only I can do

... I have finished reading the primaryTexts in myScholar's archives, and am now plunging into his commentaries and analysis, much of which secondaryText is, at least to my mind, pretty naive. But then he is (or was) an utter provincial, as best I can determine from his own narratives of his experience with these documents. The House he describes as his origination must have been extremely remote from this (onceuponatime) mighty Temple of the Conference of Professional Scholars and their Students, a throng of rascals and reprobates that once included me.

It matters little how low I've fallen in the years since I toe-danced through this Cathedral of Learning, now the Smoking Pit I'm scrabbling in: the discovery myScholar made is profound, and the pull of his conviction of its consequence strengthens in me with every word I read.

Perhaps I can put his experience with us in some perspective, since of course he could not do so himself, for many reasons: his own artlessness, the depth of his obsession with these peculiar materials, their peculiarity, and, ultimately, the cravenness of our governing Council, who should have helped and supported him in the face of deeply disturbing ideas.

Now that I've condemned everyone else, let me remind myself that the viewpoint of his tormentors was my viewpoint as well: even if I had comprehended what was happening (and I was only a student at the time), I would have done exactly what I did, which was nothing, except to shake my head and cluck, along with my friends, without thinking much about what he was being put through, nor the implications, for the life of our whole community, of his being treated so. I can only hope that, if my dear Scholar is no longer living amongst us, he was able to depart in peace and quietness.

Now, here, I can see two worlds past this one (if the hole I'm huddling in still qualifies for world status): one is myScholar's rustic world — alien enough for a city child like me — and beyond it the world barely sketched out by the writings he gathered and brought here, where he tried to find them a home.

It is rather like watching an eclipse at sunset: soon both worlds will slip out of sight. The near one is dark; the further one blazes so bright I can hardly bear to look at it. Perhaps I'll turn up a shard of smoked glass here in the rubble...

Whoever was given charge of these materials immediately after their Confiscation simply was not competent to do anything meaningful with them. My guess is that some senile Council member had a young 'friend' whose career the old degenerate wished to promote, and the poor thing was put in front of these Writings to make something of them. Be that as it may, I can see traces — in this imagined young person's encounter with the materials — of the eventual growth of a sympathetic attitude toward myScholar's desire to bring these remarkable texts to light. There is evidence that more than one curator handled these writings; it is theoretically possible that a legitimate thinker was able to examine them profitably for a time. But I lack the resources to conduct the forensic analysis that might substantiate this inference, however fascinating it would be to learn of other devotees these unusual tales have won to their care; myScholar is clearly not the first.

In addition — as his presentation notes imply— myScholar discerned a larger story embracing all, but so far that comprehensive narrative eludes me. I am able to guess at parts of the whole saga, but can only make out here and there a connection between two or more authors...

For myself, I have been converted to myScholar's obsession with these writings, even if I am not yet convinced of their — how shall I put this? — authenticity. That is, were I to apply the standards and protocols of my former community of scholars, which after all trained me to exactly this kind of undertaking, my most generous assessment of the writings' origins would have to be that they are of unknown provenance — and that means, among other things, that they could have been forged, by (a) perpetrator(s) also unknown. And who would be the first logical suspect in such a case...? myScholar, of course.

I started by making a list, which generated another list, and then another, until I now have enough catalogs to account for every item I think I will need in order to finish.

There are writings I cannot place, or cannot understand, or are so damaged I cannot even guess what they are about, what story they have to tell, what has happened to them. But these obscure fragments have influence upon the rest, so that even when they wander from place to place in the structure, the whole feels their weight, and responds....

... I haven't had a chance like this for a very long time: shelter, solitude, time — there's even food here! Most important, I have a mission: to transform this ragbag of wildly divergent texts into a proper archive.

A single thread stitches each to every other: the same desire and longing, the same resolve I feel when I think of you, Dear myReader: someone, somewhere, even in another time, will want to know what became of us, how that came to be, how it was with us in the moment of our life.

How excited I am! how young I feel! Every living being should be given this gift: the means, the motive, and the material for doing ONLY the work that ONLY I can do! HaHA!!