, and I know how to reach my target audience – I even how to get them to pay for what they read. I do have to raise a shitload of money to pay for proofreading and stuff like that, though. I also have to raise a shitload of money to pay for – and here I am sincere when I say I am blessed – Natasja’s and my wedding [we had gotten engaged recently]. I also have to raise a shitload of money to have my teeth fixed, pay off my debt, sort out my stuff in South Africa, and go on vacation early next year. I also have to raise a shitload of money to try and alleviate my parents’ suffering. I also have to raise a shitload of money to invest in projects that can continue to earn me lots of money in the future so I can continue to be what I am now: a free man.

SATURDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2006

If you strive for personal freedom, but at the cost of another person’s quest for personal freedom, then you are not serving the cause of freedom; you are merely serving your own selfish needs.

WEDNESDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2006

My writing projects served a purpose in the past – they had to provide proof of my existence in a period of my life when there was, for the most part, no one to verify it – or no one that meant much to me or to whom I meant anything. (The idea was inspired by the 2004 film Shall We Dance? Susan Sarandon’s character explains in one scene that in a marriage the two people agree to be witnesses to each other’s lives.)

My question is: When I return to fresh literary projects, what purpose will they serve then? Possibly the same? Difference in degree with some other motives?

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THURSDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2006

Natasja is the type of person who makes one believe in life again, and in love.

We all weigh ourselves up against other people; we watch what they do with their lives, and how they see themselves. Based on these observations and accompanying self-criticism, we determine our own value. In many cases, the picture doesn’t look all that encouraging.

Still, it is in relation to other people that our value is actually manifested. The above statement about Natasja places her in an elite class of noble earthlings: One Who Makes Another Person Believe in Life and Love.

The strange thing is, we often fail to appreciate our own value until we become that person for someone else.

* * *

[On the back of a piece of junk mail, with no date, but I stapled it to a page with notes from Thursday, 12 October 2006]

You cannot claim to be a moral person, nor to live a moral life, if you are incapable of immorality to begin with. It is only when you are capable of an immoral act, and you choose not to turn possibility into action, that you can claim whatever reward awaits a moral person.

(To use a simple religious metaphor: One cannot go to “heaven” because you didn’t commit any “sins” if you were incapable of sinning in the first place.)

FRIDAY, 13 OCTOBER 2006

At around 04:00 this morning I went to the bathroom. As I was standing there, a thought formed in the blood vessels that are my brain: “I am an unsuccessful entrepreneur.”

Startled, and a little confused, I tried to make myself feel better by reminding myself that before I became an unsuccessful entrepreneur, I was an unpublished writer.

So much for that.

* * *

Perhaps the author of that one e-book is right: the natural condition for human existence is happiness.

That means to feel miserable and constantly under stress is unnatural and must be resisted at all costs as an abomination.

WEDNESDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2006

If one isn’t always two, do you really need a chip on your shoulder to see that?

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TUESDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2006

I am becoming increasingly aware of the shortcomings in my understanding of life and how things work – and I don’t think it is because I have forgotten anything that I have previously understood!

It is like reading a book; then you turn the page … and nothing. You go back: there’s the text and the beginning or the first part of a sentence, but the sentence doesn’t continue on the next page – as if it hasn’t been written yet.

That tells me that I have to go look for the rest of the text, or I have to locate the right author – or I have to wait for the rest of the text to come to me so that I can fill in the rest of the pages myself.

MONDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2006

17:33

I have to get myself another place to live. It feels like I am living and working in my office. Weekends are a little more special because then Natasja comes to visit – but it is still my office! Then she watches TV, and now and then I watch TV with her – in my office. And since I also have sleeping quarters where I work, we sleep there – in my office.

On weekdays, I get up somewhere between nine and ten o’clock. An hour later I am working. Maybe I break for lunch, and at about four o’clock I take a shower, go out to teach a class, get dinner on the way home, eat the dinner while watching a little TV, and then I continue with my work – until two or three o’clock in the morning. I do this Monday to Friday. Saturday is the same, except that I have no classes. Sunday I try to watch a little more TV.

Seven fucking days a week – in my office.

18:03

What then of the idea of a home office? No problem, even ideal. But what I have learned is that your workspace and your living space should be properly separated. That is why I have to find another place – not because there is something terribly wrong with my current apartment, but because it is no longer a home. I therefore do not have a home-office; I have an office-home.

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THURSDAY, 3 AUGUST 2006

Private life, that starts with concern for your own well-being before it circles out, and then involvement with the world – selective involvement, because there is much suffering, and even activists who live for involvement only do so selectively (only refugees, for example, or only refugees in one area).

It is true that some people suffer from what can be called “acrophobia”. It is also important to understand that staying low is not the same as being trapped in a tunnel.

FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST 2006

True faith is not knowing.

Knowing and believing are two different things. Many religious people conflate the two – with very significant consequences.

* * *

“I don’t know, but I believe.”

