When an animal's daily obligation gives nothing but shit to him in return, it loses the will to keep going. It becomes desensitized to its living experience. It refuses to eat. It dies of its own accord. Does the animal bring such misery upon himself? Does it enjoy feeling the self-pity? Does it expect sympathy for its misfortunes from its mates? The animal begins to ponder this and try to counteract it each day. The essence of its ongoing existence is simply its logical understanding that life is practice and practice is life. Hardship is the very point of existence. But why? Why when he gets absolutely nothing in return? He does not know. He does not know if all his problems have been created out of thin air simply for its own sake. He does know one thing though: he is disappointed in himself. He has given what he can and life has had only a steaming bowl of shit to give to him in return. Or maybe it was him serving the feces to himself. Each day he sees his mates grow and learn more, becoming stronger and reaching new heights in their daily operation. "Why them and not me?" he wonders. Perhaps this thinking is precisely the barrier. Perhaps the entire nature of the animal's thinking is overly narcissistic and self-absorbed so as to think every shortcoming served to him is an injustice in spite of his continued efforts.

Each day, he believes he must give more and more time to sharpening himself into the sword he wants to become. He shuns his friends for being insensitive to his pitiful state and at the same time tells himself that he is normal. That everything is indeed as it should be and that this is the process all his mates have went through. Eat. Sleep. Practice. That is all he knows now. If a shortcoming were to present itself at this point in time, he believes his practice is indeed flawed. Indeed he has wasted all his time and must restart from scratch. Indeed there is this better practice method to which he was oblivious. Gone is the negligible output of months of disciplining himself. Back are his vices from the depths of the mental hell he must trudge himself through to simply practice each day. Back is the feeling of feeling eternal despair. Feeling like an idiot.

Meanwhile, others stare upon this animal, or what has now become an abomination. A beast beyond recognition. The animal himself is at times aware of this gaze. He feels it on his skin. It may very well be the fuel that keeps his engine of self-destruction and self-sabotage humming. The animal in fact goes so far as to think others are staring at him and care about his every move, even though he is correct very few times. Now, he spends his days deluding himself of what he can become if he only practices more. If he practices harder. He becomes jaded to the pain and yet still feels every bit of self-pity, frustration, and is outright incredulous at his pathetic state.