You are squaring off against a larger opponent in a fight you cannot escape. You feel the fear twist your guts as he bears down on you, his huge form a mass of unrestrained violence, hellbent on destroying you.
The first blow shatters your nose like a jackhammer striking cheap concrete, and your vision explodes in a thousand lights- pain is all you know.
No time to think, the next one cracks a floating rib, agony blossoms through your side, all breath taken away and you experience that drowning panic as you fight to take a breath while more punishment rains down- face, body, head, gut.
You go down, blood streaming from broken teeth, unconsciousness threatening to wash over you like a black wave, and he is still advancing, moving into position to beat you mercilessly until you surrender to fear, pain and death.
Life can often feel just like this.
Beating us savagely, then smelling blood and kicking us while we are down, overwhelming us with sheer weight of misfortune, circumstance, pressure, stress, hardship and suffering.
This is where we are made, in this primal forge of ordeal.
We cannot give up! We cannot surrender to our tormentors, or view escape as a liberation. We must endure.
We must rise up, and fight back!
We must strike hard and fast at the heart of what stands against us, and master our fear, or it will always be our lord…deep, rotting dread will dictate our actions forevermore.
Your enemy can suffer, too, and can bleed, and be killed.
That which opposes you is perishable, and can be destroyed.
That which causes you suffering can be endured.
That which creates stress can be used as a tool to become stronger.
That flame living within us is eternal, and cannot be extinguished if we take the pain, the hate, the sorrow, and transform it into a feral howl of rising and retribution that will be our war-song.
NEVER GIVE UP.