My informants report that a supernatural con artist has scammed and embarrassed you. Pity.

You are not the first to be hooked and hauled on the bait of knowledge, of course. Every Eden has its revelatory snake. Scholarship into the corpus of such legends suggests that the quintessential mistake is not acquisition but haste. Plato famously implied that knowledge is nothing but true and justified belief. Alone, true belief is a lucky guess. But justification is laborious. So to attempt knowledge via the mere consumption of fruit, for example, is to invite paradox.

One wonders whether you could have resisted turning the final card. As you say, you had no path, but the Devil–a man of his word, by all accounts–had sworn to follow it. Had you stopped penultimately, you would have had him trapped. Or erased? Or perhaps he would have paved a way before you with his own hands as the only way to fulfill his obligation without winking from existence.

I wish you would visit my continent so that I could introduce you to José Arcadio Buendía, a remarkable man and friend. He is incidentally a man of logic so committed that he scorns the flying carpets of his neighborhoods’ gypsies because their magic does not withstand the scrutiny of his laboratory. But I recommend him to you primarily for his philosophy of competition, according to which one never agrees upon rules with an adversary. Such a principle would have spared you from your current predicament. (José Arcadio is dead now but is an ambulatory ghost and fine conversationalist if you are willing to translate his vulgar Latin.)

I urge you to challenge your captor to another game, and this time set fire to the cards, pick up the plow of thought and reap the fecundity of mystery. Leave the Gödelian knot untied.

Yours sincerely,
J.L.B.

P.S. I have heard a fascinating rumor of a heresy brewing in the low country. It aims to awaken sleeping gods by slipping into their dreams and populating them with the absurd. Given my proclivities I am fascinated but fearful of it. Have you heard anything along these lines in your travels? Tell me and I will add your notes to my files.

I was disappointed most by the silence of those who might know “where things would fall.” While I realize that their existence is not strictly guaranteed, you would think they would have the courtesy to lend you a hand if they did.

Regarding your trackless desert: I have been reading Fingarette’s book on Confucius. He writes about Confucius’ metaphorical use of roads, and in particular the one Road that is the Way (Tao). The interesting thing about Confucius’ road as opposed to the one metaphorically walked by Westerners is that his road has no crossroads. There is no such thing as an individual’s legitimate choice between two options, there is no responsibility or guilt. There is only the possibility of traveling the (one) road, or else “walking crookedly,” getting lost, wandering in wilderness.

Unhelpful, surely. “I don’t need philosophy, I need a tent!” I can hear you shout back to me. And perhaps it was desert wandering–that cherished hobby of so many Judeo-Christian innovators–that inspired the story of the individual, of choice, responsibility. But it is just a trick of geometry to translate a linear road into a desert expanse. Once that mathematical operation is performed, the only difference is this: the road is easier to walk on.

Platitudinously: if the horizon just contains more desert, then the only important questions have to do with travel conditions. Are you thirsty? Are your sandals holding up? Is there good company? And if north, south, east, and west are promising both nothing and only the fulfillment of dreams (what good are they?) then maybe you could try Up. (Or Down.)

Good luck. Sorry to be so didactic; you know it’s only because I cannot help but look at things as puzzles to be solved.

Sincerely,
J.L.B.