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Where is Real Dad?

It starts happily enough: Tutor is putting his charge to bed, as her young mother, Tess, half listens from her easy chair, trading against the world on her iPad. Tutor is telling Audrey a tall tale about her toybox, a large wooden crate, as befits the world's richest child. In it she has her treasures. Raggedy Ann, puzzles, a sea shell, a robin's egg, her drawing pad, crayons and markers, and her favorite books, including Grimm's Fairy Tales, Gulliver's Travels, Winnie the Pooh, Pippi Longstockings, and an abridged version of Huck Finn. She has Halloween masks and costumes, including Annie Oakley, Thelma (from Thelma and Louise), Superwoman's cape, and her favorite, the sword and helmet of Joan of Arc. As she nestles her head, with the copper red hair, into his shoulder, Tutor is telling her that in her toybox she can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. She likes that idea. He tells her about Pegasus, the big white horse with wings, and asks if Pegasus could pull the toybox through the air, like Santa's reindeer pull his sleigh? Tutor hears a "tsk, tsk," from Tess, and sees her smiling and shaking her head, pretending not to listen. Audrey says, "No, Silly, the crate is way too heavy." And if she and Tutor are sitting in it, as they should be, the crate would be out of balance. "What if we give the crate wings, though? Front and back?," Tutor asks. "Then we might not even need a flying horse, which is good because those are hard to find. Can you imagine wings front and back, big white wings?" She can, and tomorrow with her pad and magic markers she can draw it.

"Where will be go tonight, Audrey, and what will be do? Who will we save?," Tutor asks. Suddenly, Audrey's face collapses. Her mouth opens as if to emit a cry, but no sound comes. Her body is shaking. The eyes show an emotion that no adult has, many emotions, horror, terror, grief, abandonment, longing, love, shame, hope, and bewilderment. All mixed up. "What is it, kid? What is the matter? Use words." She says, "Real Dad, I want Real Dad." And now the tears are streaming down her cheeks. Tess stiffen in her chair, not breathing. Real Dad is the forbidden topic.

Some of you who have read along from the beginning, know why. For those joining us late, I must tell you the saddest part of our tale. I would suppress it if I could. It is not for children, and this is a kind of children's story, but more like Grimm. I don't know how much children should know about the sadness of this world. For Audrey I wish a time to grow up in a world of imagination, and love, so she can be strong enough to face down the terrors, when she inherits the world, must rule it, and must save it. But every family has dark secrets.

Real Dad can never be found. Why? Let us say, that Real Dad, the genetic material from which Audrey was formed, was crowd-sourced on the trading floor of Wealth Bondage, from 1-4 am the night Tess celebrated the largest trade ever placed, a 100 to 1 shot against the Euro, that almost broke the Banks of France, England and Spain. She was 20, little experience with men, never had had alcohol. A prodigy from birth with numbers that she hears as music, and music she hears in the mathematics of finance. She plays her flute, or now more often  a keyboard on her iPad,  and the markets answer. She hears a tune and knows how it resolves. She wins against the men, the women, and the algorithms. She is ungodly gifted, lovely, daft, and a kind of world-beating, unworldly, savant.

Her success was celebrated by top management on the evening of her massive trade, in a restaurant in "the city," there is only one "city," as you know. Three toasts with champagne, one for each course. She does not recall the third, nor the limousine, nor the after party on the trading floor. Call it a party. Call it Carnival. Call it rapine and plunder. Call it revenge of the lesser upon the greater. Call it 10%, or call it 50%, or call it 80% of human nature - yours, mine, Audrey's. If you wanted to know her father, you would need a paternity test on every male trader, each of their friends, and whomever was passing by at the corner of Wealth and Bondage on the evening of Tess's epic success. That is why Audrey and Tess live alone now, far away, in the Castle by the Sea. That is why Audrey does not know Real Dad and never will. That is why, perhaps, she is so reactive, so given to highs and lows. And - if you will allow me - that is also why the world will in fact be owned, ruled, saved by this now chaotic child. There is - so the saying goes - "no outside of Wealth Bondage," the forces of human nature in the free market system. But Audrey contains that in her genes, all of it, light and dark. Yet there is also art, and even faith, on the mother's side. What is inside what? Draw a circle. Where do you put lust, hate, greed, fear? Inside or outside the market? Inside or outside God's plan? Either way, if this kid masters herself she may yet inherit, own, rule, master, and save all of God's creation. For this is, or will be, the moral of this tale. Happy endings are endings. It is when the wheel turns again, that things get interesting. First Carnival, then Lent. And around again until the end. That is the time of the moon, tides and seasons. As for the end, it would last a long time. Some say forever. I would like to think, though, that under the closing credits, when all this becomes a movie, The End, will have a subscript: "To be continued."

