You are not born a person, you become one; you are not born free, you must win freedom. Do not expect this to be easy or be met with applause. Those who applaud it do not clap so much for you as for what they would like to be able to do themselves. Thus their applause is only a wish, which evaporates when it really counts, when it is time to take a stand, and so it counts for nothing. What does count are those who do not applaud, who do not need to wish because they already know. and who quietly stand with you. No, if you wish to become a person, then you must not only expect resistance, you must learn to thrive on it.

Is it really this hard? Yes. Then is it worth the trouble? You must consider the alternative and answer that for yourself. But why is it like this? Because most people decide to finish with life before life finishes with them. They start to drift, and gradually begin to sink from the weight of their own unspent vitality, until they come to settle in its residue. And if you decide not to do this, if you choose to take a stand that shows you will not join the hoards and herds of the half-alive, then you have made it clear that you will not go with them, that you will stand all by yourself if necessary, and that will threaten them -- and you will have exposed them too, and that will anger them, and they will see you as the enemy . . . and that is right. For if your way prevails, theirs will die. And if their way prevails, you will die. That is how it is and how it has always been. (from The Stuff of a Lifetime by Gene Ruyle)