Assorted Notes

MONDAY, 1 MAY 2006

Everyone has a choice: be a destroyer of hope, dignity and of life itself, or be a creator of hope, dignity, and life – or be someone who creates an environment where these good things can take root and flourish, or someone who protects them.

TUESDAY, 9 MAY 2006

By default, the world is a cold, dark place. We make it better, but a better world it will never be by default. It will always be a constant struggle.

FRIDAY, 12 MAY 2006

I have an acute awareness of emergency and imminent danger (ten years ago I called it my “state of emergency”). This seemingly perpetual state is about three things: health – the fact that I smoke; debt – the fact that I still haven’t paid back all my student loans; and income – which is always just above the poverty line.

FRIDAY, 26 MAY 2006

I feel compelled to make a quick update. Despite the fact that I’m pretty broke at the moment (NT$4,900 [±US$160] left until I get paid again – in about twelve days, and then only NT$3,500 [±US$110] for fourteen days), I am happy – something that both annoys and delights me.

I have once again realised that in addition to spending time with important people in my life, there is nothing that fills me with so much exuberance as to produce something out of the talents that I have received, the skills that I have developed, and the knowledge I have gained over the years.

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THURSDAY, 13 APRIL 2006

I sometimes feel like a puppet whose mind has been activated (the idea comes from a book by Fritz Leiber, You’re All Alone): intelligent enough to see what I see, yet incapable of knowing or understanding the full truth, trapped in a shadowy half-life.

What advice would I offer to someone in my position?

I would say, take what you do know and understand, and aim to achieve results of your existence that are more positive than negative.

I reckon that’s good enough for a person trapped in the twilight, right?

WEDNESDAY, 19 APRIL 2006

Yesterday I had this idea that if people talk to me, and their requests or opinions are not reasonable, I would simply ignore everything they say, a kind of delete-the-sounds-from-my-short-term-memory kind of judgment.

This morning I reconsidered: Sometimes people simply need to express themselves when they make a request, or when they state an opinion or make a statement. Sometimes all you need to do is listen.

* * *

Any need a person has – for food, sleep, love, sex, creative fulfilment or financial success – has to do with silencing something. This “silence” we strive for is to be in a completely relaxed state, to go into a state that in extreme form is associated with either pre-birth, or death.

THURSDAY, 20 APRIL 2006

Every person’s “world” is like a circle – complete and, to a large extent, closed. Within this circle of people, values, understanding, and so forth his or her daily life plays out.

I am currently reading a book set in 1988 South Africa, with the main character portrayed as a good guy from the security police. The book serves as an example of a complete circle within which things made sense and within which things were ordered in a particular way. It also serves as a Document of a Particular Historical and Cultural Context – in the same way Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment serves as a document of the particular historical and cultural context that was St. Petersburg in the 1860s.

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WEDNESDAY, 5 APRIL 2006

Day 4 of my holiday in South Africa

From the very beginning, this holiday has been different from all the previous ones. In the first place, I did not come here alone, and I am not leaving here alone. Secondly, my older sister and her family are now living in Johannesburg. Thirdly, my old friend and coffee shop conversation partner from Taiwan is now living in Cape Town.

Two questions have travelled with me from the beginning, and have ambled with me across the lawn looking for a place to smoke a cigarette: “Who am I?” and “How have I changed?”

The answer to the first question is, after careful consideration, similar to the answer I gave in February 2005, August 2004 and July 2003: writer, poet, freethinker, man with a self-defined agenda, son, brother, friend, and entrepreneur-in-the-making.

To say that I am calmer – or maybe just tired – has to suffice as an answer to the second question. It feels like I have said enough for now, as if I have formulated opinions on everything on which I had wanted to formulate an opinion. Of course, there are many issues on which I have yet to formulate an opinion, but here a new thing kicks in: I have become more reluctant to express an opinion if I do not have sufficient data. I am not so eager anymore to jump on my soapbox with the first mention of a question and to try and talk everyone into submission with a hastily formulated opinion. Absolute statements, even preliminary statements, must now be preceded by very well-formulated questions.

MONDAY, 10 APRIL 2006

Day 5 in Cape Town – so far a happier and more enjoyable time than any other time I have spent in the Cape since February 1996

Friday we were driving on the N1. As we were passing Monte Vista where my parents and my younger sister had lived for several months in 1992 in a cramped little house next to the railway line, with their financial situation extremely precarious, I casually gestured in that direction and said to Natasja, “My parents lived in that second house from the bridge at one point.” As if it never mattered. As if I couldn’t even really remember that time.

Yesterday in Stellenbosch my brain was also innocently pulling documents from dusty old folders every time I saw a familiar street, street corner, building, square, library or eating establishment. Strange, and almost comforting in a way, how shallow certain feelings and insecurities lie.

* * *

Each person has an environment where he or she functions at optimal level – where you are at your best or where you produce your best work. The environment where I am currently on vacation requires of me a certain appearance – to be polite, to be good company, to be a good guest, and so on. While I reckon I do okay with it, I am acutely aware of the fact that this is not the environment in which I operate optimally. I don’t do any work here; I produce nothing; I create nothing. And these are things that I value in order to define myself and to distinguish myself from other people around me.

