leaves a scar, makes you stranger, and makes you stronger. That’s a juxtaposition of three different variations of a sentiment I’m rather fond of. Sources, in the same order as each of the above: Marilyn Manson, The Joker, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Whatever doesn’t kill you is gonna leave a scar.
Our losses and deformities shape us as much as our areas of growth, and every experience we pass through is going to leave its mark.
Whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you stranger.
All of these marks, taken in at once, make for an interesting creature. Something different than whatever it was a moment before, increasingly unique.
Whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.
For all the scars we collect and all the changes to our form, our function changes. And survival means that, in all likelihood, our form has grown, and pieces of it have been lost, in such a way that our functions are more efficient. More able to deal with similar experiences in the future. Like an immune system that learns to fight off a new virus, the next time a similar strain hits it, there may not even be symptoms before the virus is dealt with.
Things we’ve struggled to survive in the past demand a high price, forcing us to change, chopping off pieces of us, and what we’ve purchased beyond survival itself is that next time, when the same thing or something similar is encountered, we’re better able to take it in stride, to pass through it without paying such a high price next time. And to get more out of it... becoming more capable of thriving on it, instead of just surviving.