Monsters and foundation: the projects of Brand Smit

MONDAY, 16 JANUARY 2006

I stand behind my computer every day, and as I reach the end of another page full of text, or the end of a chapter, or the end of a poem, or a lesson of some textbook, I remind myself not to become too excited: there are after all hundreds of pages of text that still need to be reviewed, and there are more than a dozen notebooks with written material that still needs to be typed. Then it would certainly be good if I can review my poems “one final time”, and there are half a dozen textbook ideas that I still want to work on, or that has to be completed, and short stories, and greeting cards and calendars and translations of completed Afrikaans text and translations of material that still has to be typed and processed … That the projects that will be listed in this document are both monsters and the foundation on which I build my future is by now old news in the life of Brand Smit.

This afternoon I confronted myself with a question: When did this happen? When did it happen that I overwhelmed myself to this degree with what I so lovingly refer to as my “projects”? Five years ago, I had vague ideas of a collection of poetry and a book about my opinions on the human experience on this planet; there were also language textbooks I wanted to write because … well, because it was possible, and because I thought some of my ideas for textbooks were better than some of the books I had to use. Then, in 2001, I decided to trim down my teaching schedule and use the extra time to work on projects I had been talking about for a long time. That year I completed my first textbook, Countries of the World – which is supposed to be the first book in a series of four or five. By the end of 2001, I had also started working on a phonics book for young learners. Lists of words and phrases for my Chinese studies had also been compiled by the second half of 2001, which formed the basis of another project that I feverishly started working on at the beginning of 2004. Material that eventually became “Personal Agenda, Book One” had been gathering dust for years before I finally started the editing process at the beginning of 2003. By the time I had completed Book One (June 2003), I knew I was working on a project that would surpass all others in importance. I continued writing essays and notes that could become Books Two and Three and Four and Five and so on. I had also been trying my hand at poetry since the mid-nineties, and every couple of months had seen some new titles, or edited or rewritten versions of older attempts. Meanwhile, I had also written a few short stories. I had also thought of a series of stories for young learners with a focus on vocabulary and comprehension questions one day and as a matter of course I had to immediately start working on it. In between I came up with a series of greeting cards, and since I have always had a slight obsession with dates, why not also a range of unconventional calendars? And in the meantime, I am writing and typing my fingers numb on Books Four, Five, Six …

So it came that I started drawing up a list this afternoon, Monday, 16 January 2006, to once again – for the sake of alleviating anxiety and possibly to work up some motivation – review my ideas of the last five years, to see exactly what it is I am doing and to see where I am hopefully heading.

My hope has always been that I will be able to finish off the proverbial everything within the much vaunted “next six months”, regardless of the number of hours in a typical day, and regardless of my human limitations. So I thought: It has taken me five years to come up with this list of projects, and to have done the work that has so far been completed. Would it be inappropriate to think that it will take me another five years to complete everything? It is true that it is a lot of work. It is true that I work alone on every single project. It is true that it is a broad range of projects: there are essays about personal politics and religious beliefs combined with social criticism and the occasional everyday event; language textbooks for a spectrum of students ranging from young learners to adults who want to expand their language skills and knowledge of the world to people who say, “Give me everything I need to know. I’ll do it in my own time”; there is poetry that expresses how I experience life; and there are giant calendars that reduce daily life to small squares on the wall. It is also possible that the seeds of long-term financial independence have already been planted. So what if another five years pass before the last item is crossed out on the current list? What I don’t complete during the next six months will be completed in the six months after that, and what is not completed over those six months, will be completed in the following six, and then the six months after that – until each and every textbook has been written and published, and each and every poem has been reviewed ad nauseam, and every opinion has been polished to a sparkling finish, and a stack of books can be placed on the table that all say: This is how I see life.

And at the end I will still disappear into the nothingness – the paper all the textbooks were printed on eventually recycled for other uses; all the copies of my poetry collection packed away in boxes; Books One all the way up to Seven … bundled together with other old books on dusty shelves. But at least I will be able to say: I didn’t give up. I said I think it can be done in a different way than what had been prescribed, and it took me five years, or ten, but “financial independence through creativity” has been victorious!

