Assorted Notes

TUESDAY, 23 AUGUST 2005

10:00

Me: “In the language of our time, I say …”

Crowd: “One-zero!”

Me: “Make your choice.”

14:25

“I exist.”

I exist – but how? and why?

“I function.”

I function – how? why?

“I appear.”

I appear – but where? how? to whom? and why?

FRIDAY, 26 AUGUST 2005

My vision of an ideal world: in any given community a vanguard of enlightened men and women – all competent people, producers of knowledge and insights, artists, writers, designers, and other professions – who strive for positive results of their own lives – results that would inevitably be to the advantage of the communities where they live and work.

SATURDAY, 27 AUGUST 2005

In the end, I can only bear witness to my own life: how I made decisions, what I decided, how I defined myself, and so on.

SUNDAY, 28 AUGUST 2005

Choose your self model. Bob Dylan, for example, chose the model of “American folksinger”, which in turn was based on another model, which in turn was based on an earlier model, until you get to the earliest archetype. Dylan, in turn, made his mark on the model. Many who came after him based themselves on the “Bob Dylan” model.

______________________

THURSDAY, 11 AUGUST 2005

14:10

It is good to live in harmony with your surroundings. It is good to compare your life with the lives of other people and to come to the conclusion that your choices are also good, and explainable; that they can even be offered to others as a valid option for an adult at the time and environment in which you live.

I would like to believe that I do not need the approval or endorsement of others. What I do want is to be able to look at my own life and to be able to declare with conviction that my life is also good, that the choices I have made were right for me, that my life also has a claim to wall space in the Gallery of Adult Lives.

16:37

Boring Fact That I Have Recited So Many Times That I Can Repeat It In My Sleep, Number One: I am at my happiest when I am working on my own projects – when I am busy with free, creative work under my own control.

* * *

“At your happiest?” someone might ask. “What about your relationship?”

Reply: If I were not in a good relationship, the fulfilment I experience when I am busy with my own work would have been mixed with quite a few other emotions. Without my creative work, without my projects, I would not be half the man that I currently am in my relationship. Among other things, I would have constantly questioned my own value and attractiveness as a person and a partner.

SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2005

I, myself, and the truth about madness and lies: from a dream

SUNDAY, 21 AUGUST 2005

Each of us is the result of choices that thousands of people made over the centuries, and actions they took or did not take or took by error – from an impulsive decision to get on a boat to another continent, or not to get on a boat that eventually ended up on the bottom of the ocean, to swords that just missed an important organ, or an ancestor centuries ago that ducked just in time to see a stone fly over his head instead of crushing his skull.

MONDAY, 22 AUGUST 2005

01:15

Epistemology: How do you know anything?

09:20

Debate, experiment, “For it is said …”

How do you know what is being said is true?

“Because …”

17:50

Am I still chasing after wind eggs … okay, wrong question. Am I still running through a muddy field, chasing after a rainbow? Or am I actually going to arrive, eventually?

______________________

SATURDAY, 6 AUGUST 2005

10:50

You can approach a difference of opinion on religious matters, especially with your family or the family of your significant other, in one of two ways: apologetically or unapologetically. If you are apologetic, you come across as weak, as someone who actually knows what is right but who still chooses not to live according to these principles and convictions (perhaps because you are weak and spineless). In the case of an obdurate attitude you easily come across as arrogant and even as looking down on someone because you know what that person believes, but for you it is not “that simple”.

11:35

I have a strong suspicion that I sometimes create the impression that I know things that other people do not know; that I have secret knowledge that will pull the carpet from under another person’s feet; that I do not share things with people because I feel sorry for them, and because I do not want to be the cause of their existential angst.

The truth is that where many people’s beliefs and general worldview consist of statements, mine consist of a few statements, and many more questions.

Many people will respond to this by saying that it must be awful to walk around with so many questions to which you do not have answers. (And in their own minds they think how awful it would be for them to live with so much uncertainty.)

