July 9
From the military school of life: What does not kill me makes me stronger.
Twilight of the Idols (Maxims and Arrows 8)
Listening mode
From the military school of life: What does not kill me makes me stronger.
After a hard time, you are sometimes asked what you learned from it. The question is kindly meant, and usually you find an answer. You're better at handling uncertainty now, you might say, or you know more precisely whom you can rely on.
That may be true. But alongside what you can withstand since then, there is often something you have avoided since: a certain kind of closeness, an undertaking of a similar size, a tone in conversation at which you leave a little earlier than necessary. That too is part of what became of that time, only it is harder to tell. From the outside it looks like composure. Sometimes it is more a boundary you drew without noticing.
Which of these boundaries is good sense and which is a scar is hard to say. Perhaps it depends on the day. Anyone who admires you for what you came through sees only one side, and you too mostly prefer to look there.
Now and then you find yourself near the old situation again. Then you notice how quickly you already know where the exit is.
