The arresting part here isn't the acknowledgment that freedom costs dearly—we expect that from Mandela—but rather his insistence on *repetition*: "again and again." He's saying the valley returns, that moral progress isn't a single trial but a recurring ordeal, which strips away any romantic notion that one great sacrifice settles the account. A parent fighting for a child's education, a worker organizing for fair wages, a person in recovery—they all know this rhythm of small deaths and resurrections that Mandela describes, where the mountaintop keeps receding even as you climb. What saves this from despair is that Mandela frames it as the actual *path*, not a detour, which means the walking itself—not the arrival—becomes the measure of freedom.