My response is that my mind is much more at ease with questions and honest inquiry and with saying, “I don’t know” than with statements about which I am uncertain but which I feel I need to defend for the sake of membership to a specific group or community. I also know by now that I do not need answers to all my questions to be able to function on a daily basis, or to be who I want to be, or to contribute constructively to the community in whose midst I live out my existence, or to pursue good values.

My understanding of life is sustainable, because it is built on critical inquiry rather than on statements that one is expected to simply accept but that have changed over the centuries. A steady understanding, rather than one built on sand now blowing this way and tomorrow or in 500 years blowing in a completely different direction.

17:48

Social appearances are always, to a greater or lesser extent, dishonest.

WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2005

from the light of circles where the swords are dancing/a fresh desert again break forth … first two lines of a poem that appeared in my notebook in a dream.

The rest of the dream: It was evening, [N.] was at a coffee shop, and I was at a deep fried or noodle stall. When I went back to the coffee shop, Dan and Mireille [two people I met in Korea], and two other people were sitting with [N.] who I then took by the hand to “save” her.

She then told me Dan introduced himself as “Name is Jim, surname Morrison.”

One of the other people then came over to where we were waiting for our fried dumplings and chatted with us in Afrikaans. The guy responded with, “No, I don’t think so” when I said maybe the cave where he had been in Africa was the “Skull Cave”. He said he did not really follow the “Phantom” in the Sunday papers, did I?

______________________

Shortly after six on Friday, 5 August 2005, I start pedalling home from a cram school. What follows are the observations and conversations with myself that compete for my attention over the next twelve minutes.

Thought number 1: “I completely misunderstood Zhang when she started talking about the Chinese teacher and her problems.”

Response to thought number 1: “Don’t worry about it. I know the story. It’s not really important.”

Through the temple gate and a green traffic light, just ahead of a scooter that recklessly run the red light …

Thought number 2: “So I arrived at the school with the idea that I actually want to go to South Africa between 2 and 14 September. Just as I was taking off my shoes at the door, a bell went off. ‘September third, September third … why does it sound so important?’ I pushed open the door, and then I remembered: Ernesta’s farewell weekend! But …”

A man with a pack of cigarettes in his hand walks to a car parked in the middle of the road. I’m distracted. I go around the corner and see a woman. She’s pregnant. I look at her feet: fat toes with nails clipped too short. She’s not particularly attractive. She’s in a gritty part of town. My imagination kicks in.

Thought number 3: “She reminds me of a character in a movie … the woman was not too bright. Could this woman’s husband also be a member of a crime syndicate? How would he feel when his child is born? Will they be able to raise the child properly? Will the child end up following in his or her parents’ footsteps? If the man is a member of a crime syndicate and the child is a boy, will he end up also becoming a gangster – an open sore on a community that does not need nor can afford more criminals? If the guy is a gangster, does he believe his fellow mobsters will treat him with more respect once he’s got a child? Will he end up using his child in arguments he would not have been able to win in any other way? Then again, what about accountants, and engineers, and office managers? Do they always raise their children properly? Is it always a good thing if their children follow in their footsteps? Do they not also sometimes use their children in arguments they would not have been able to win in any other way?”

At the traffic lights, I turn left. Two boys stare at me as if I don’t belong in that part of town. I see a bundle of … thread? A fish net. An old man is sitting on a low stool beside the road pulling the net apart. A dog is lying on the ground next to him playing with the net. The old man looks unperturbed.

Thought number 4: “How does it feel to live like that? Say you live on an island, or on a remote beach. You spend your time pulling nets apart, and walking your dog along the sea, and fishing, and taking naps in the shade of a tree. What would such a man say to someone who talks about famine in Africa, or war in Iraq, or bombs in London? Will he say, ‘It does not matter to me’? ‘This stretch of beach, this view of a piece of ocean, this is my world. I do not really care about what happens in other places.’ Then the other person will say, ‘What if there’s a situation where, if only one person could help – and that one person could be you, it would save lives?’ ‘Well, if it’s their time, it’s their time,’ the guy will probably answer.

