It doesn't matter what perspective you take on analyzing humans: psychological, philosophical, mythical, historical, even pragmatic. Self-sabotage is infused deep into the human experience. An enemy strikes like a thief in the night; we are that enemy, our own worst enemy. Powerful phenomena like love and war become useful laboratories that let us look into the dynamics of self-hurt. Analysis can help you grow. Stature and perspective can form the foundation for a campaign to weed out self-damaging habits. Small victories in seemingly trivial areas like food or driving habits can have surprisingly far-reaching positive effects. However, at some point you have to take a good hard look at yourself. You have to pinpoint tendencies you may have, no, tendencies that you absolutely do have, to enjoy pain and misfortune. The pleasure of pain is strong. It feels great to have the right to gripe, to feel righteous indignation, to feel the purity of persecution (by others, by life, by “fate”). The adrenaline rises when you prepare to go down swinging. But ultimately, self-aggression is a static box. Your powerful imperative is freedom. You have no choice but to be free.

It may have seemed a little frightening to place a chapter called “Hurt” right after a chapter called “Blood,” but as we have seen, the element of self-sabotage in all of us will not go away on its own. We had to get to the “Hurt” material relatively early in the process of kinetic change. But now that we've done this, I owe you the reader a change of pace, a catapult into the positive and warm visions of exponential human growth. Move on to the next chapter, so we can start the dynamic human process brewing.