Are you a strong man, a hero...a conqueror? Barrel chested? Destroying opponents and mocking the weak? Brow thickening and intimidating when furrowed? Confident like the alpha lion and with the coveting mates to match? No one left to insult you? Nothing existing to suprise you? Never having been subordinated? A supercilious hero? Face kept stone when life - the only one who truly can - slaps it? Or, better yet, an ironical smile, because you had anticipated this and expected that very slap at that very moment...are you immutable and blessed by the Gorgon?

No, I am sorry, you are not.

You are, my friend, soft and mealy. Mottled and pallid. An over-ripened apple. A milquetoast. A fragile ego with insecure intelligence. Clinging to life with brittle and rusted ties. A mere gust of wind would blow your world to dust...and you? Staring at the sky with those X's over your eyes.

You pathetic fool! You cartoon! Can you at least balance your worthlessness with some reserve and end this, this naivete? Can you not, for once, react like the hero, indifferently when life treats you as God Job? Who is to blame?

I see, my son, that you have grown your hair to hide the face God granted you. And, that you are - brick after slow brick - building your wall. If you remain muted, you'll end a neurotic, conversing with himself...ruined. Who will take you in then? Who will listen to the ravings of a madman. Who will be the one to carefully and painstakingly loosen and untie the bunched and clustered knot your ego has become then?

Surely, not I.