We push to test if our standing has changed: can we change our fate, prod our stars into an alternate alignment?

If we push hard enough, will we become something more? Will we escape our own insecurity?

More complicated: Do we revel in our pain to see ourselves clearly?

By pushing and receiving pushback or encountering limits that revoke our desires, do we demarcate ourselves through pain or rejection, that is, find the shape of ourselves by encountering our limits painfully? And in retreat, when reassessing, do we lick our wounds engaged in self-pity, finding within the pity a vital core that will try again?

inspired by Albert Camus