THURSDAY, 13 APRIL 2006

A week in Cape Town, almost two weeks away from Benevolent Light, sees the following thought as a result:

Religion – ritual – environment with central point – environment changes – ritual cannot be administered because of distance from central point – religion is undermined

Identity –actions that confirm identity – environment with central point – environment changes – actions that confirm identity cannot be performed because of distance from central point – identity is undermined

Result: confidence is undermined, stress increases, potential for interpersonal conflict increases

Short-term solution: faith

______________________

WEDNESDAY, 8 MARCH 2006

I tried very hard to sleep in after finally crashing at 03:30. I once again dreamed all night of making money, e-books, files on the computer, and so on. Then, suddenly, one so-called marketing guru pronounced in a dream: “Of course there are other, more important things than money. There is our connection to everything that is.”

Soon after that I thought, still half asleep, “I am also connected to everything that exists.”

Yesterday I contemplated for the umpteenth time in my life the great divide between what is beautiful and what is good, and the total opposite end of the spectrum: people who are tortured, and then, after they had time to become properly aware of their situation, are killed in the cruellest manner.

As I was still lying in bed (was I still sleeping?), I thought: I am connected to both the torturers and the tortured – even if only in my head, because I am aware of their existence.

I also realised that my connection to these two groups is not exactly conducive for a good consciousness. On one end of the spectrum, I hate and fear those who torture; on the other hand, I feel deeply sorry for the tortured. And I know it is in many cases a roll of the dice – it could just as well have been me.

What does one do with these negative connections?

FRIDAY, 17 MARCH 2006

[…]

She, too, was looking for a home – a place, an environment where she doesn’t have to be on her guard all the time, where she can relax, where she would not constantly have to be serious, where she can be who she is and give free expression to how she feels at any specific moment, and to how she sees herself, the world, and herself in the world.

TUESDAY, 28 MARCH 2006

Why is it that in many Christian churches it is preached that members should move away from an emphasis on the “I”, and instead should focus on “Christ”? What is the psychological effect on the “I” – which is always there, no matter how hard you try to move away from it? Does it have to do with a mostly unspoken ideology of contempt for the “I” – that is human, fallible, flawed, with a perpetual tendency to “sin” and that is involuntarily tied to the mortal body of the unique “you”? Does it have to do with a desire for the timeless and immortal? Is this healthy for the “I” you inevitably have to be until your body perishes?

* * *

There is a new documentary series on, I think, National Geographic, which tell stories of adventures gone wrong that have brought one or two adventurers close to death. For example, one guy was stuck in the Amazon for three weeks – he was constantly hungry and wet, covered with disease, and he felt how his flesh was being eaten little by little by ferocious ants.

It made me think: your chances of survival drop dramatically if you put yourself in an environment not exactly conducive to human survival (for example, desert or rainforest). Yet, people often place themselves in such environments and call it adventure. These so-called adventurers believe that adventure is exciting, and fun, and in contrast describe people who do not seek adventure as boring.

What exactly is this adventure thing? What needs are satisfied with adventure? What need is therefore not satisfied if you do not bother to seek adventure, and specifically in environments that undermine your chances of survival? And will it work if I tell an adventurer that I do not have the needs that drive him or her to putting their lives at risk?

(Note to myself: A proper definition of adventure might be useful, for my adventure is your boredom. Beware also of coming to conclusions too fast – a so-called sense of adventure is sometimes necessary for civilisation to progress, and even for personal improvement.)

THURSDAY, 30 MARCH 2006

I think: to my core, I can feel it – the mother and child reunion is getting close.

Then I thought: “My core”? We are taught from a young age that it is wrong to say, “I talk to I,” and “I very core,” but is it?

Language plays a vital role in how we think about ourselves, how we talk about ourselves. But should philosophers or psychologists not have a greater say on this particular issue than linguists?

Is it justifiable that language rules and linguists dictate to us in what philosophical terms we have to think of ourselves and talk about ourselves?

The word “my” is a possessive adjective used to indicate ownership, as in, “my house”, “my book”, “my pen” – but it also indicates relationship, as in “my wife”, “my child”, and so on. Still, “I” and “myself” are not two separate entities – I am myself. Would it then not be more accurate to say, “I talk to I,” and “I very core”?

______________________

THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY 2006

All the protests and fuss in some Muslim countries over the Mohammed cartoon is about one thing: The source, and sacredness, of the protesters’ identities have been offended, and since they feel threatened as it is in a world so different from the environment of their religious communities, they lash out, and they shout, and they burn, and they kill, and they destroy.

* * *

Their actions also manifest – as do that of fundamentalists of other persuasions – the idea that, “If everyone is not like us, it threatens and undermines the validity and greatness of our truths. So, the more people who believe like us, the better. And those who do not believe as we do, well, their lives are expendable because they deny the truth.”

THURSDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2006

Living as if you only have one week left to live is not sustainable beyond that one week.

SATURDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2006

13:24

There those who are ignorant.

There are those who know, and who live their lives in fear – or in fatalistic acceptance of the inevitable.

Finally, there are those who are feared.

13:36

I believe absolute statements are impossible to make because we do not possess sufficient data. Once you have accepted that and made your peace with it, it is often quite possible to continue with the rest of your life.

“How?” you may ask. By making choices every day.

Which choices are good and which choices are bad? That is what you have to figure out as you continue your daily existence.

MONDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2006

A thought from my bike ride: “And so continues the life of Brand Smit. He has had an interesting life so far. He has met interesting people, lived in interesting places and visited interesting places. He has also spent a lot of time on his own – mostly not pleasant, but he eventually learned to use the time on his own productively. He has also managed to find love after spending many years on his own.”

TUESDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2006

Forgot to mention something with yesterday’s thought from the bike: That text is supposed to be the introductory paragraph of a piece with a title like, “I am not Chinese – but neither are the Taiwanese.”

* * *

From my dream this morning: “Self-knowledge and stratosphere”

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