If you've got a flag, plant it in the ground...

The more I kick and scream, bite, scratch and try to run away, the darker the skies seem to get. It is now very clearly evident, that I cannot run away from my pain and I cannot outrun the storm. The rain keeps falling, the skies keep trembling, and I am caught in the thick of it. But as it turns out, the water does not scare me anymore. I have learnt to swim. Against the current, with the current, without the current. I am still here, and I am in no rush to go anywhere. So stay awhile, and listen; how the boy became a man, and if luck remained on his side, how the man will become an elder. Quite the story, actually.