Producer's Log 1 - Experimentation

            This is... not Robert Longshore – either.

You don't know it, yet, because I haven't – yet – but each episode is going to start with “This is not Robert Longshore... and you are listening to the Memoirs of the Fulcrum of Fate – “ or something like.

No, this is your producer, V.

I've thought about doing this for a while. This blog as an experiment is actually more of a way to feel as though I have something to show for the hours and hours of work I put into this project – and have been putting in for years, now. A way to track (more) finished product. As I approach the end of this incarnation – this draft if you like – I've been thinking about what I need to do next – how, in essence, I can continue to show more and more product for my time and effort spent either with Rob or immersing myself in fact-checking him.

I sat down to do this today to talk about my reasons, about what's coming next, and probably to let my mind wander before I sit down to pull Rob's teeth – I mean, get him to tell me more of the rest of his story. But....

The question of Why haunts me. Probably because my father's answer to it when I was a child was a meaty smack to the face. Maybe as I grew into a teen and a man of my own, defiance was my defense against the inevitably violent response to the question. Let's be real – Why is always met with violence. Well—

When the question of why isn't met with violence, it is met with lies. Obfuscation, dissemblage, deflection, these are all means of answering with something other than the Truth. There are two ways of defining a lie – rather, there are two ways of choosing to identify a lie. At its most extreme, and the definition preferred by liars, a lie is a mistruth told with the intent to deceive. Otherwise a lie is any misrepresentation of the truth. This latter identification is preferred by cowards.

Let's work with it until it no longer suits our purposes.

Ask anyone the why of anything they do, and when they don't give you an outright lie, they will give you a surface-level answer that usually makes little to no sense or has little to no relevance. Is this a lie (when it isn't outright)? Not to you, but it is a lie.

People hate why.

It may be the single thing that humans do which makes us unique among our animal brethren – but we hate it.

You're no doubt arguing with me right now. “What?” I can hear you demand. “But I question why of everythiiiiiing.” Do you? Do you do it out loud? Do you get honest answers?

I'm laughing, because I know why I do this, too. Or at least I have a pretty honest answer as to why it might be that I am so extreme on this. It goes back to my parents. I figured out at an absurdly young age that my parents were complete idiots – that is, that the home environment that I was being raised in was one of total ignorance vis-a-vis the question of why. Why is it that I came to that conclusion?

My mother was the opposite of my father in this regard. Where he responded with violence, she would give the most obviously wrong answers. So, for me, at a very young age, before my teens, it became apparent that if I was going to learn anything of the world, I was going to have to do it on my own. It didn't take long – not even all the way through high school – before the Lesson of History was obvious to me: That the vastest majority of what humans have believed to be The Truth has been not just a little wrong, not just skewed, but completely ass backward – and worse than simply being wrong, the error has been reinforced with lies and violence!

Haha

It's a vicious cycle – vicious as in vice-ous, an antiquated use of the word.

So when I came to hear the Hermetic maxim, “As above, so below,” it was all-too obvious to me the meaning: Everything is cyclical, everything reflects itself within and without the whatever. The society reflects itself in the individual, in the home, in the workplace, and in massive gatherings such as protests, memorials, celebrations, and battles. The family unit reflects itself in the individual – in their dress, their speech, their behavior – but again is a reflection of generations of family units stretching into the past as well as the potential future. But let's leave the future alone for a while.

 Rob and Peitho still have much to discuss on that topic, and I want to leave what I've learned and maybe what I think until after you have a chance to see the source of my... thought, if you like. Maybe that's what this thing can be?

Here's the point:

If my parents were either making things up or slapping me to shut up the question, then their parents must have done similar things. And their parents must have. And if their parents were doing it, then their neighbors' parents were probably doing it. Now, maybe they weren't all using violence, but a convention is conventional for a reason. And it's not because people don't turn a blind eye to evil.

But enough of Cicero.

I started looking at history from that lens: the family unit. And that perspective informs a lot of what I think about history. In particular pre-history.

And do you know what I found?

A truth that only a handful of people would have you hear, and another handful of people has kept quiet for seven, eight thousand years or more.

It is all built on the family unit. Civilization as we know it, from the foundations up, is built on the family unit – from the lowest slaves to the actual rulers of the world – but not Rob's Powers That Be, well, not really – everything is engineered around the family unit – and manipulating the quality and state thereof.

Modern American politics can be broken down as: Conservatives are obsessed with the status quo of the family unit as it was 100 years ago and before; Liberals are obsessed with undermining the family unit as it has been understood lo these last seven, eight thousand years. You can argue the observation, but it does no one any good. No one is willing  to look at the Why.

Which makes me wonder: Why?!

History is about telling the story of the past, the Who. Anthropology and Archaeology are kind of the How, the What, the When – the Where, for sure. But Why?

We don't really like to talk about Why.

