The joy of being beaten

Even amongst the dearest of friends, nothing feels quite as humiliating as being beaten by my own blind spots and weakness. Were that I might have bypassed them, given them over to god. But there they are, the trip wire, invisible in the undergrowth, and there's the bloody nose, the scuffed boots. There's my pride, beyond catching now, floating down the river.

No, weaknesses do not dissappear, but like rocks in the river the secret is to know they're there and take the wider path. The bloody nose and the scuffed boots come when you forget you rode these rapids once before, and sailed them all the way on down to the sea.