In The Land Beyond Light

It is one thing to have walked a destructive path by choice.

It is another thing to have been fooled and mislead.

Is it still a third thing to have been fooled and mislead by one trapped in the fantasized war-games of childhood, and not to have seen it until far too late?

In cleaning to move this summer, I found a folder full of papers that I have not even glanced at since early 2000. I did not know that I still had them. I looked at them all now, in depth, and I feel ill. Physically nauseous.

These papers are not mine. I did not write them, and I was not a part of the games they describe. But I was fooled by the one who wrote them into becoming part of the same madness. I had been shown excerpts of some of these pages as proof that the one who wrote them had been dealing with certain metaphysical problems for years. Now, seen with hindsight and viewed in context, I find it hard to imagine how I could have been so blind. I want to vomit.

I have a folder full of papers here. They are not mine, but I have become their keeper. A sense of honor demands that I return them to their owner. A sense of justice demands that I keep them where they may be visible to others if needed. A sense of compassion demands that I keep them private unless there is no other alternative.

In this case, it may be more honorable to allow my strict sense of honor to be overruled by my senses of justice and compassion.

I hope the papers are not needed.