Assorted Notes

WEDNESDAY, 12 OCTOBER 2005

10:29

I look myself in the proverbial eyes, and I see: myself, my life, my environment, all recognisable from a year ago and two years ago.

And then she appears: a story so beautiful not even children will believe it.

15:50

I am confronted with [N]’s Stellenbosch experience, and following cryptic descriptions I again fall victim to a very unpleasant sensation: disappointment, even a sense of failure.

Why?!

That dirty archenemy, that big old culprit is once again to blame! Assumptions!

Fact is, to go to university, and to go to Stellenbosch, were not original actions on my part. “University” was not a concept that I devised one afternoon in 1987. “Stellenbosch” was not a fictional town that I came up with one evening in 1989 while I was soaking in the bath. Both concepts had existed, full of colourful images and implications long before I, Brand Smit started thinking about going to Stellenbosch. And from the moment I started thinking about it – in ’88 or ’89, assumptions took shape in my head about how it would be.

I saw myself with a bookbag over the shoulder, walking with friends from the cafeteria to some class. I saw myself in a so-called student house. I saw myself with a pretty girl, and us holding hands while we take a walk along the Eerste River, or sitting under an oak tree on a bench talking. I saw myself on a bicycle – my own bicycle! – or even in a cheap car.

Those were the images, the assumptions.

In the end my Stellenbosch was filled with worries and anxiety and financial difficulties and loneliness and longing. My first room was with a family that were complete strangers to me until a few days before I moved in. After six weeks, I began to feel extremely uncomfortable sitting down to dinner, knowing that my first month’s rent had not been paid yet. After two and a half months not even the oak leaves could help me forget my overdue rent. One of the reasons why I went to the Cape was to be closer to a young woman who had made my heart stop a year earlier, and then shocked it into beating again by telling me that she liked me. Six months after I had arrived in Stellenbosch, we agreed that we should rather just be “friends”.

Friends? Lunch at the cafeteria? My own bicycle? A cheap little car? By the end of my first year I was living in a room previously reserved for a live-in servant, a room just big enough for myself and the bed. I cooked lentil soup with one potato in on a gas stove that stood in the shower. Money to take a girl out on a date? Coffee and cake in town? Ha!

So, my Stellenbosch experience was a disappointment? Can we go further and say it was a failure? Just because it was different from what I had assumed it would be? Because it was different from how it was supposed to be? What kind of person allows himself to be bullied, after how many years, by assumptions?

I say: My Stellenbosch experience was a triumphant success! I, now, was born out of that experience! Was it a painful birth? Yes. Is the adult result of that pregnancy and childbirth a failure? What is the standard? What is the expectation? Property, permanent job, marriage, children, school fees, bills, barbecues on Saturday evenings with old friends? Are these still the standards of success as an adult? If that is the case, then I am indeed bloody disappointed!

Do I want to say after all these years that I, Brand Smit, want nothing more than to climb in a time machine and travel back ten, fifteen years? Will I burn incense on the altar of the mainstream establishment, and recite poetic prayers before the gods of John and Sandy Allman, and tread mighty carefully not to accidentally experience something that does not correspond with How Things Ought to Be When You Study at Stellenbosch?

Is this the seed of self-denial that has been growing inside me all these years since my Stellenbosch experience turned south? Am I still disappointed that my student years were not filled with enough money and a nice little apartment and holding hands by the river and laughing with friends? I am what I am today because my student years were not like that!

It is time to raise my fist and declare: “Triumph!”

It is time to climb on a roof and shout: “My experience was shit, that’s true! But thank the gods for it otherwise I wouldn’t have been the person I am today!”

It is time to once again see that I have long since reached the end of the tunnel, that I have survived the birth, that I have become, and that I am now in a position to identify the source of unnecessary disappointments and say, “There! There’s the culprit!”

Life is a struggle, and as long as you remain on your feet, you win. And I, Brand Smit, have remained on my feet. Despite my assumptions.

______________________

SUNDAY, 2 OCTOBER 2005

A question that is sometimes asked out loud, and sometimes only contemplated in silence: “How should I live?”

MONDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2005

Sometimes it feels like I regularly bring a new case to the court of the Lord of Misery, in an attempt to convince him to show me mercy and to grant me my freedom as one of his serfs.

Take note, I offer nothing. I just make my case every time, thinking that I will be able to convince the lord to permit me to let my sense of misery go, that I can be happy now because …

The Lord of Misery would only say: “This is the new status quo.”

I would ask what that means. No reply would come.

I will get busy with other things until I again make the same case, to which the Lord of Misery will respond: “What are you talking about? This has been your status for months! If you want mercy, bring me a new case!”

And that will be it.

This almost tempts me to say: to hell with the Lord of Misery. Who appointed him master of my life, anyway?