SATURDAY, 19 AUGUST 2006

“A man only needs one thing: to have someone to love. If you can’t give him that, give him some hope. If you can’t give him that, just give him something to do.” ~ quote from a movie about a plane that crashed in a desert

THURSDAY, 24 AUGUST 2016

An idea will come to me: I’ll be standing in the kitchen, staring at the wall, sucking on a Nat Sherman, and then … BAM! I’ll make my calculations, sit down at the computer, open some files; the idea will grow, and then this, and then that … and before I can stop myself, I am working mainly on this new idea. Then the idea will become even more exciting. I will frantically start sorting files and documents, make a list, get my admin under control. And then a thought will suddenly occur to me: “Wasn’t I working on something else as recently as a couple of days ago?”

THURSDAY, 31 AUGUST 2006

I can see that in order to achieve any significant degree of financial success it would be necessary to rethink my view of money. So, what has my view of money been until now?

As a child, I learned that money was something everyone needed. In fact, and this I had already realised in my teenage years, without it, you didn’t stand a monkey’s chance in hell. Money was also something, so I always believed, that you had to work hard for, probably in an office – if you were lucky, or in a factory, or outside in the hot sun if you were an unskilled labourer – or if you couldn’t find work in an office or a factory. I also grew up with the idea that you had to work at least eight hours a day Monday to Friday – unless you didn’t earn enough money from Monday to Friday, which meant you also had to work on Saturdays and perhaps even on Sundays. Finally, my view of money (in my earlier years, at least) also included that you most likely had a “boss” and that you had to do and say as the “boss” wanted you to do and say if you didn’t want to get fired. Oh, and the owner or manager of the place where you earned money granted you “leave” only once or twice a year – those short but pleasant periods when you didn’t have to go to work, when you could spend time with your family, if you were lucky, at the seaside.

This – was the view of money I grew up with. I accepted these things, because it seemed to me as if everyone in the environments where I spent my existence accepted it.

______________________

TUESDAY, 4 JULY 2006

If someone should ask me at this moment, “The whole truth, nothing but the truth, how are you?” what would I say?

If I say it is going well, it will be a positive response that I myself will appreciate. The truth is that I would ignore certain things with such a statement: I need to get to a dentist quite urgently; my bicycle might make it to the train station one more time, but it probably won’t make it back; it’s been months since I’ve had enough money to spend on enjoyable activities such as going out to dinner or seeing a movie.

On the other hand, if I say things are going badly, it will be an extremely negative statement that will ignore something very significant: I have found a partner, a woman who loves me, whom I love very much, and with whom I want to spend the rest of my days on earth. In my book, the presence of such a person in your life contradicts a general statement that it is going “badly”.

THURSDAY, 6 JULY 2006

“And so we come to the end of yet another day in the life of Brand Smit. Today has been the most recent in a series of thousands of days in this man’s life, some similar to today, some much better, other days – much worse.”

TUESDAY, 18 JULY 2006

Funny how it seems that my brain is working overtime when I am slightly feverish. My calculations also seem to always be the same at such a time: I pretend as if life is worth living, because to face the truth would simply be too much to handle.

My non-feverish, sober opinion on this so-called calculation is simple: to hell with it. Fight against this idea when you are healthy, and fight against it when you are sick and feverish.

If we accept such a pessimistic view as the sum total of our calculations, we are the victims of trickery. The hand was quicker than the eye. We didn’t look hard enough, didn’t pay enough attention, and the result is that we missed something.

TUESDAY, 25 JULY 2006

You can make a positive difference in people’s lives – specifically in the lives of people who struggle to keep going on a daily basis – by taking certain actions, without actually being physically present in a particular community.

THURSDAY, 27 JULY 2006

I need to believe in a better life. This belief must be based in reality. For this belief to be grounded in reality, I have to work to make this reality real.

Therefore, if I am not working, I undermine the attempt to ground my belief in reality. If my belief is not grounded in reality, I cannot hold on to it. If I don’t have this belief to hold on to, I fall.

That is how it is. My job – writing and other work – is my religion, in the most practical way possible. I am the pope, the high priest and the pastor of my own religion. Work is the ritual that must confirm that my belief is more than mere fantasy.

SATURDAY, 29 JULY 2006

A few possibilities:

a) There is a predetermined plan and purpose for my existence – which means each and every human life of the last 30,000 years plus had to be planned in the minutest detail to produce (among others) “Brand Smit”. This means nothing could have been left to chance, and no factor that could spoil everything, like free will, could have been allowed to any significant degree. Which means no one is guilty of any actions they commit that are not “good” because everyone is just playing their roles. (A so-called criminal is therefore just as guilty of his or her crime as the actor Anthony Hopkins is guilty of murder in the film Silence of the Lambs.)

b) There is no predetermined plan, but it is possible that a plan and purpose were set up after my birth, taking into account known facts about my existence (background, ethnicity, language, etc.) as well as statistical possibilities.

c) Free will, which means I define the purpose and reason for my existence, and pursue it as well as I can, according to my abilities and conviction of my beliefs.

(I did not plan to end the note on the “free will” possibility; it was simply the third option. There may be other possibilities.)

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