Whatever Games

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth. ~  Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's not that I cannot lie to myself.
I spent most of my life denying truths
that I now know were obvious.
But if I had owned the truths,
the weight of them would have crushed me
and I couldn't have survived them.
When someone now swears to the truth
of such a "fact" I can follow Emerson's advice...
or Shakespeare's "To thine own self
be true."