WEDNESDAY, 5 OCTOBER 2005

I exist. I exist as a son, a brother, a friend, a lover, a poet, a writer, a teacher, and as a Westerner in a country in North East Asia.

I did not always exist in all these capacities. In what other capacities am I yet to exist?

SATURDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2005

19:08

If you are just surviving, you do not necessarily need identity. Survival often requires only animal instinct. If you want to apply yourself to survival-plus, specific identity will prove to be extremely useful.

19:10

Every moment in a person’s life is a full circle of life data. The circle is constantly buzzing, but it is always full. Circle 081005@19:11:38 is not the same as Circle 081005@19:11:39. Similarities range from 99.99% to far less.

A person’s life is a constant flow of circles – or rather, a constant buzzing as one circle transforms into the next one.

Person X is the axis around which Person X’s circles revolve.

Differences in content of the circles become clearer the more time passes between circles. It is however important to remember that each circle is 100% full.

The more the data and the more diverse the content, the richer the life.

Risk also increases as data increases. More information can also improve chances of survival.

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SUNDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2005

Who were the leaders of successful communist revolutions? Who were the leaders of the Russian Revolution? Is it true or is it not true that the leaders were middle-class intellectuals who envied the industrialists and other members of the ruling class their political and economic power, and who saw the potential of carrying out a revolution, not in the name of and for the sake of middle-class intellectuals, but in the name of the working masses?

Did the Bolsheviks really intend to hand over control of the state to politically unsophisticated and in some cases illiterate factory workers and peasants? It was their intention to train the workers and peasants as political masters of their own state … but it would have been in the distant future. For the foreseeable future, it was (once again) the time of the middle-class intellectual …

[As I understand it, the plan was certainly not to hand over the reins of the state to workers whose hands were still stained with oil and grime from a hard day’s labour in the factory. But they did actively attempt to educate the workers in political and economic matters. There were also leaders later on, not only in the Soviet Union but also in Eastern Europe who had legitimate working-class credentials. It is also true that the Bolsheviks brutally suppressed efforts from workers, soldiers and sailors to bring to power a more democratic government, in opposition to the Bolsheviks.]

WEDNESDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2005

It is like being in a shopping centre and not knowing where you are for a moment. You can describe your immediate environment, but you do not know where you are on the map of the wider area in which you find yourself. Then you see a board with the welcome indication: “You are here.”

So it is with some of my notes. I can describe my current life, but some notes are more than description: they are like a board with a map of my life, with a bold red dot and an arrow that says, “This is where you are on Wednesday, 28 September 2005.”

THURSDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2005

Ten hope that they will leave something of value behind of their lives on Earth. Six realise after X number of years as an adult that the only way they can leave something behind of their lives while playing a satisfactory role is to have children. Three eventually come to believe that they have no chance of leaving behind anything or playing any kind of significant role, or they have no motivation for the actions that will be required of them to leave something of value behind or to play a more or less valuable role.

* * *

The above is an oversimplified representation. In fact, many probably start with the process of leaving something behind, things go wrong, and their lives end stripped of all dignity and self-respect.

Other people have children in a desperate attempt to appear better to themselves and to family and friends, and then, ten years later, as a result of a confluence of circumstances they play a prominent role or make a positive contribution, in addition to raising their children, that will leave an indelible and very constructive result of their existence.

And then there are others who reckon hedonism is their happy fate and personal religion, who sometimes end up as martyrs for a good cause for which they as hedonists, years earlier, never would have pinched off a minute of their time.

FRIDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER 2005

The pursuit of any goal comes down to X number of physical actions.

______________________

MONDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2005

I should forget about a so-called Ideal Self. I should work on a Better General Situation, Better Quality of Life, Better Health, a Better Income, a Better Bank Balance.

SATURDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER 2005

A guy in a minibus slides over a red light at a T-junction while talking on his cell phone. I lose my temper. Almost immediately I am annoyed with myself for losing my temper. I know anger is a manifestation of powerlessness.

But of what is his action a manifestation? It is all about traffic rules and chaos? Or is it also about people who must take responsibility for others whose lives may be affected by their actions? His action was a manifestation of disrespect toward life that flows in the veins of other people who use the road with him, and whose lives are affected by his blatant irresponsibility.

He represents the kind of person for whom I reserve but one emotion.

MONDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2005

Who, what and why have been prominent questions for me the past few years.

“How?” is another important matter.

Examples: How do you function? How do you know anything? How do you choose?

SATURDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2005

A problematic situation: private embarrassment; nowhere to hide and regain your dignity.

THURSDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2005

09:32

For some time now I have been moaning about dishes and dust and laundry and dirty tiles and chaos that threatens to collapse in on me every day.

