Looking for Answers
Title
Looking for Answers
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"I have been looking for answers my entire life."
Date
2009
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Identifier
Looking_for_Answers
Text
I have been looking for answers my entire life. But I am not sure what the questions are. And you can’t come up with answers unless you know the questions. And if you come up with answers, then what?
I question the direction my life has taken. Was it preordained or was it chance and accident? Was what I have been, what I have done, what I was meant to be and do? What kind of contribution have I made? Was I a “giver” or a “taker.”
I have been keeping journals. I have been saving clippings. I have hundreds of file folders filled with papers from school, work, correspondence, mementos, souvenirs; and thousands of photographs in albums and slide rototrays. Do they contain the answer?
I have all these different categories that describe various aspects of my life: Jewish, labor, politics, community, travel, the economy, jobs, family, friends. And scores of sub-categories. What am I supposed to do with them? Am I going to use them as I write my memoirs: “Telling My Story,” or will they accumulate and will eventually be thrown out by my children after I die?
I have been writing about different pieces of my life: my childhood, my parents, relatives, school, friends, work, marriage, children, travel, growing up, growing old. I now have to put all the pieces together, fill in the gaps, and wind it up. When it is done, will I have the answer?
And when it is done (if it ever gets done) will anyone care? I am not preparing a memoir for publication. I don’t have the skill as a writer to make my story that interesting that people will want to read it. I hope to get it reproduced and make it available to my children and friends.
Perhaps the most important part of the final product will be my mother’s story. Just as I had to have a monument on my father’s grave that mentioned my mother, I have to tell my mother’s story as prelude to my own. She had hoped to tell her story through the use of the wire recorder that I bought for her in 1949. Unfortunately, despite my effort to have the recordings transferred to tape, they are difficult to hear, and the Yiddish is difficult to make out.
I question the direction my life has taken. Was it preordained or was it chance and accident? Was what I have been, what I have done, what I was meant to be and do? What kind of contribution have I made? Was I a “giver” or a “taker.”
I have been keeping journals. I have been saving clippings. I have hundreds of file folders filled with papers from school, work, correspondence, mementos, souvenirs; and thousands of photographs in albums and slide rototrays. Do they contain the answer?
I have all these different categories that describe various aspects of my life: Jewish, labor, politics, community, travel, the economy, jobs, family, friends. And scores of sub-categories. What am I supposed to do with them? Am I going to use them as I write my memoirs: “Telling My Story,” or will they accumulate and will eventually be thrown out by my children after I die?
I have been writing about different pieces of my life: my childhood, my parents, relatives, school, friends, work, marriage, children, travel, growing up, growing old. I now have to put all the pieces together, fill in the gaps, and wind it up. When it is done, will I have the answer?
And when it is done (if it ever gets done) will anyone care? I am not preparing a memoir for publication. I don’t have the skill as a writer to make my story that interesting that people will want to read it. I hope to get it reproduced and make it available to my children and friends.
Perhaps the most important part of the final product will be my mother’s story. Just as I had to have a monument on my father’s grave that mentioned my mother, I have to tell my mother’s story as prelude to my own. She had hoped to tell her story through the use of the wire recorder that I bought for her in 1949. Unfortunately, despite my effort to have the recordings transferred to tape, they are difficult to hear, and the Yiddish is difficult to make out.
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “Looking for Answers,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed May 1, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/96.