R: All Struggle is Progress

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," or so the old adage goes. What drives human history, and what brought our species from being mere hunter-gatherers to becoming comfortable urban dwellers across the world?

From Norse mythology to Hegel to John Steinbeck, there has always been a certain wonder found in the confrontation of Man with his brother, with nature, and with practically everything else. Despite lip service to peace and order, war springs up in every century, and the clash of civilizations seeps down to the individual. Our desires and dreams grow into causes, our causes develop resistance, and soon enough the peace we yearn for so dearly is thwarted by the very act of seeking its fruition. We see our tranquility as Moses did the Promised Land: there before us, but unattainable. We become children kicking at a wall, hoping to topple it, but left merely with stubbed toes and eyes looking up to Heaven.

But perhaps to struggle and to fight really is our culmination and not our undoing. It is in encounter and opposition that we learn of foreign methods and wisdom. It is in having an "other" that allows us to define ourselves, and when we are ready, to advance that conception with knowledge we have gained. Perhaps all great things must be taken, and perhaps life devolves into a humdrum meaninglessness without the great struggle for survival and control of our own fate or success. But if this is the case, where is the limit? Competition in the market? Boxing? War?