I'm Adeli Mone and this is the slowdown.

I think a lot about the word tenacity.

What it takes to survive in a world that is sometimes beautiful and sometimes hostile.

I'm always amazed at the body's willingness to continue, to keep going, the heart that

keeps pumping, the lungs that keep breathing, the way the will to live can outsmart those

other dark voices inside.

Once when I was younger, I watched ants outside on a stone and they were so determined to

get where they were going, it felt like some sort of eternal spell they were under.

I could watch them for hours.

One of them carrying a crumb as big or bigger than its body, another one with a piece of

leaf, and it often made me want to clap, how even if a drop of water or rock was placed

in their way, they easily rerouted to form a new pathway.

All roads lead to survival, the ants seem to say.

I think about this most when I'm feeling sorry for myself, not to be blunt, but there

are times when my body isn't a great deal of pain.

But I do what I can to get through it, breathe through it.

I've read books on chronic pain and I do daily practices all in service of trying to

live a pain-free life.

But what strikes me about tenacity is how it's not about getting through something, but

it's about living, surviving, even flourishing despite having circumstances stacked against

you.

I think of soldiers returning for more, or civilians injured in war, or people who've

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