"Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Casper David Friedrich (ca.1818)
Conquering, rising, overcoming the rugged, unrelenting terrain of adversity.
Triumphant, pausing, admiring the fruits, propped stoutly by those who provide support.
Overlooking the precipice, the next challenge visible, intermittently through the fog.
Off in the distance, the horizon of life, a gauntlet of trial spanning ceaseless before us.
It is for us to realise that this is no illusion, that truth offers no other path.
It is for us to stand composed, in the face of the overwhelming, in the face of tasks which arrest us through the mind.
It is up to us, as the warrior on the hero's journey.
As the great Joseph Campbell once famously said, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."
Image C/O artsy.net