In nature, friction and pressure create the polished perfection of a diamond. In life, however, people struggle with the friction and pressure that is present in their lives, and so impoverish the daily opportunities made available for them to polish their character into the perfection that one day may be. A man whines and gossips, feeds the steam of melodramatic imagination festering in his mind, aggravating his heart into a calloused condition, and tormenting his body with tensions that ruin all hope of tranquil health. Men are conditioned to struggle with life to such an extent that they are never touched by it. To feed off the filtered experience of such barriers, which for their part are designed as cushions that soften the blow of nature’s hand, is to deprive oneself of the nutrition that gradually transforms a child into an adult. Men, buffered from this truth, live their lives wholly through the lens of lies, and so become fossils of time, as children that never grow up. To be an adult is to take the reigns of responsibility for being alive and face life head-on, without childish fears of failure and anxieties that tempt mice to shy away from reality.