Hell, Rearranged

The trials of life can either forge us into something stronger, unbreakable.  Or reveal the true nature of human frailty and leave us fractured.

Just as the Japanese sword maker repeatedly fires, hammers and cools a blade to temper the steel and remove impurities we can strive to become hardened for the pitfalls that await us in life.  One certainty is that it will hurt.  You must not simply endure the pain, for no one can endlessly endure.  You have to learn to fight back.  And fighting back often requires a supported effort.

I am learning that sometimes fighting back means asking a friend to pull me from the railroad tracks.  I may be aware of the speeding train.  I see it barreling toward me.  The shriek of the whistle is audible.  But my body is paralyzed.  Getting out of my own way becoming impossible.

Then I see another person in my place on the tracks.  I shout a warning.  No sound escapes my throat.  Maybe they are unaware of the danger.  Or possibly they are paralyzed in the moment as I was.  Do I have time to pull they clear.  Am I even capable of saving them.  Only time will tell.  Unfortunately the hands on the clock face are invisible to me.

Hang on a while longer.  I won't discount that the train is purely a fabrication of the mind.  Real to both of us.  Real as anything in the physcial world, yet completely of our imagination.  

Please hang on for a little while longer.