define: courage - Google Search
I will try to make it through this post. My arm still is sore, but I miss the freedom that comes with writing. And, it's been a tumultous time since I've last written; quite a hella hard week. Life seems to simplify, only as a prerequisite to getting complicated again. But, alas we live longer and learn more. And...find more courage.
Courage seems to be a pretty shifty topic. I thought I had a handle on it, but it would appear as though i have a better idea now.
Courage: Doing what you should do despite the opposition you may recieve. It's the tenacity of running into oncoming danger. Facing difficult odds, and then performing an act, despite it. It's that intense eyed glare when starting down an opponent across the line of scrimmage, or attending a funeral of a loved one when you know you'll be a wreck. It's the 'i can do this, i can do this' you say internally when attempting something new. Courage, is focus.
I have long lived by this definition of courage, and have found it to be rather satisfactory. It has never steered me in the wrong direction. It is what one would want courage to be, the ability to co-exist and marginalize the effects that fear creates. It's the "I'm scared, but I'm tough mentality." It's something that is easy to relate to, everyone has fear, so everyone can have courage if you face your fear.
So then, by this definition, courage is accessible...and having fear is not only allowable, but necessary. it's a sexy courage, that is able to be worked towards.
Then a few minutes ago, I finally understood the next level of courage. It had been ciricling in my thoughts for probably a good year. It feels good to get it out.
Here's my beef with the old way. It's to vain, which seems impure to me. Let me explain.
The old definition of courage is dependant on the coexistence of fear and courage, so courage is not a state of being that can happen in its own right--you need fear to be courageous. You need situational context to be courageous.
My gut tells me that an abstract topic like courage needs to not be dependant on anything else to be courage. Courage ought to be something from within, instead of something that arises on a case-by-case basis.
I think for the truly courageous this concept of "fear" doesn't even exist. I think they just do, there is no second guessing or anxiety, or fear, they just go out there and do it.
If they need to make a clutch free thorow, they automatically remove themselves from the situation and make the free throw. To them--the courageous--it's not a clutch free throw, it's just a free throw. I'm begging to see courage as almost dispassionate at its core. It's not only complete acceptance of the world, but it's a step up, it's choosing the world you live in, in a completely honest way.
To me now, this is what courage is, this is what I'm strving for. A world where the effects of fear are overwhelmingly outweighed by strength, but a state of peace where strength is not necessary because fear is inconcieveable.
Steps of development, as I see them:
Co-existence of fear and strength,
Supression of Fear
Full mitigation of fear; strength completely outweighs fear,
Removal of fear
Impossibility and inconcieveability of fear. (Courage)
2 comments:
neil.. i have to disagree.
i don't believe that courage is the absence of fear --
you are right. courage is a word that should be independent of other situations. or so it seems. how many things in life are truly independent of other things?
take, for example, homecoming..
you've got two boys. they both are going to ask a girl to homecoming.
one boy is overwhelmed with butterflies in his stomach and a loud, booming heartbeat in his chest [that he really hopes no one can hear.] he finally sees the opportunity to ask her and seizes the chance despite his anxiety.
another boy asks a girl. he isn't really scared. he blocks everyone out and goes for it.
nonetheless.. i don't really feel that the second boy is all that courageous. yes, to those other boys who can't seem to breathe, he seems like quite the tough guy. but in reality is he?
if you teach yourself to block out the outside world aren't you in turn teaching yourself not to care? i would hope that in order to be courageous you would also need to care. you would need to feel something. i would hope that the person who has decided to complete a task had the desire and heart to do so. and i really hope the world doesn't turn into a bunch of people who are considered courageous because they act without feeling. if that's what the world is coming to, i feel sorry for the generation that embodies that.
I actually, had a pretty elaborate conversation about this issue yesterday.
A few things I should've articulated.
1. This discussion of "courage" is what the abstract concept of courage, not really the thought of it in practice.
2. As noted in the last section, i see achieving courage as more of a progression, with fear's incompatibility with courage at the very last step. So, fear is involved in the process.
3. As pointed about by my good friend, my explanation leaves the reader with a taste of courage as only capable by robotic humanoids. I think of courage as more of a noun-ish state of being, instead of as the "courageous" adjective describing a person. It's a "just do" state. Not a "numb" state. Hopefully this is possible, I guess I can't really definitively that it is. I guess I think of courage as...internally motivated action, without any interference from outside the self. However, perhaps fearful situations are the only place where fear can exist, I'm still mulling over it.
It's a complex topic. Thanks for your comment (if you are a consistent reader of posts, you'll know why I enjoy them), I will continue to work your critiques and hopefully post something in the future that's not as sketchy. ;)
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