Over the years, frankly, whether as an Apprentice Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage, or here at Gifthub as Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, I have tried every excuse there is. I have hidden behind the Happy Tutor in a mask. I have made Carnival in imitation of Rabelais. I have passed myself off in all seriousness as a Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families. I have explained away my whoredom in Wealth Bondage by pretending to be Born Again as a Values-based Planner. I have wandered Dallas naked at noon, in the spirit of Diogenes. I have spanked, flayed, cauterized, and operated upon Folly. I have played the Good Doctor and asked her to raise her skirts. I have followed the advice of Horace and coated the bitter pill of truth in honey. I have followed him as well in holding the distorting mirror of satire up to nature, human nature in particular, until she shrieks in horror at her own face. I have tried being as as Earnest as Oscar Wilde. I have in his honor constructed my own Defense of Lying. But in the end all that works is to Praise Folly solemnly as a Fool for the approbation of the Wise. The Feast of Fools (the Feast of the Circumcision, or Feast of Asses) was once a high holy day. Today we who hold such festivals, such mystery rites, are pretty well marginalized. I have seen the satiric sites about philanthropy come and go, and talked at length with those who have been forced to take their sites down by their immediate superiors for fear of reprisal by the Wise and the Good, or at least the Rich and Powerful. Wealth and our Bondage to it is not a subject for polite discussion, nor for satire. "Truth is a bitch who must to kennel," as Lear's Fool said. We Trusted Advisors to Wealthy Families must all play the Fool in our own way. "Here is my way," as Seneca said, "where is yours?" (Seneca by the way, committed suicide on the request of his Patron, Nero, as I recall. There are no easy ways to get this job done, and even the best of us generally come to a bad end.)
The Emblems in this Gallery tell a story and point a moral. See if you can make sense of my Folly.
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