To get things started here’s one of those promised caveats:
Honesty
I may not express myself well.
I might make some changes to names and so on to protect the innocent, or the guilty for that matter.
I will certainly misremember things, or accurately remember my initial misperceptions.
On top of that, I have no doubt my judgments and values are somewhat idiosyncratic – but so are yours, so it’s a wash.
I don’t promise great lucidity. Why, I sometimes think I confuse my dreams with waking life. Often I don’t know whether I am imagining the future from the past, or remembering the past from a future time.
Be warned
Despite the ambiguity and complexity of inherent in the labyrinth of conscious life I will nonetheless try to speak from the heart. That doesn’t just mean, no lies in the obvious sense. Of course we lie when we knowingly make false statements, but that’s far from the worst or most common form of lying.
What about all the time we spend pretending to be what we are not, to feel what we do not feel, to know what we don’t know? No, no present company excluded; of course I didn’t mean you – or me. I meant those other guys.
Just ask this fellow, he knows all about it. Maybe that’s why he looks so pissed off.
Dante by Dore
In The Inferno Dante places the liars (frauds, falsifiers, betrayers) in the lowest two (i.e. the worst) circles of hell. Here we – well maybe not us, but Dante and Virgil – find what I’d call liars or bullshit artists, and which he calls frauds, or falsifiers. He places them below the circle of the violent because, he tells us: they use their particularly human qualities for their misdeeds.
Leaving aside the Christian and Medieval climates of guilt and punishment, it works for me. And Dante goes further and perceptively divides simple liars, who are stuck in circle 8, from those betray a special relationship of some kind. The treacherous frauds get stuck in the lowest pit, circle 9. In my universe treachery is much less about the affair you didn’t tell your couple about (see irrelevancies and monkey business) and much more about those who claim a special and unwarranted status as teachers, advisors, pundits, experts, guides, gurus, life-coaches, etc.
So, no lying, no bullshit, no unsubstantiated claims that don’t reflect my own experience. If I’m passing along hearsay, I’ll say so, if it is speculation I’ll let you know; otherwise its mine: my perceptions, my experiences, my points of view.
Writing
Nor should you argue that you dislike my way of presenting things, for you do not criticize the peel when you like the fruit.
Silo, The Inner Look II:5
I make my living as a writer and filmmaker so, since you are wise in the ways of the world, it won’t surprise you to discover that means I usually have to write to someone else’s specs. Sometimes I write for money(like with scripts), more often for the hope of money (like pitches, proposals, applications, etc), at other times for a particular event, or situation. However, I’m writing this for myself and for the few (my kin, physical and spiritual) who might enjoy what they find here. What a nice change.
As the rambling gambler says in the old folk song: “…and if you don’t like me than leave me alone”.
For those of you few who find something of interest here. Welcome and enjoy.
As far I can manage it this will be an interactive site. I look forward to hearing from you. Please talk among your selves. I don’t know if this can be a dialogue, or an interchange, perhaps some kind of virtual symposium – we’ll see…
I’m very interested in hearing from other people with other points of view about these matters of common interest. In much the same way, I’m really not at all interested in hearing from assholes, and after all this is my little kingdom no matter how unfortunate or benighted a kingdom you may find it. Just as in the ‘real world’ interventions for the good of the inhabitants are rarely meet with an unmixed welcome at best.
Keys to the Kingdom
I think the name sets the tone (not the website name dzuckerbrot – the little slogany thing, “Fragments of an Unknown Life”). As one of the billions on this little world (not to mention all the others) I think I qualify as one more unknown citizen.
So you will find fragments here. Like you my life has a number of facets. People who know me in one ambit (say family) surely know a different ‘me’ than the people I work with, or those I work for. How do all these versions of ‘me’ relate? Is there a common substrata? A single “I” behind them all? Or are they just casually related fragments, shards of shattered glass? It seems to me that what’s interesting is the question and the impulse behind the question.
So this website is composed of fragments of life. Where possible I’ve outlined some of the relationships between them marking them with annotations or links.
There are different ways in and through this labyrinth, there are different doors or portals to a particular fragment/aspect/ambit. Look hard enough and you might even find the paths/connections/links, etc marking out a few of those relationships.
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