Who is Brand?
“Who are you?” he asked, shaking a finger in my face. “Don’t tell me your name. Your name was given to you at birth and is no more who you are than the size of your nose. Don’t tell me your job. Five hundred thousand people in this world have the exact same job you do. Don’t tell me your political beliefs. You’ve changed those a dozen times in as many years. Don’t tell me your likes, your dislikes, your relationships, your loneliness, your fears or your certainties. How am I supposed to pick you out of a line-up? How am I supposed to weigh your heart in the Halls of the Dead? What makes you different from the person next door? What’s going on in there? Who ARE you?”
I am Janus, I am two faced and yet whole. I am a philosopher ever seeking for truth, and a liar who believes truth constrains with fiction. I am always laughing with joy, yet never happy in my mind. I love with all my heart, and I am still and silent inside. I change with every breath, and yet I am as constant as the northern star. There is no one me; there are only faces and directions, karma of intent. I am ending and beginning, a clown with the comedy mask on one side of my head and the tragedy mask on the other. I am that I am, and I am not. I taught myself poetry, and my increase upon it is that I curse.
“Not bad,” he said. “Now what about the rest of them?”
For the Non-Poetic: Brand is a writer, teacher, and general slacker living in Toronto. He was born American, and spent time in the hellholes of Houston, Los Angeles, and Lancaster before fleeing to Canada. Along the way he wrote a lot of RPG books, several essays on Indian history, Arthuriana’s place in the white-neo-tribal community, and other things that are useless to the average human being. He also eats puppies.