“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever would be born must first destroy a world.”
Hermann Hesse
The Storm’s Insight
There is a scene in Game of Thrones where Jon Snow, newly made Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, seeks counsel from Maester Aemon, the Watch’s wise, old advisor.
Jon is facing a decision he knows will divide the Watch — a decision that will cost him loyalty, affection, and any hope of being loved by the men he leads. He doesn’t say what the decision is. He doesn’t need to.
Maester Aemon, blind and ancient, born of kings yet long ago surrendered to service, stops him before he can explain.
“Half the men hate you already, Lord Commander,” Aemon says. “Do it.”
Jon protests. “But you don’t even know what it is.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Aemon replies. “You do.”
There is no reassurance. No promise of approval. Only clarity — and cost.
“You will find little joy in your command,” Aemon tells him. “But with luck, you will find the strength to do what needs to be done.”
And then the verdict — not spoken in anger, not offered as advice, but delivered as necessity:
“Kill the boy, Jon Snow. And let the man be born.”
That is what the call is telling you.
It is reminding you of what you already know — and what you have chosen, again and again, to forget.
It is telling you to stop performing.
To stop abandoning yourself.
To stop lying — not just to others, but to your own soul.
To stop organizing your life around the approval of those who cannot live it for you.
But do not stop by pretending you no longer care.
That, too, is a performance.
Stop because you care more deeply than you ever have — about truth, about alignment, about becoming who you actually are.
The parts of you that sought validation did not fail you.
The parts of you that learned to perform were not weak.
The parts of you that abandoned yourself were trying to keep you safe.
They served.
They carried you this far.
And now they are released.
But understand this: releasing them means something new must be born.
And that is the threshold you will keep returning to — until you finally step forward and claim the life that no longer requires permission.
You do not need to be chosen.
You need to remember that you have always had the authority to choose.
The Forge’s Reflection
The old life ends the moment the performance becomes unbearable.
The Sovereign’s Task
Name a moment when being truthful felt like it would destroy everything.
What did that moment teach you?
How might that truth be asking to be lived now?
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