March 6, 2007:
The experience changed me fundamentally.
It defined my sense of spirituality, the way I think about the universe. It convinced me of the existence of the soul: that humans are bifurcated beings, part flesh, part spirit, and that the psychical practices we call "magic" are probably real.
It propelled my mature ethics: that reconciliation is more important than justice; that forgiveness is the way we heal; that manipulators are to be understood but avoided.
It led me to face the fragility of friendships, the delicacy of our individual existences, the fact that people come and go, and that they go for all kinds of reasons you can't predict. That you have to be open to that, not take it so personally.
It left me far less willing to inflict pain on others. Less judgmental, more forgiving of people's imperfections and mistakes, including my own.
It left me determined to learn to communicate.
It was the threshold event which initiated my adulthood, so much so that everything important which I am today follows from that origin.
And what it all comes down to, my friend,
is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine...