Answer life with your choices.

"You may perform astonishing feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge, and yet have no understanding of yourself.  But suffering directs you to look within.  If it succeeds, then there, within you, is the beginning of your learning."
 -- Soren Kierkegaard - Danish philosopher of Existentialism

"As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed.  Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is being asked.  Each man is questioned by life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."
 -- Viktor Frankl - Psychiatrist, concentration camp prisoner

"Genuinely good people are those who, from the deepest level of their understanding and motivation, are committed to promoting the best good of everyone they deal with - including, of course, God and themselves.  In this they have, with God's assistance, gone far beyond 'rightness' understood as merely 'not doing anything wrong' - beyond the goodness of scribes and Pharisees - and are acting from their inward union of mind and heart with 'the heavens'."
 -- Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy

I love the natural progression of thought in these quotes, describing the learning cycle that flows from unconscious action to suffering to introspection to responsibility to conscious, integrated action.  And I am intrigued by the diversity of backgrounds of the writers, from 19th century Danish existentialist to 20th century Austrian Psychiatrist to modern day American Christian Philosopher. 

And isn't this theme consistent with our conversation on Wednesday, R.L.?  And who was it who gave me this last-mentioned book a short while ago?  And who was it who inspired this background imagery (which I really love, by the way)?  And isn't it fascinating that both you and D.M. draw such dramatic inspiration from the same artist?  I so love you, man.  You really inspire me, and you are wrestling with a struggle that so many out here share.  Thank you for being so open and honest and transparent, such that all of us might learn.