“Pain is prerequisite to progress. I find this to be a rule of thumb and present in all areas of my being thus far. When paired with a commonly cultivated aversion to pain and discomfort, we have a perfect storm. It is the stuff of the great tales of heroes. The seemingly impenetrable and impassable wall, laced with one’s weakness and unforgivably wedged between the potential hero and her/his greater self. In this equation we find the muscles to carry and maintain whatever treasures wait for us on the other side of adversity. However, due to our aversion to adversity, so many of us only get as close as our imagination allows. Eventually the wonder we hold for the other side morphs to worry, which petrifies our positions, leaving us as sculptural warnings of the dangers of perspective driven paralysis.
Burgundy is the color of dry blood. It is the color of dead roses. The color of established pain. It is beautiful—the point when our errors live long enough to become hindsight. It is beautiful—for it can be a point where we start to clearly view the information and begin to move forward in correcting and perfecting our ways—growing.”