Looking for Answers
Title
Looking for Answers
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
Alternate version of "Looking for Answers" (2009)
Date
2009/2011
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Identifier
Looking_for_Answers_2
Text
Looking For Answers
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, and 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, travel; and thousands of photographs in albums and slide rototrays. Do they contain the answer?
I have categorized various aspects of my life: Jewish, labor, politics, work, family, friends. What am I supposed to do with them? Will I use them as I “Tell My Story,” or will they be thrown out by my children after I die?
I have been writing about different pieces of my life: my parents, my childhood, relatives, friends, school, work, marriage, children, travel, growing up, growing old. I now have to put all the pieces together. When it is done, will I have the answer? And when it is done (if it ever gets done) will anyone care?
In telling my story, I want 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 we bought in 1949. Unfortunately, the recordings are difficult to hear, and the Yiddish is difficult to understand. I am limited to what I remember, and my mother’s papers that I saved. Do they contain answers?
For some, the search for answers lead them to psychotherapy, to meditation, to religious or political involvement.
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, and 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, travel; and thousands of photographs in albums and slide rototrays. Do they contain the answer?
I have categorized various aspects of my life: Jewish, labor, politics, work, family, friends. What am I supposed to do with them? Will I use them as I “Tell My Story,” or will they be thrown out by my children after I die?
I have been writing about different pieces of my life: my parents, my childhood, relatives, friends, school, work, marriage, children, travel, growing up, growing old. I now have to put all the pieces together. When it is done, will I have the answer? And when it is done (if it ever gets done) will anyone care?
In telling my story, I want 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 we bought in 1949. Unfortunately, the recordings are difficult to hear, and the Yiddish is difficult to understand. I am limited to what I remember, and my mother’s papers that I saved. Do they contain answers?
For some, the search for answers lead them to psychotherapy, to meditation, to religious or political involvement.
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “Looking for Answers,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed May 2, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/97.