How is persevering simple? [ kaveh smiles. the smile is a self-deprecating one. kaveh had killed his father, and he had watched his mother waste away. this is what he has learned from it all: ] Perseverance is the refuge of the talentless and the desperate. It's what you do when you have nothing else to you and nothing left to lose save for that one thing. Persevering is the knowledge that you don't know where this path will lead to and when it will end, if ever, but that you still must walk it because the alternative is not walking it, and that isn't acceptable.

[ soft as dust: ] It is the recognition that you might not be enough, and are most certainly not enough in this moment, but you have to do it anyway, because there is something you love more than how much you hate yourself. So what if you never do? Even if you never do, the only thing you expend is yourself, right? So what loss is there? You might as well try.