The image: a dried up lake bed with nettlesome crows stalking the shoreline. Hard times shrivel our spirits, and bring out a multitude of "crows" (troublesome worries). Times of great loss or personal failure break weaker people; but the stout of heart bend with fate. To endure hard times -- or even grow and benefit from them -- it is essential to tap that deepest stratum of personal identity, that which is deeper even than fate, and which is incorruptible by even the harshest realities. It is essential, in other words, to tap the wellspring of human endurance: hope.
In a sense, there is no such thing as failure. There is only sweet and sour reality, and more is learned from the sour, oftentimes, than from the sweet. For failure, hard as it may be to swallow, opens the blinds to the real world, and reawakens the clarity of vision known only to those who have risked, and tasted, disappointment.
