One thing I think I can take pride in is that I worried many thoughts about what makes certain people think and behave as they do, but more: I always questioned my own motivations.
It’s one thing to tell yourself and others that you take a noble stance, and yet with material reward at stake, greed needs to be addressed. As Augustine has said: "…by listening to people talking; and they in turn were the audience for my thoughts." (1:23)
Thorough research demands to see both sides, to weigh them, to explicate and form them back into intelligence and reason by logical means. It is sometimes difficult to judge one’s own intentions, and the "audience" of willing (and tremendously patient, I might add) friends to listen and offer perspective (which is only one hop away from perception, after all) was a valuable key to developing an understanding of the situation. Emotion sways (from Consolation?) and taints what should be determined instead by ethics and compromise of desires. So yes, "an audience for my thoughts" was more than valuable, priceless. I only wish there were more willing, perhaps, to establish a definitive position; those who offered though, were wise and trustworthy to be neutral and openminded.
In an e-mail from Loretta (who unfortunately couldn’t do anything for me as a lawyer as she practices in New York), she’s given me more reason to learn from the experience since I claim to be a writer and she, indeed is one:
"These are such emotional issues, as great as any King Lear tragedies. Sister against sister, a father’s trust betrayed, inheritance squandered, fidelity broken, and the frustration and bitterness over no one listening or caring."
While I could never write these things as direct narrative, the means and methods will become a part of some unknown character some day. Motivation is not always money: motivation is freedom for one, resolution for another, and for one, truth.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology