Chidi,
Seriously.
I can understand someone apprehensive about the critical reception his very best could receive from the wrong audience/ readership, it's the kind of thought that occurs to even the very best among us. Consider this sentence : "Not that I'm thinking of departing this world yet. Last night, however, I got chest pains that made me think I might be a goner soon. But it no longer matters, I thought, having finished the book, so I can die happy. (Until the reviews come out." ( From Bye-Bye Book)
Knowledge is king! Should those who don't know anything about poetry be the ones to pontificate about your poems ?
Fear
them not.
To hell
with them.
It is the absence of precise information, understanding and appreciation that leads to all manner of unhealthy speculation.
Please, consider this
Closer to home, consider the wealth of information that we glean from Toyin Falola 's "A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt", from "Counting the Tiger's Teeth", from Robert Wellesley Cole's "Kossoh Town Boy" and more recently, It Is Well: The Autobiography of Dr. Okechukwu M. Ukaga , the wealth of understanding and wisdom that we derive from those first person testimonies.
Yours Truly thinks that you should write your autobiography, because although it could not be interesting to you, it would be immensely interesting to yours truly and to posterity, not least of all because of the various contexts in which you operate, the aesthetic, physical, historical, psychological, geographical, cultural, mental, philosophical, social, economic, political, legal, emotional, even sexual, although, strictly speaking the latter is and should be none of my or anybody else's business o jare…
Speaking of the historical and cultural context, it just occurred to me that if e.g. Jesus had not been born in a manger in Bethlehem , with the three wise men in attendance to pay their respects, if instead he had been born in a little village in China in similar circumstances some 2,000 years ago and in that cultural and historical context was to be presented as born of the Blessed Virgin Mary as The Only Begotten Son of the Living God etc. , I suppose that to the Chinese Civilisation of 2,000 years ago - given the state of science and philosophy circa the years 1-33 AD, it could have sounded like a preposterous proposition, perhaps less so if Jesus had appeared in Owerri or Umuahia around that time, or if some Yoruba man were to have appeared to Baba Kadiri in Ondo State and presented himself as the only begotten son of Olodumare , we can bet that the claimant would have been in for some rigorous cross-examination by Baba Kadiri and the Yoruba Pharisees, perhaps less so by the Yoruba Sadducees…
Imagine Jesus's autobiography beginning with some human words such as should he choose to write it in English, " In the the very beginning, when I created the Heavens and the Earth….etc.…" After that , of course, the Gospels, the Letters of Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, would have duly receded to second place - Jesus would have verified the intended meaning of Devarim 18 : 18
By comparison, other autobiographies like that of Bertrand Russell would have been superfluous, because, surely the autobiography of Jesus would have automatically superseded the Bible and even caused organs such as The Swedish Academy and the Nobel Prize for Literature to be abolished...
The Jewish Annotated New Testament (freely available in this link) does precisely just that what's required by the curious reader, it situates the New Testament in its historical and cultural context, amidst the religious ideas and expectations that were prevalent when Jesus walked on this earth and lived amongst the men and women of that time, in the Roman Province then known as Palestine
Mazi Cornelius,If I write in the autobiography that I am a good Poet for example, you and some others may agree, while some others may go to war. If on the other hand I write that I am not a good Poet, you and some others may go to war, while some would embrace me for that. So, better to allow both parties hold their opinions.-CAO.Chidi,
There are the obvious pros and cons to that sort of attitude. Here I'm responding as a student of the New Testament and the history of the period covered by the New Testament.
If only the following people had penned their own first-person autobiographies, they would have saved the world from a lot of doubt, a lot of trouble, such as anti-Semitism , Christ-killers etc., and much pain…
1. GOD
2. Adam and Eve.
3. Noah
4. Abraham
5. Moses
6. David
7 Mary
8. Jesus.
Just as you say that instead of writing an autobiography you " prefer to allow members of the society to see me from their various perspectives." so too, once upon a time according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus once asked his dear disciples :" Who do you say I am?"
I think that you would agree with me that the idea of " all scripture is inspired by God" notwithstanding, if Jesus himself had written his own first-person autobiography it could have laid to rest the speculations about his "missing years" and the subsequent disputes as to whether or not he is the only begotten son of God who was crucified, then resurrected and ascended to heaven and is currently sitting at the right hand side of our Father in Heaven and will soon be returning to this sinful planet, to judge the living and the dead.
Jesus's biographer ( John ) telling us that " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….and the word became flesh ( Jesus)" is less authoritative that an autobiography written by Jesus himself and handed over to the Sanhedrin , during his lifetime or a few days after his resurrection, or even now….
But , strictly speaking, biographically, not autobiographically speaking, as reported in the Gospels, Jesus did make his famous seven "I am " statements
Not that unlike inspired scriptures, autobiographies could not be guilty of slight subjective distortions, unintended exaggerations (for rhetorical or poetic effects) and outright lies, the human frailties of selective amnesia , etc. and the auto biographer being under no obligation or compulsion whatsoever to tell the so called truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the Eastern orthodox Christians in particular would like to know whether or not Jesus appointed or anointed Peter as the first of the long line line of succession of those to be crowned Popes…and if the Prophet of Islam salallahu alaihi wa salaam were to have penned an autobiography !!!!
Stephen Fry: The History Of The First Printing Press | The Machine That Made Us | Timeline
On Saturday, 18 December 2021 at 15:06:40 UTC+1 chidi...@gmail.com wrote:I will not write an autobiography nor authorize a biography. I prefer to allow members of the society to see me from their various perspectives.-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Founder/Publisher of, www.publicinformationprojects.org)
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Founder/Publisher of, www.publicinformationprojects.org)
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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