Saturday morning books & blues

I begin this year, putting down on a virtual page of an electronic notebook, with three pointers - actually far more than mere pointers for me - that have serendipitously crossed my path and shortcircuited a lay line in my mind:

* Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.
- Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis

Why the above triggers me is because, in all honesty, I have hardly ever dared to write about what really interests me, presses me; perhaps it's because, firstly, I don't have balls... and, secondly, because of my mom and dad still being alive. I certainly hope, and fear, that freedom will only come when they die.

* Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them.

- Henri Nouwen 

With reading Nouwen's words above (I'm ploughing through his works, as well as a biography about him) I'm struck by the realisation that my lifespan consists of layers upon layers of automatic behaviour that I no longer even interrogate-analyse; it's empty - and energy- and emotion-sucking - actions in perpetual scan/search mode, but never ever finding satisfaction, except momentarily, and mostly sexual. But, nevertheless, empty. And meaningless. Surely, by now, surely, I can intellectually acknowledge that I'm quite simply wasting my time, that it's going nowhere. And never will.

* I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity. 

- Guillermo Cabrera Infante

While 'in public' I will almost definitely argue that I don't need an excuse for being who I am, I do know that - naturally, like for most of us mortals - that my upbringing, my school education and growing up in the apartheid state fucked me up six-nil. Nevertheless, while I take full responsibility for who I am and where I find myself, it's good to know that despite an implanted chip that tries it's damndest to programme me into conformity, I am anything but a conformist.