Then, last night, as I was busy throwing something away or tidying up somewhere I realised: It is a struggle, and I win as long as chaos does not collapse in on me. And this struggle is a daily challenge.

21:34

The moment of recovery is not when you are 100% motivated and active again, it is when you get up from the couch, switch on the light above your desk, and continue to go through the actions.

FRIDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2005

1. I am executor of behaviour, constructive and/or destructive, with Objective X in mind, and/or in the name of Person Y, and/or for the benefit of Person Z.

2. All contemplations and arguments come down to us either being executors of a plan that pre-dates our existence, or we have to be very smart with our lives.

______________________

MONDAY, 29 AUGUST 2005

10:40

What do you do if the spectrum of self models with which you are faced is insufficient – if you cannot find a suitable match for you proprium*?

[Proprium: “The centerpiece of personality serving to help give the individual a sense of self.” The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research, and Applications, by Bernardo J. Carducci]

17:29

Fruits of my labour. Fruit of my existence.

21:01

I feel good about one thing and there is one thing that bothers me.

I feel good about an Afrikaans poem of mine [translated title: “Day full of civilisation”] that I rewrote, or radically revised. The thing that bothers me: So what? It’s not like anyone is going to read it any time soon! A collection of poetry? Two volumes of poetry? How many people are actually ever going to read any of it?

Another idea is already jumping up and down trying to get attention (“Pick me! Pick me!” it would have yelled if it were a child): money, and more specifically the pursuit of financial wealth. What would I say to someone today, Monday, 29 August 2005 if that person were to throw a card on the table that says: one hour spent on making money is better than ten hours spent on creative projects for the sake of being creative, with financial gain a secondary motivation and slim possibility. Also: any personal project, any study project, any skills that are learned only have value if you end up with more money in your pocket as a result. Also: you live in Cloud Cuckoo Land if you do not recognise these facts of life, and if you spend precious time – time you could have spent earning money – on writing poetry … I mean, come on! Poetry?! Are you serious?! And the trump card: money is an immediate fruit of your labour, an immediate result of time spent that can be used to buy food and fruit juice and coffee and tea and clothing, and to pay rent, and to travel, and to buy other things that will increase the quality of your life.

“You understand this, don’t you?” the person will say. “Almost immediate fruits of your labour! But you spend your time on, what? Literary projects with profit as a slim possibility in the distant future? English textbooks, okay. But poetry?”

What I would say to this challenge to a life I have chosen for myself, to beliefs that I consider as crucial to my existence?

TUESDAY, 30 AUGUST 2005

15:52

When I teach, I know what the fruits of my labour are – it is expressed in exact monetary value, and I have a good idea what the concrete, tangible value of that money is.

The tangible, usable, edible, visible fruit of conventional labour, in my case English classes, should be taken into account when I mention “money”.

20:20

I am currently struggling with the fruits of my labour. For example, I spent six weeks reviewing material from FINAL CHAPTER. Are the fruits of this labour visible? On my computer screen, yes. Is it tangible? No. Can I share it with someone? Not at the moment. Can I show it to anyone? Sort of – on my computer screen.

On the other hand, I teach an English class for an hour. I know what the fruits of that labour will be: NT$700. I know when I will pick this fruit: next Wednesday. Will I be able to see the fruits of that particular effort? Yes, in a cinema for example. Will I be able to eat the fruit of that labour? Yes, as breakfast cereal and yogurt, and lunch and dinner. Are the fruits of my teaching job tangible and concrete, for me? Yes. Are the fruits of my creative work concrete and tangible? They will be after a few more weeks or months of additional work …

I could argue that I want to teach more classes at the moment because I need more money. But I also know that I am motivated by the desire to see the fruits of my labour sooner rather than later, and to taste it, and to feel it on my skin, and to experience it.

20:52

Am I saying that labour should necessarily provide cash or other forms of credit that can be exchanged for things one can feel, taste, drink, see and possible smell and hear?

No. Three examples: to raise children; to actively do charity work; and to learn other languages.

Most of my effort – by far the most! – over the past five years has been ploughed into writing projects. It will certainly be unfair to say that no project has ever been completed (unfinished projects are not the same as projects that are endlessly revised). I would however ask: Where is the fruit? Show me the fruit of five years of effort!

I am a little hard on myself … I know the fruit will be sweet … but I need to express my frustration.

Last night I shared the thought with [N.] that money – hard cash – is a fruit of your labour that you can almost immediately enjoy, and that I put most of my effort into work that may only bear fruit in x number of months (or even years!). She replied that my fruits will eventually be good, even if it takes a little long to realise. And then the real comfort: “If you didn’t write, I would’ve considered you just an ordinary guy … and would probably not even have gone out with you. Your writing,” she concluded, “makes you special.”

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