I see, by way of an ending, Tutor exiled by Audrey, who is then happily married, has had a baby, and is pointing with her sword towards a setting sun, in a rising sea, as Tutor scuttles down the embankment towards a skiff tossing on the wine dark waves. It is Queen Audrey, then. Tess, on her deathbed, dying young, burned up with sleepless trading against the markets that never sleep, will have told Audrey the secret of her conception and nativity. Audrey's inheritance will be the world. As the Lord of Misrule, his job done, his charge grown and capable, Tutor must go. Audrey's hand, in that final scene, cradles her baby's bottom, in the papoose sack on Audrey's tummy. Over the closing credits to our tale, The End (to be continued), the final sound is that baby's cry. That kid will have a real Dad, a charming prince of the realm, an inheritor in his own right, so the numbers under management reach 100% plus or minus 10% of the world's wealth. But every kid needs a Silly Grownup, and maybe there is hope for the Happy Tutor, too. He will only live as long as one kid knows his name, and loves him back.

But now is the moment in our story when Tess stiffens in her chair, her heart beating fast as if in panic (that word comes, by the way, from the Great God Pan, the god of rapine, plunder, and the panic of the stricken driven by the sword, the energy of mobs, like on the internet today). Tess has no way out and no way forward. The kid is imploding.  Tutor is alone at the axle of the world where it pivots on one tiny jewel. To Audrey he says, "Listen, listen to me, kid. We don't know where real Dad is. But he is out there somewhere, right? When you save the world, as you will, you will save Real Dad, too." Audrey comes back to our world from the underworld. "But what if he is dead?" "Then he is in heaven, kid, with the angels. When you save the world, all of Gods creation, the angels are going to wave their wings, forward and back, as if clapping, and Real Dad will see them, and see you, and he will be so proud." "Real Dad will be so proud of me....." And with that Audrey falls into slumber, with a half smile, lips open, her breathing evening out, and the world is saved, once again, for this one night. Yet there is more. When Tutor says the angels will wave their wings as if applauding, there is music as if from heaven in that room, Tess is humming, not singing, a requiem of her own devising. The music of the spheres. Requiem, love song, lullaby.  Tutor has never heard anything so beautiful, and the kid nods off on cue, to her mother's angelic voice. Love and hope. Faith, too. Fragility. A vulnerable creature nurtured and tended as all things go sliding under the moon.

The music concludes, resolves, as Audrey nods off. In the silence, broken only by the sound of waves against the Castle walls, Audrey's breathing becomes deep and regular.  Tutor gently extracts himself from his charge's embrace. He carefully jackknifes his lanky frame from the bed. Tess is on her iPad. She does not look up. As he passes her chair, her left arm comes up, elbow on the chair's arm. Her hand is raised. Tutor clasps it as he walks past, as runners in a relay might touch in passing a baton. "Well done," she says to her employee, her Dad for Hire. The Lord of Misrule, the errant Priest and Morals Tutor the the World's Wealthiest. "Thank you, Milady," he says as his fingers leave hers. She looks up. "Really, thank you." "You are welcome," he says, headed out of the room. "Do you want the door open or closed?" "Open," she says.

Tutor is headed back down the stairs to his cell, not far from the fragrant kitchens, one floor below, several above the dungeons where, historically, he has done his best work. The cell is monastic, all stone, and cold as the sea water that leaves a sheen on the walls, as it seeps in. His bed is an iron rack, no wider than his shoulders, held up by two chains, front and back. The mattress is cotton ticking thinly stuffed with straw, a penitent's or monk's bed, one he has known for generations upon generations, as Tutor in Residence to Royalty or at least Dukes and Earls, his cousins, actually, as he himself is the third son of a noble from an adjacent castle ages ago. To compose himself for sleep, Tutor imagines the mattress as his coffin. "Remember man that you art dust and into dust thou shalt return." He says his Vespers, ending with an Act of Contrition and a Hail Mary, as he drifts off into uneasy, tormented sleep. He sees buxom Molly in his dreams, Molly the new upstairs maid. As Omniscient Narrator I can see those dreams;  it does not hurt, either, that I have spent many years with Tutor, drunk or sober, manic or depressed,  riotous or moralizing,  in our Dumpster at the intersection of Wall and Bondage. I pretty much know how his mind works. And it does not hurt being a man, either, and Molly is not the first, nor will she be the last. In his dreams Molly is asking Tutor, as Priest of the Castle, for absolution for the sins of the flesh that she is confessing, the sins in his dream that Tutor is committing with her, as both receive absolution and penance, turn and turnabout in scenes you must imagine for yourself, if you can. (If not I will supply them for a reasonable charge.) And if not, you are a better man than I or Tutor, or a better person than poor Molly, who has her temptations, too. Either way, it is only a dream, and upon waking Tutor will again say his prayers, before taking breakfast in the servant's quarters with, among others,  lovely Molly. Like the rest of us, she is just trying to make a living, and can't help being so beautiful, at least for the time being, for all things must pass.

Dr. Maevis Bryerly - On my Omnisicience - A Mental Health Perspective on a Narrative Convention

Readers have asked how can I, a flawed, mortal man, of questionable and fragile mental health, know from my dumpster what is happening at The Castle by Sea, near Scotland, where my mentor, The Happy Tutor, is now gainfully employed as The Least Trusted Advisor to Tess, the Warrior Queen of Wall Street, and her daughter, Audrey, age 9.6, who will someday own, rule and save our world, as you shall see in due time. In particular, and this is a real conundrum not just with me but with, say, Fielding, Dickens, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Virginia Wolfe, to name a few, how can I as Omniscient Narrator, actually see inside the characters' heads, and know their thoughts, and their most secret feelings? At one level, the answer is obvious: As Omniscient Narrator, I am just doing my job, no more or less bogus than, say, Impact Investing, or Subprime Loans, or Collateralized Debt Obligations, or politicians' promises. For every foolish reader, consumer, investor, or voter, an omniscient narrator stands ready to tell a tale. It is a big circuit of wishful thinking, feeding on itself. At another level, the answer (as to how I can hear the voices inside another person's head) is again obvious: I am insane. That seems more likely.

So, now that the Audrey project is taking off, and is billable, and my job in Wealth Bondage is no longer in peril, I am back in the Wealth Bondage Health Plan and am able to see a Counselor on a regular basis. Her name, I had not told you this in earlier posts, is Dr. Maevis Bryerly. She looks like a retired Lumberjack in tweed business attire, about 220 pounds, with arms like a weight lifter, and fists the size of hams, which triggers in me a lot of bad memories of my early days in Wealth Bondage pitching payday loans to the retail market in Yukon, prior to moving up into Private Banking, as assistant Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage, under the Happy Tutor, with a specialization in Donor Motivation.

Dr. Bryerly asked me, today, how my journaling was going. She had assigned it to me, without realizing that I was posting it all over the internet. She considers that both a sign of my poor mental health, and cause of it not getting better. Now I am shunned not only in person but also by millions of passersby who read and mock my posts. I long for even one "like," "follower," or "friend," but years into this, I have nothing to show in response to my posts but stony silence, vitriol and scorn. I asked Dr. Bryerly about my Omniscience and she said it is nothing; I should not worry about it. It goes with megalomania, psychosis, and other traits associated with greatness. But, I said, "The voice I hear dictating the voices and inner lives of Audrey and Tess and Tutor, is your voice, Doctor. I merely take dictation. You are my muse! I love you so much Dr! I dream your words in my sleep!"

She said this is worse than she thought and would adjust my medication. More lithium. She said she is not my muse; and I don't really love her. It is just a transference, which is just as well, because if I loved a woman who looks like a Lumberjack, I would have to get my head examined. She said she would work through the transference with me, but I should probably not be drinking so much when on lithium, particularly after my lobotomy. The voices could just be delirium tremens.

I know that for you, as Gentle Reader, this may be Too Much Information (TMI), but I have always believed that Full Disclosure leads to trust. Without your believing in me as the Omniscient Narrator, I can't tell you what is going on inside Audrey, and have you accept it as true. I don't know how you would trust me if you thought that I thought that I am really Omniscient. I know it is really the Muse, speaking through Dr. Bryerly into me. As a Doctor of Human Psychology, she can see and hear what is going on inside people's heads. That is her job. She is trained to do it.  That gives me the confidence to post here verbatim, without any editing, what I hear her saying inside my head.  I know I will some day be cured, which is why I want to write everything down on line now, so that when my head goes dark, I can read it here and remember what it once was to be inspired.

Fidelity 2015 Single Family Office Compensation Study

Single family office compensation study 2015 from Fidelity. Direct compensation for the CEO for an office serving a family with $1 billion under management is $830,000. I did not see Secular Priesting or Morals Tutorial services broken out as a separate role or service.  It may be rolled in under Family Governance. Since a vow of poverty is traditional for a real priest, and philosophers like me are almost always broke, I assume that a good family office would  be able to pay prevailing rates for moral guidance. I serve on a board for Interfaith Worker Justice and can recommend several real priests, rabbis, nuns, and Imams. I also know a lot of family governance folks with degrees in divinity, or philosophy. So I could help an SFO shop around for best advice at best price. Generally, the higher priced morals tutors are easier to work with. The higher price translates into less friction.

