"People abandon their bad habits only when catastrophe is close at hand. Intellect alone is not enough. We must be shaken, almost shattered, before we change, just as a grave illness must pass its crisis before it is known whether the patient will live or die... The danger of extinction is upon us, but so is the opportunity for a better life... We must therefore find a way to confront Medusa and to diagnose the sickness. Diagnosis is no cure, but it is a necessary first step" (Stoessinger, Why Nations Go to War 310).
Diagnosis?
It appears I am not a second-hand learner.
No trials but mine can bend or bow me. You are gracious to do just this. To burn in the furnace unyielding metal until it comes forth as gold, pure and malleable. To pummel by plow a heart of stone into arable good soil. To tempt in the tempest until at last we walk over water with eyes fixed on you.
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