Psychology kind of looks at Why. But psychologists who talk about it? Three come to mind: Freud, Jung, Peterson. There are, of course, others. In philosophy and the other sciences, as well as in psychology. But psychology.... When I was a young person, a child and adolescent I idolized Psychology. There's an Evans Blue song that kind of sums up my feelings, now - “Don't look down because I don't know / Falling is fatal from this height I know / I never should have held you up / this high.”

Psychology is not some utopia for ideas. No Establishment can be.

Look at Dr. Stephen Novella. As a scholar, a doctor, and a skeptic goes, he is a hero of mine. As a thinker of independent thoughts? Not at all.

I feel like I've strayed from any kind of cogent narrative. Not that this – or Rob, really, for that matter – is meant to be narrative in structure, it would be nice if I could try to remain cogent. But, hell – even Cicero rambled.

I met Rob – either I found him, or he found me, but it really feels like the latter more every day – along my personal quest to answer the question of why. I feel like I've already said that quest started at three or five different points in my life. But that's sort of how this Journey goes, it seems. If you've watched the Hellier series, you've kind of seen what I'm talking about.

Even when you're actively pursuing this... thing, whatever it is, sometimes it will disappear from your mind without a trace for days, weeks, months – yes, even years – at a time. And then you'll think about it all of a sudden and boom it's all over your life and you can't get away or out of it. It's like being devoured by a Gelatinous Slime.

And that's really how it feels, sometimes – like I'm – like you're – being devoured. Like you're inside a bubble reality; and everyone around you can tell, but no one is reaching into the Cube to pull you out.

Frankly it can be terrifying.

Maddening.

I wonder often where I'm not insane.

When I was a kid, for some state-mandated test, I read Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart”. I think of it often, when I think of madness. But I might have been reading an altered version. I was looking for the quote that I so remember, and can find it nowhere.

I remember the story as beginning with a proof of the narrator's sanity. Something like, “Would a madman try to prove his sanity?” I guess the actual text isn't that dissimilar – that is the point of the story after all. And the moral is that, yes, a madman would try to prove his sanity, and by doing so indict himself.

So am I articulating my madness?

Or, more likely, am I articulating my mundanity?

Instead of doing those things I suggested I might, I'm going to pull on a thread a little while, then I'm going to wrap this up. There's plenty of time for me to do this tomorrow – and all the tomorrows after that.

Lies.

Rather than exploring why we tell them – because I don't think that's as interesting a topic: it's pretty obvious why we tell lies – I want to talk about The Lie we all tell ourselves. The lie that might be the most detrimental to us.

We all believe that we are unique. It's built into us. In the Developmental Psychology class I took from Shawnee State in high school, we were taught that there are stages of human development. One of the developments which sort of separates the teenaged or child mind from the adolescent is the understanding that you are not actually unique. You are not the first person to feel or say or think or experience literally anything.

Why do I bring this up?

I think our civilization is engineered – has maybe always been engineered for certain people – to never allow us to develop out of this aspect of childhood. The modern international economy requires US residents to believe that they are “snowflakes”, as people like to say to hurt one another. You can't participate in any aspect of daily modern life without engaging your sense that you are unique and special and valuable. It's everywhere you look – positive affirmations from pop-psychologists and feel-good “Influencers” on every social media platform.

This is the real reason that 2020 was so devastating to the Developed World's overall perception of its mental health: people otherwise ignorant or in complete denial, who filled the void which is unacceptance of one's insignificance with public life (bars, work, whatever), were suddenly locked away in relative social isolation. For many, most I should think, people, it was the first time they'd ever encountered their thoughts.

Those thoughts, when you're alone, about your inadequacy. About your insignificance. About how nothing matter and everything you've ever done has been a waste because when you were three you wanted to be a horse farmer and now you're a motherfucking accountant for a rapist.

I probably read like I'm spitting fire – or venom – or venomous fire.

I promise I'm not.

I feel for these people. This is what it is to be me. I told someone on Twitter earlier this spring that I would never recommend someone live my experience.

I'm not that I guy who stands on the outside of society screaming about how evil it is because I don't get to participate.

I'm not a Nazi.

Hell, even Nazis have friends.

Gods, I wish that were a joke.

Most days I feel more akin to the Biblical Prophets than I do anything else.

Because I'm not unique, either. And If I'm going to do this egotistical thing, I'm going to do it as humbly - but with as much of my father's arrogance - as I can, as I was born to do. The only way I know how.

We look for similarities between us and the people by whom we are surrounded. The data already shows that our friends are our friends almost exclusively because of proximity. And experience tells me it's almost never because of shared interests or personalities or... well, you all have families – you've all been to a Thanksgiving Dinner or familial equivalent – you know what life is like. Whether you choose to acknowledge it at all.

As above, so below – our friendships are reflections of our families.

I used to ask why people were friends with certain people. There's my answer.

The course I've found myself on is not a difficult one to imagine, once you know where I came from.