Horace's Immortal Muse

I ran into my Muse today (I think of her as that, though she considers herself my therapist), not at her office where I go for help with the voices in my head, but at a hotel bar, where I had gone to network and cage a drink. She had already had a few too many, so I escorted her to a cab, and sent her home. On the way out the hotel's door, leaning on my arm, she said, "Fuck being a Muse.... other people's poetry and projections.... all I ever wanted was a little farm in Licenza at the foot of the mountains, where I could keep a flock and grow olives.... and that bastard Caesar gave it to fucking Horace....."

My Modern Muse

I walk into her office. She offers me a seat.

"How are you?," she asks.

"Good," I say.

"Do you feel you are making progress?," she asks.

"Yes,  I feel I am now almost past the point where I have to deny I hear your voice inside my head all the time," I say.

"Tell me," she says, glancing at the clock.

On her pad she writes, "Relapse."

Little Blue Flowers

Audrey finds little blue flowers, just a few, a species not otherwise seen, on the barren cliff rock of the Castle. Somehow the flowers have survived the endless beating of the sea, and the wind, and the salt in the water. She and Tutor dug them out of the crevice and carried them inside in a paper cup. Since then they have miraculously propagated, through their roots, on a bed of broken rock, and in a dish of brackish water. Mother keeps them in the small room, or nook, where she takes meals with Audrey.

One day, in her room, Tutor finds Audrey cross-legged, drawing with crayons on a tablet he has given her, about the most expensive present he can afford on a month's salary. In her picture: A Castle above which flies a pennant. The family’s emblem of a planet floating in space, with three words beneath, Own, Rule, Save. But above the planet she has emblazoned her own name, in an arc. A U D R E Y. About the base of the Castle is a ring or fringe of the lovely blue flowers, as if she had replanted them, and above the Castle is a rainbow, though there is not one cloud in the sky.

As editor, and Omniscient narrator pro tem, I realize that a moral is not necessary and may actually detract from the parable, but I do have to stay busy if I am to justify my job, and payment is by the word. It seems to me, then, that what the parable points out is that by identifying with Dynastic Wealth and living in and through our betters, we have not betrayed ourselves, our common humanity, the body politic, and the suffering world if and only if we can, as Secular Priests, and Dads and Mothers for Hire, and so forth, rear an Audrey to rule us wisely. It is not a question of democracy, plutocracy, oligarchy,  tyranny, or monarchy, it is just a question of following a Leader who can save us. Who better to save than she who owns and rules us? We save what we own and govern and the rest goes to pieces. It may seem odd in America to talk this way, but it sure does fit with every Ultra-High Net Worth Wealth Advisory conference I have attended or spoken at in the last ten years. Audrey, you would agree, if you see her at bedtime, as she falls asleep, and her breathing evens out, and she has that half smile of a dreaming child, is the hope of the world.

Flowers by Helicopter

The Queen has, as Queens do, many suitors; and so, many sprays and bouquets of flowers. They end up just above sea level in the Castle’s kitchens and servant’s quarters. The kitchen is forever redolent of pastry, and grilled meat, and beer, and also of flowers, as if life were an endless series of wedding or funerals. A new shipment of flowers has arrived by helicopter and Tutor has carried it in armfuls to the Queen’s chambers. As all licensed fool, and teacher in and out of season, he will occasionally hazard a Socratic question, just to keep his hand in, just in case there is ever an opening in the Castle for Wise Counsel, so he asks, “To what do you attribute this display of cut flowers, Your Highness?” To which she replies with a question for a question, “To what do you attribute them, Fool?” To which Tutor thinks fit to respond, “To your Four Capitals, Your Highness. Not just your Financial Capital, Your Highness, but also....." At which point, the Queen, with a wave of her hand interrupts, him, “No, it's all about my legs, Sweetie; now beat it. Take them down to the servant’s quarters.”

Tutor is a Soldier on Duty.  He would no more look at her legs, which are in fact fabulous, than would the Guard at Buckingham Palace whistle at the Queen, no matter how lovely. It is not the physical woman The Happy Tutor would  serve, but  the majesty of her Majesty, that it might pass forever in the Castle, without interruption, until the end of time. For this he gets thrupence a month, plus room and board, and the pleasure of perpetuity the best of our humanity. 

If I may, as Omniscient Narrator, add a comment, to help point the moral of this parable, it is only as we ordinary people align with an ideal, or a celebrity, or other ideal object of desire, like a brand, or a sports team, that even the poorest and most confused among us have something to live for. How many have lived and died, with "Long Live the Queen!" on their lips. Better a Queen than a Kardashian. To the extent we  can enlist the sympathies of the populace for dynastic wealth we will have earned our pay and done a service to humanity. I hope the new turn Gifthub has taken will lead to greater rewards all around. The flowers are fine, but I could use a raise.