Everything comes down to this: Brand Smit has chosen his profession. He has chosen not to become a human resources manager, a preacher or a psychologist – he has decided to become a master of projects. The main reason why he decided to become a master of projects is because he had felt from an early age that he had do something with his life. Leaving behind his twenties in notebooks and attempts at poetry he also became convinced of the fact that he had something to say. To say what he wants to say, he needs to spend his days and nights in a particular way. And to live a life that is conducive to the work he feels the need to do, this he knows and understands, he has to earn money in ways that do not appear in a high school guidance teacher’s career book. Thus: Projects.

Until as recently as this afternoon I thought of my projects as work that I had started years ago that I have yet to complete. This has led to me viewing myself as someone who is behind with his work, someone who is still busy with work that he should have been done with months ago – even three or four years ago in some cases. That changes today.

Some of the projects I have started in the last five years are commercial in nature, others are more personal. Some projects have already been completed; most have not. The work on the unfinished projects continues, and will continue until it has been completed, even if it takes me another six months … or another five years. The list is long enough.

The list: […]

It is today (already) Tuesday, 17 January 2006 (00:12), the seventh anniversary of the day I arrived on this island. Seven years and still counting – until it is no longer conducive.

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Piece of paper without a date

SATURDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2005

[From a piece of paper without a date, but with a calendar for April 2006 on the back]

“You played out your happiness on a piano that was not infinite.” [from the movie, The Legend of 1900]

“Photography” [the second part of my poetry collection] says observe, take notes, try to understand, and express what you see, what you have come to understand, and what you still fail to comprehend.

* * *

The full quote from the movie, The Legend of 1900:

The man known as “1900” explaining why he did not leave the ship and never will: “All that city… You just couldn’t see an end to it. The end! Please, could you show me where it ends? It was all very fine on that gangway and I was grand, too, in my overcoat. I cut quite a figure and I had no doubts about getting off. Guaranteed. That wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t what I saw that stopped me, Max. It was what I didn’t see. Can you understand that? What I didn’t see. In all that sprawling city, there was everything except an end. There was everything. But there wasn’t an end. What I couldn’t see was where all that came to an end. The end of the world. Take a piano. The keys begin, the keys end. You know there are 88 of them and no-one can tell you differently. They are not infinite, you are infinite. And on those 88 keys the music that you can make is infinite. I like that. That I can live by. But you get me up on that gangway and roll out a keyboard with millions of keys, and that’s the truth, there’s no end to them, that keyboard is infinite. But if that keyboard is infinite there’s no music you can play. You’re sitting on the wrong bench. That’s God’s piano. Christ, did you see the streets? There were thousands of them! How do you choose just one? One woman, one house, one piece of land to call your own, one landscape to look at, one way to die. All that world weighing down on you without you knowing where it ends. Aren’t you scared of just breaking apart just thinking about it, the enormity of living in it? I was born on this ship. The world passed me by, but two thousand people at a time. And there were wishes here, but never more than could fit on a ship, between prow and stern. You played out your happiness on a piano that was not infinite. I learned to live that way. Land is a ship too big for me. It’s a woman too beautiful. It’s a voyage too long. Perfume too strong. It’s music I don’t know how to make. I can’t get off this ship. At best, I can step off my life. After all, it’s as though I never existed.”

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Putting together a worldview – work that enables

THURSDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2005

Several thoughts on 2006 (and the rest of my future) come down to one principle: You can use your imagination and your intellect to achieve a better life.

FRIDAY, 23 DECEMBER 2005

My whole began to disintegrate twelve, thirteen years ago.* Since then I have been working hard at putting the pieces together again in such a way that I can stand back and say, “That’s good. It works. I understand … not everything, but I understand enough to function.”

