From birth, you have been declawed, your spirit tamed, your vitality castrated through conditioning and relentless psychological warfare.

Most are consumed by it, swallowed whole by the beast. They become adherents of the system, hopeless slaves to false gods. With no spark left and no mind of their own, they regurgitate slogans and ready-made sentences, forever dancing to their masters’ strings.

Your triumph is their shame. You are everything they are not, and cannot be, and so they despise you, relishing the prospect of your fall.

Those who endure, who emerge on top without surrender have passed a crucial test. They are the gladiators of this age: souls cast into the arena to fight against insurmountable odds.

And so, from the furnace they emerge, razor-sharp, iron-minded, and unbroken.

It matters not what has brought you here. What matters is that you have made it this far, and that the journey is far from over.

Always becoming through overcoming, through eternity. To the future!

From the Wandering Spartan