° “The tightrope that crosses the abyss. We step out, lose our balance, fall. Again and again. Eventually, however, we acquire balance. We make it partway out. It is at this point that the second challenge arises. The tightrope simply snaps, arbitrarily. No one knows why. There is no reason. And then, we learn the true art of living and being: to walk the tightrope that will certainly break, at some point out along the traverse. Destroying us, again and again. All such traverses are the blessings of human birth, and spiritual development. Let us celebrate, then, the traverse that breaks, dropping us into the abyss, from which there is no escape, and for which there is no ordinary remedy. For we shall, then, have a chance to become what is impossible. We shall become the rope, the traverse, the snapped bridge, the fall; and the one who, destroyed in the plunge… is not merely reborn, but rescues others. Even on the way to the rocks far below.”

— infraheard