Tag: life path

My life in Taiwan since January 1999 in five-year blocks

SUNDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2026

January 1999~January 2004: Settle in Taiwan. Identity crisis. Continue writing notes started in 1994. Work on own projects. Existential crisis. Move to second apartment. Produce hundreds of pages of notes and pieces. Visit South Africa four times.

(Abandoned house in my new neighbourhood)

January 2004~January 2009: Write more. Meet my life partner. Start obsessing over “make money from home”. Experience one failure after another. Learn how to self-publish. Quit smoking. Visit South Africa three times.

(New chapter begins)

January 2009~January 2014: Start personal websites. Publish writing. Even more failures with “make money from home”. Get more classes and rebuild finances. Move to new “office”. Visit South Africa three times.

(Boxes move to a new space)

January 2014~January 2019: “Make money from home” shifts to pre-race trading and football betting. Repeated failures and high stress. Spend six days in Kyoto and Osaka. Publish several thematic collections of my writing. Visit South Africa two times.

(Damned pre-race trading)

January 2019~January 2024: Spend six days in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) in Vietnam. Covid-19. Classes are cancelled; schools close. Revenue drops by 60%. ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence commercially available. Publish my first products created with new resources. Travel around the entire island of Taiwan for the first time. Visit South Africa one time.

(Important crossroad in Vietnamese history)

January 2024~January 2029: Utilize various AI resources to produce more products. Visit South Africa twice (so far).

(South African breakfast)

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Deep gratitude as defiance

SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2026

Deep gratitude as defiance, a form of “Fuck you” to anyone or anything that wants to keep you down.

“What if you are diagnosed with cancer, or even worse, you’ve been suffering from cancer for months?”

Deep gratitude that I’m still alive. I still have a chance to beat it.

“What if you have terminal cancer, with mere weeks to live?”

Deep gratitude that I still have time to get my affairs in order.

“What if you have actually died from the cancer?”

Deep gratitude that the pain is over.

“Okay, what if you’re a man and you’re in a fight and it’s not going well?”

Deep gratitude that I’m still standing.

“What if you’ve actually lost the fight?”

Deep gratitude that I’m still alive.

“What if the other guy actually killed you?”

Deep gratitude that I don’t have to deal with assholes like him anymore.

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Everyone gets their turn

SUNDAY, 19 OCTOBER 2025

Here’s a thought for middle-aged people, and for young people who may eventually become middle-aged.

For me, turning 50 was a shock. I was definitely not prepared for it. It was also in the middle of the so-called pandemic of 2020-2022, so everyone was a little nervous anyway.

At 54, I’ve had time to get used to the idea, and I can also see myself getting older by the day – and definitely looking older than when I was 48.

The point is, everyone gets their turn. One day you’re a kid, and a few years later it’s your turn to be a teenager. And a few short years later it’s your turn to be 21 or 22. Then 25 … and you realize time doesn’t stand still. Then it’s your turn to be in your thirties. And just as you get comfortable with what it means to be that age – how you’re no longer a teenager but still have decades to work towards a comfortable retirement, you hit 40. A new role again, and a slightly different identity than when you were 35.

And unless the train drops you off at an earlier station, you’re suddenly 50.

The fact is, someone has to be 50 while other people are 40 and other people are 30 and other people are 20 and other people are teenagers and children and toddlers. And after a few years, everyone moves on a few chairs while new people occupy the old positions.

And you accept it with dignity and a good sense of humour. And hopefully a little wisdom to share.

Only death can change that: Everyone gets their turn.

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What I say and what I do

MONDAY, 14 APRIL 2025

If I had to ask myself what my primary goal has been for the past … say, twenty years, I would say it’s to make money. Twenty years ago, I was suddenly no longer alone. A young woman had decided to take a chance on me, and I had to justify her incredibly optimistic hope.

The last thing I want to do is bore the reader again with a list of projects and schemes with which I have attempted to make money over the past two decades. Point is, plenty of the endeavours had nothing to do with gathering knowledge or insight, much less with sharing knowledge and insight with people who might have needed it.

Now, when I teach, I don’t just explain grammar or vocabulary – I use every opportunity I get to inject a little history. Or I try to give a slightly non-cliched opinion when the conversation is about relationships, or other aspects of human existence about which I may have had an intelligent thought in the past. Most of the material I have created so far for ESL students, and the social media material I publish these days, reveal the ambition of the person behind it to share knowledge. (Of course, I assume most people don’t already know what I have to say.)

Other personal projects, like Asian Histories of Listed History, and even Familiegeskiedenis (an Afrikaans site about family history), are not exactly supposed to make money. The ambition has always been more noble-minded.

My primary task – by default, although I don’t think of it that way every day – is to gather knowledge and insight. And when I have managed to obtain another kernel of knowledge or insight, to then share it in a way that is a little different from the next collector of knowledge and insight, in order to hopefully make it somewhat easier for the person receiving the knowledge and insight to lead a happier and more productive life.

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