Hail, Odin.

“For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.”

Then I remembered that conversation which his friends had with Socrates before he drank the hemlock, and how he said that true wisdom is the skill and practice of death.

“I promise to make you more alive than you’ve ever been. For the first time you’ll see your pores opening like the gills of fish and you’ll hear the noise of blood in galleries and feel light gliding on your corneas like the dragging of a dress across the floor. For the first time, you’ll note gravity’s prick like a thorn in your heel, and your shoulder blades will hurt from the imperative of wings. I promise to make you so alive that the fall of dust on furniture will deafen you, and you’ll feel your eyebrows like two wounds forming and your memories will seem to begin with the creation of the world.”