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- Image by practicalowl via Flickr
One can leave any time. But if you have engaged in battle, Asher knows of only one way out.
To leave The Arena, after having internalized the rules, one must reject one or more of the rules. In other words, The Arena can only be left by rejecting The Arena itself, because one’s relationship to the architecture is one’s relationship to the rules themselves.
The rules sustain and hold up The Arena. In rejecting those rules, it is not The Arena that changes, but the former occupant.
Leaving is not unperilous. It is possible to enter, not engage in battle, and still leave more or less unscathed – to just walk out again. Asher thinks that some damage may be done at that point, to some people, because knowledge of the rules that allowed entry continues to work on the mind. Their character will determine what that does to them. But, as soon as one has fought, and empirically expressed those rules in one’s own behavior, leaving (which is actually fleeing) can result in cognitive dissonance, neurosis, and the attendance physical effects. Leaving, in short, can kill you. For this reason, Asher doesn’t recommend toying with it. It’s to serious to be treated as a game.
