But pain is so damn eloquent - and such a good teacher. The pain of looking at a half-realized work of yours can stir that artistic ambition to try harder and dig deeper next time. And she really means it.
Pain comes in many colors, many rooms, many masks, many volumes.
I put in my next poem, of course, but it didn't do the phrase justice. I still don't know why that phrase haunts me so deeply. Maybe it will come to me when I'm trying to go to sleep tonight. If pain could only strengthen without strangling, if pain could only be a teacher without being a tyrant, if pain could only consummate identity without consuming it, if pain could only be lucid without descending into lunacy, if it could only beget deep thoughts without deep despair, if it only gave light without darkness, if it only brought healing without the tapeworm of bitterness, if it only enriched life without feeding the hunger to escape life, the realism without the nihilism - then I would agree with the wise Captain. But I can't.