There appears to be a law at work which channels greater pressure onto those who muster efforts to be conscious in how they behave and live their lives. It is as if the force behind all of life’s events behaves like an ocean, blowing stronger waves onto those who find themselves toying with an exisential intent. Should one man be endowed with a burning desire towards becoming conscious of all their senses, movements, emotions and thoughts, this hidden force is instructed to blow stronger and stronger winds to test the mantle of his resolve. This is the automatic dynamic at work, where a man makes a wish to become a finer being and life itself responds with the trials that will allow him to develop in that unnatural direction.

The typical reaction to increased pressure in one’s life is to react negatively. Agitation, depression, troublesome states which do nothing but complicate the situation, arise quite mechanically in us. We want to rid ourselves of the state immediately and to do that we beg the gods to grant us mercy by dissolving the events which are responsible. We beg for the heavy weights to be dropped from our shoulders and do so by falling into a deeper sleep. Allow a man to bear increasing levels of pain and at a certain point he will faint. There is only so much one can bear at a given moment. Great practice and training is required for those who want to become capable of withstanding greater forces, quite unnatural to an ordinary man’s abilities.

Diamonds are only ever formed by the convergence of great forces, attempting to crush that element into utter nothingness. Whatever survives comes out of the fire a more perfect creature, in sight of which the angels cheer and the devils weep. There is nothing more noble than to seek a more perfect nature for oneself, where personal preferences are outweighed by an earnest resolve towards being of service to whatever circumstances necessitate. To be an instrument of life, conscious both itself and the forces of nature, is what the great poets and mystics praised so highly through their works of art.

What could be more favourable to this desire in a man than life’s response to bring ever more troubles into his life? It is, as they say, what separates the wheat from the chaff; the serious students from the dandy dabblers. If a man is tired with the ‘sameness’ of life, the repetition of patterns rooted from his inherent weaknesses in character, and chooses to become something of finer quality, then he must accept the task to be ever more responsible in life by enduring continual trials of hardship. These are the conditions from which the seed of a man matures into a vehicle through which higher voltage and amperage can travel. The coils of his very being have to be made compatible for these greater grades of energy. And this is the way.

So should a man seek out trouble? There is no need; it will find him anyway. But in any case, he ought to look on it fondly as it arrives in stride. A man’s attitude means absolutely everything. From it arises all else; every result or consequence to which we smile, frown, or draw a blank face towards. We have to realize how feeble our volition truly is and how little of a choice we have in the outcomes of life. The factors that drive the world have little to do with us, even though we are in fact the surface of its influence. It is out of this reality that we are given the chance to hold our power in reserve and behave in an outwardly stoic way towards the events of life which tempt us to react like puppets on a string.