* Christian worldview: everyone and everything has a place, a role, a purpose, a story, and a specific value. This one said what? It’s because he is X. That one said something else? No wonder. She is …

I had arranged and lived my entire life according to this worldview, but then the explanations and answers started getting thinner and thinner, and I increasingly recognised the hand of humans in their development.

SATURDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2005

On the way back from the Carrefour, I realised: Exactly ten years have passed since my Christmas of macaroni boiled in a kettle, cheap cheese sauce from the convenience store, and a two-litre bottle of powder mix beverage – oh yes, and a tube of garlic polony.

The climb from that point has been tough. And although the summit is still some distance away, I am much, much closer.

MONDAY, 26 DECEMBER 2005

12:20

The playing field can never be the same for everyone. The struggle should be to make it more equal than it is now.

17:47

Years ago I asked: How can I follow my own passions and interests and pursue my own agenda, and still stay alive, afford a place to live, pay bills, and so on. My first answer was simple: You become rich. Then you buy a house, furniture, a TV and a computer and a stove and a washing machine and a refrigerator, and you continue working on whatever you want to work on. Later I reckoned you need a trade of some sorts, something you can do or something that you can produce for which there is a market, from which you can then generate an income without undermining your main job too much.

This afternoon I thought of another possibility: undemanding work. You can pursue your own agenda by earning money in a job that is not too demanding, something that does not take up too much of your time, something you can do while your attention is still more or less on your agenda work – like me writing this note, and formulating this idea while I am earning money teaching an English class in Taiwan.

TUESDAY, 27 DECEMBER 2005

Inside every person is the seed of life, and every person carries the seed of death. Each person can be an agent of life. Likewise, every person is a potential agent of death.

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Two extremes – get up and walk

SATURDAY, 10 DECEMBER 2005

Our existence is to some extent an expression of free will. That we came to exist in the first place was, however, not our choice. By the time we realised this “thing” we were experiencing had a name, and that it was called “life”, we were already fully-fledged beings-in-existence.

MONDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2005

I spent the past ten to fifteen years caught between two extremes: a cynical world where everyone fights for himself (and maybe his family) and where everything can be justified as long as there is money involved; and the “Feel God” Christian response, which is so popular among modern Christians.

I hate that people will lie and cheat and step over other people and then justify it by talking about a tough world and “every man for himself”, or the justification that it was done for the welfare of the family. I have also developed a growing aversion to the anti-rational, anti-intellectual, emotion-driven direction that many so-called Christians have taken.

What are my options? I do not want to become a disciple and/or victim of cynicism and the blind pursuit of material gain, and I do not want to find comfort in the arms of an anti-rational, emotion-driven religious community! What to do …

* * *

[On the back of a telephone bill]

“Personal Agenda” follows the second self-imposed socio-economic exile of a white, male, Afrikaans-speaking South African in Taiwan (the first “exile” being two years spent in South Korea, also as an English teacher). The main character/writer examines over a period of six years the reasons for his self-imposed exile and the possibility of returning to the country of his birth. In the process he questions his identity, the meaning and possible purpose of his life, and the accepted truths and ways of a life with which he had grown up …

MONDAY, 19 DECEMBER 2005

If you do not get up and walk, you will end up flat on your face. People – friends, family, and some strangers – will help you up to a point. But after a while they, too, will continue their own journeys. That is simply how it is.

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A life that serves a purpose – intelligent, creative agent – or agents

TUESDAY, 6 DECEMBER 2005

I need for my life to have purpose. To this, some people may respond in a somewhat sceptical fashion. “Purpose?” they’ll ask. “Purpose in life is a primitive religious concept. It supposes things that cannot be proven. It also implies that your life is worthless unless it serves a purpose.”

My reply: Say you have two men, Mister A and Mister B. The latter has no desire to feel that his life has purpose. His focus is mostly on himself, and his own material and emotional needs. He works – because he needs the money; he marries – because it’s better than being alone; and he makes friends – because he likes the feeling of being liked, he likes the companionship, and it relieves his boredom. His life thus consists of family, friends, work, and doing things he enjoys. He does not actively strive for any action or participation that would make him look at his life with the conviction that he has served some (good) purpose. (Chances are that he inadvertently does serve and has served a good purpose, but for the sake of this argument it is important to illustrate his case as one where no purpose is actively and deliberately served.)

Mister A, on the other hand, is one of those people who believe merely existing – working, having a family of his own, being a friend and having friends, and doing things he enjoys – is not enough. He feels a strong urge to serve a good purpose – something that would give his life more value and meaning. Say he chooses as his purpose in life providing legal aid to people who do not have the means to obtain this type of assistance when they need it. Over the course of thirty years he provides legal assistance – directly, or indirectly through an agency he founded – to hundreds, even thousands of people. (It might be that he pursues this purposeful life as an adherent of some religious belief system, which will also give him the satisfaction of knowing that his service is sanctioned by his particular religious community. It might also be that he is an atheist, and that he is motivated by the self-respect his service inspires, and by the respect and gratitude he gets from other people. Religiously motivated or not, his choice of pursuing a purposeful life would have the same end result for the people who benefit from it.)

Let’s say both Mister A and Mister B were born in the same year, in the same city, with similar cultural backgrounds and socio-economic standing, and let’s also say they die in the same year after short illnesses. Mister B’s life was a good one. He will be missed by his colleagues, friends and family. Mister A also had a good life, and he, too, will be missed by colleagues, friends and family. What is the difference? Mister A’s life benefited hundreds, even thousands of people. His life had value far beyond the value of the life of the average individual who does not actively pursue a purposeful life. He dies with the satisfaction that his life served a purpose. He lived his life with the satisfaction that not only his inner circle of colleagues, family and friends but many other people benefited from his life and the choices he had made. Mister B lived without this satisfaction, and he died knowing that beyond his inner circle no one really benefited much from his existence. Hopefully this would not have mattered to him, since he had professed early on in his adult life that he does not feel the need to serve any purpose nor for his life to have value and meaning beyond that which it has or had for himself and his inner circle.

Then my partner-in-dialogue responds: “So it’s about personal satisfaction? Or is it about numbers – the one guy affecting hundreds, even thousands, the other guy maybe twenty?”

My reply: One guy’s life positively affected the lives of two dozen or so people. The other one positively affected hundreds, even thousands. What is exactly is your question? [*]

Partner-in-dialogue: “Say I tell you there’s a new drug on the market that has no side effects, is very affordable, and it contains a natural component that provides your brain with exactly the same feeling as the satisfaction one would derive from a purposeful life. It will thus give you the same kick, without the effort!”

Me: And the people whom I may have positively affected stay unaffected. Very real results of my intended actions would remain unfulfilled. I’d say no thanks. I will stick to the effort.

* [Question is perhaps this: Is affecting two people better than affecting just one? How about affecting 2,243 versus affecting the lives of 2,242 people? How about one person positively affecting the lives of 50,000 people and the other person positively and constructively affecting only 76 people’s quality of life?]

WEDNESDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2005

For many people the idea that there is no intelligent, creative agent behind everything that exists is the most preposterous thing anyone can imagine. What, or who this agent is – or what or who these agents are, is something that people have pondered, argued about, fought and died for since the dawn of human thought. We have given this supposed agent – or these agents – names. We have given him/her/them human-like qualities. We have even imagined the gender and appearance of this supposed agent – or of these agents. Many people have settled on a simple term: “God.”

We can continue to contemplate, argue, fight and die for particular beliefs about this agent – or these agents. It is apparently in our nature to do so, and if it gives us a sense of purpose, security and meaning in our lives, then I guess it makes sense to some degree that we continue to do so. One thing remains certain: for many people, nothing will ever take anything away from the idea that an intelligent, creative force is the only reasonable explanation for our own existence, and for the existence of all other forms of life.

Why this supposed intelligent, creative force caused our existence, whether or not our existence serves a purpose, and even the possible nature of this supposed agent – or of these agents, these are questions that will remain as fascinating as they have always been.

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