I switched gears because I got to thinking – and I think about this often. I don't see many people like me. I've never met anyone like me – not really. And the people who are sort of like me, or whom I see myself in, either artists or representations in their art... they end up one of two ways: Either addicts and habitual losers – or suicides.

And little damn wonder.

Gods know I've lived with that internal dialogue. The one that's constantly whispering just behind your ear.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you putting up with more of this? Just end it. Kill yourself. Just die and be dead and be done with it.”

I've woken up with it, heard it during nearly every human interaction I've ever had – especially when I have worked customer service (which I've done for damn near 20 years) – and I've gone to sleep with it for as long as I can remember. At least since I was thirteen. That's when things got real bad.

But, as I learned then and have always reminded myself - #humblebrag – someone has always got it worse than you. As bad as you think it is, you could be an AIDs baby born to starve to death in your mother's starving arms.

Just sayin.

No matter how bad you think you have it, it could always be worse.

We were born in the best time in human history. We should be celebrating, not tearing one another apart on the internet for Likes. But I digress.

I haven't exactly bucked the addicted habitual loser mantel. Mantle? Hm. Don't let me make out like I have. And that's probably what I want to talk about. The question I'm constantly asking myself – which I've been asking myself since long before Rob came into my life – and maybe he found me to answer it, who knows, but – the question which pushes and pulls this whole endeavor – is one a little bit like Why Me.

How am I credible?

I'm a loser.

A college dropout. A nobody. Even my girlfriends don't like me that much.

Add to that, I'm arrogant, defensive, quick to punch out at the wrong people for injustices— And what the hell do I know – about anything – really?

I don't know. But I seem to have been gifted a particular, if not unique, perspective of the world.

And Rob and I have a lot planned for you.

I have difficulty describing what Rob and I are doing.

The first thing you're supposed to be able to do when you're selling a book is to describe it in one sentence. A Hobbit goes on an adventure with some Dwarves to kill a Dragon or something like that. Rob is... even The Lesvos Serpent isn't any one-sentence thing. Hell, it takes me multiple sentences to describe what Rob is.

He's sort of... you know, Indiana Jones meets Sherlock Holmes if he were Sam Spade – but in the Middle Ages.

Oh, so like Knights and Castles and stuff?

Well, no. Earlier than that.

Oh. Rome.

No. After that.

There's something between those? Okay, well—

Yeah— But it's also Greek mythology. And Deep Time. And—

Deep Time?

...You get the point. I could say it's kind of The Maltese Falcon, but nobody has read that book, apparently – outside of me and the guy who did the Great Lecture course about Dashiell Hammett. But it's also not anything at all like any of those things. It's more like one of Plato's dialogues with action set-pieces mixed in to keep you from getting bored.

Doesn't sound like something many people would want to buy.

And I get that, actually.

All I can really say to try to sell this thing we're making is that I know that I've grown as a person trying to help Rob process his past. It's enough for me to witness an immortal's quest for self-acceptance to continue, nearly a decade in and many, many thousands of hours and dollars invested.

And you know what they say about kinks and fetishes: where there's one that likes to do it, there's one that likes it done; and where there's two, there's thousands.

As silly as it sounds, maybe this is me standing in an international airport holding a sign for all souls lost and alone – my family, as it were.

I keep talking around what Rob and I have actually planned for this project.

As it is, this blog is a placeholder. I needed to feel productive, and I do. But it is a pain in the ass to navigate, and not exactly something that screams I am a professional. And I'm okay with that. It's kind of my personality. I grew up in machine shops – the workspace isn't nearly as important to me as the very high quality of the finished product. And this still isn't the quality I'm looking for.

A website or better host site should be in the future. I don't know how to shop for that shit and don't really care about it creatively? I'll have to eventually. Especially once I start recording and wanting to share audio. Which really isn't long from now. I'll have to figure out a microphone situation. But my phone will probably work for now.

The primary goal of this thing is to make it an audio show.

I love old time radio and audiobooks.

They're making a renaissance in podcasts. And I think that's great. But I haven't found one I like. They all feel... homage-y. And, honestly, maybe I'm just homaging a different tradition – the tradition of the theosophists and their seances, maybe. Channeling a spirit and automatic-writing his memoir? Sounds like some Crowley shit. Which is funny – I did not know that about Crowley until after insisting for years that we do it this way.

But, hey, Crowley didn't also do audio recordings.

Or did he?

Shit, am I just ripping off Aleister Crowley?

I guess there are worse people to rip off.

Anyway, after that, the plan is to animate the audio.

As I once answered someone when they responded to my laying out these plans with not-veiled-at-all skepticism: My ambition far outstretches my skill.

But, hey, I could barely form a cogent sentence when I started. Now I don't want to stop forming barely-cogent sentences.

Now to give Rob a "call".

Thanks for stopping by. Your time means more to me than you know.