Getting Killed for Glory

Metaphorical Narrative

A figure clings to the edge of a vast hole.
They are not falling, not climbing — just stuck halfway.
A thin, flowy fluid coats their skin, glistening under unseen light. It doesn’t choke or drown, it just covers, as if to prove some grand ordeal. Yet no one can trace where the fluid comes from. There is no river, no rain, no source. Only the vague shimmer of struggle.

Then comes the whisper: “I am trying to help you.”
The voice insists that suffering is useful. That keeping one steady wound will make the figure stronger. That pain itself is the mark of glory.

Moments later, the voice sharpens into a critic: “You didn’t do this. You didn’t do that. Suffer more. That’s how you’ll be better.”

The roles shift — martyr, helper, critic — but the purpose stays the same: keep the figure suspended, covered in false sheen, half-living for spectacle.

Core Insight

This is the Martyr-Hero Bug — ego’s three-faced program that equates suffering with significance.

• As martyr: it says collapse itself is heroic.
• As helper: it says pain is growth, harm is help.
• As critic: it bashes endlessly, normalising abuse as a training method.

The fluid is the perfect emblem: a thin coating of false drama, no source, no substance. It makes struggle look real without being real. And the critic’s refrain confuses worth with punishment — as if dignity must be earned by being broken down.

The truth is simple. Worth isn’t proven by wounds. Growth doesn’t come from pain maintained. The sovereign self expands through awareness, not abuse. Presence is already glory.

Saturday Experiment

1. Catch the critic-voice: “I am trying to help you by making you suffer.”
2. Call it out: “You are not helping. You are bashing.”
3. Step off the halfway ledge: do one action fully, in life, without waiting for collapse to make it count.

Sunday Reflection

Write as Observer:

• When has ego sold abuse as growth, by wearing the critic’s mask?
• How has pain been framed as help, when it was only captivity?
• What does glory feel like when it comes from presence, not punishment?

Note to Self

This is how pain is normalised.
This is how abuse is justified.
This is how worth is confused.