His first degree was in Computer Science, his Master's in Philosophy, his PhD in Psychology. He is a tall, broad, curly-haired South African, but he doesn't possess the ruthless professionalism one associates with people from that country. He is not religious, but he yearns for a fairer order and has better intentions than the most religious people I know. Concepts and ideas are his currency, 'thought' is his area of expertise, but he does not want to stay in academia after his PhD - choosing business instead. Jonathan Haenen certainly doesn't lend himself to classification.
So, the only way to understand him is as an individual and so, that is what I seeked to do. The change of approach worked. I began to appreciate him for the genuinely deep thinker he was, began to marvel at his conceptual grasp of things. To hear him express his views is to get the sense that he has just been in a fight and won - a fight to untangle interwoven concepts and to dispel the mist surrounding a concept clearly understood. His thinking seems to have an angry edge to it, like he finds fuzzy thinking intolerable and has spent considerable time and energy reconciling his ideas with his existing knowledge. I always enjoy discussing things with him, especially controversial topics. You can be sure that you will be listened to sympathetically but objectively and get a well-thought-out response in return. And if he doesn't know, he will admit so. The few conversations I have had with him about the brain have been epic - there was this sense of two bulls locking horns, each spurring the other on to higher levels of cognitive prowess - higher and higher, faster and faster. They left me exhausted.
But most of all, I admire his egalitarianism. Talking to him, you get the sense that his education has really 'worked'. That because he has pursued his education with the objective of exposing himself to the best of human thought, that he has come away a much better person for it. He seems to understand in a deeper way, the ludicrousness of narrow prejudices, he seems to realise just that little bit more, the necessity of putting the greater good above self-interest. Talking to him, you also sense an exceptionally deep-rooted respect for other cultures and peoples. This expresses itself in intriguing ways - while other Whites I know have also enjoyed it, he is the White I know that has most enjoyed the Chennai Dosa experience (an authentic South-Indian restaurant in Reading,UK). I think this is because of his absolute openness to new cultures and different experiences, while for the other people, the experience was always tinged with some fear and reservation.
Of course, like everyone else (probably even more so), he also has his dark side. There seems to be a part of him that delights in the macabre. I remember how, when a group of us were coming back after watching a particularly morbid play, he was exclaiming enthusiastically about "enjoying the creepiness of it".
As a guy from a traditional Indian background coming to the UK, I always wondered what novel experiences awaited me. Jonathan has been one such novel experience - one that has opened my eyes to new possibilities of being, once one dared to venture out of the 'conventional' and 'familiar'. But on Tuesday (14th Sep 2010), he leaves back to South Africa and I might never see him again. So, here's wishing him a great life ahead - Jonathan Haenen, a genuine thinker, a good human being and an outlier in the nicest possible way :)
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