"But in him, fiction and reality were one and the same." - J. Cocteau

Man, you have to be careful, not to judge, or at least, not to judge too harshly, our fellow travellers. I've been working 'behind the scenes,' to try to understand what really happened at the board meeting I attended last Friday. There is this thin veneer of friendly cooperation that kind of hovers over all the various players, but it appears to be only a veneer, one that covers a dark and complicated story. I've been reading up on Game Theory, because I believe I'm in the middle of a game with many players, all competing with each other, each looking for an advantage over the others. It's kind of a lonely way to look at things.

I had a conversation with one of the major players yesteday, and I must admit, after I hung up the phone, I was both amused and repulsed. There are major status changes taking place; one man up, one man down, and it's clear that some of the players are taking great joy in the pain of others. Everything is covert, the knife is plunged in the back and slowly twisted during a perfectly 'innocent,' conversation; smiles all around. The ugliness of the enterprise is concealed by friendly patter, sly asides, subtle jokes. But right beneath the surface, there are the claws, the fangs, the blood lust, revenge, the sweet satisfaction of one man falling from a position of power (a postion he abused to the detriment of others) to one of clear helplessness.

It's all quite ugly. I wanted to just shut down, listen to music, read my little book on Jean Cocteau, play my guitar, pretend that I'm not a player in this macabre masquerade; except I know I need to 'see,' all this, so I can navigate through this river of muck.