“The problem with this attitude is that the bad guys are never so casual about things. To tell the truth, it’s one of the biggest fuckups you’ll ever find – this thing that apathy and indifference are never characteristics of those who endanger lives, and destroy, and corrupt, and exploit and oppress until the last drop of blood! So the guy with his life on the beach, with his fish net and his dog and his small piece of ocean, will eventually also have to choose.”

“This I have to write down when I get home,” I think as I pedal the last hundred or so meters up the hill.

And then I suddenly remember the thought about a possible trip to South Africa from a few minutes ago. “So even if I had money for a vacation in September, I couldn’t possibly let my friend down in her final week in Taiwan. Pity I didn’t think about that when I had to explain to the family why I won’t be able to visit them next month.”

______________________

MONDAY, 1 AUGUST 2005

18:51

Creative independence is a good and noble goal to pursue. To perform your job as you deem fit and not as dictated by others, is all well and good. But how does this apply to medical doctors, dentists, police officers, engineers, firefighters and emergency service staff? Writers, actors, philosophers, photographers and so on are part of a group of “workers” who can certainly insist on minimal interference on how they perform their work, but can all workers insist on this?

Another question: The writer or the artist who fights tooth and nail for creative independence, to do what he wants and as he deems fit, every now and then needs a dentist or a doctor, or a nurse or a bank clerk. He expects that these people will perform their work as it is supposed to be done. So then he does not practice what he preaches, or what? And is it not also noble to serve the needs of the community?

19:00

What would I say one day when I am old, and someone asks my advice about life? (If I am lucky enough that the person asks me a question for which I have worked out such a nice reply, and they are patient enough to listen to the short speech.)

I will say, three things:

1. Get to know yourself. Ask yourself questions, and consider each possible answer carefully before you accept one. If other people have answers to the questions you ask or if they offer you answers, accept these answers only after you have given them some proper critical consideration and only if you regard the answers as relevant for yourself. Get to know yourself in different situations and in a wide variety of environments. Observe yourself; see where your strengths lie, as well as your weaknesses.

2. Make money. If you can do so without calling someone “boss” and without dancing to someone else’s tune, you will be one of a minority of people who enjoy personal freedom in their work. If you make more money than you need for your basic needs and for whatever makes you happy, that will also be good. It will enable you to enjoy life that much more, and it will enable you to assist others in their struggle for survival. Remember: greed is a lousy trait; be wise with your money; and if you build your self-esteem mainly on the fact that you have money, you are building your house on sand.

3. Knowledge … of your environment, the world outside your immediate field of experience, other societies, other countries, general and specific histories, and so on. Knowledge of psychology, philosophy and other disciplines will also allow you to understand yourself, other people, and the world a little better.

TUESDAY, 2 AUGUST 2005

Imagine the following scene: a hundred people are gathered in a hall. No names are used. Each person has a set of blank cards with him or her – say about fifty cards. On these cards people write statements that define them: descriptions such as, “I have a long nose,” “I have a mole on my forehead,” “I like to tell jokes,” “I love gardening,” and also experiences such as, “I fell off my bicycle when I was twelve and lost my front teeth,” “I travelled through Europe with my parents when I was seventeen,” “In my mid-twenties I lived in South Korea for two years,” and so on. The cards are then thrown together, and each person is then identified by these statements and experiences. Of course, at least half the people would react if the statement, “I am a man” is read. Many will raise their hands when the statement, “I have protruding ears” is read. Certainly the semi-unique combinations of physical characteristics and descriptions of personality will differentiate one person from another, but will personal experiences prove to be the ultimate unique identifier?

THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST 2005

If you do not know what you want to do with your life, what do you do with your life? How do you function? Why do you live as you live, where you live and with whom you live? Why do you do the work you do? Why do you wear the specific clothes you wear?

I am sure there are interesting answers to these questions. Or, most people do in fact have an idea of what they want to do with their lives. If this is the case, I wonder: “What?” And if someone then answers the question, I would still be curious: “Why?”

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