Living is a process of becoming. Our lives, that is, the lives of human beings are processes of conscious and, ideally, intentional becoming. In the soil of ones yesterday developed the emergent self of today, and in today develops ones tommorrow. This process is long and arduous…an agony. This agony is needful to the development of the self into it’s fullness, and yet many not only shirk that which is discomforting, they curse it. What growth is there without discomfort? Not only should we accept the suffering inherent in our becoming, but we should embrace it, as it is in our suffering, in our agony, that our flaws are made manifest so as to be excised. It is our becoming, our art, for which we suffer, and not for sufferings sake alone.