Courage Under Fire
Specialist Ilario: It's not the doing shit that gets to you. It's the consequences. Imagine a life without consequences.
What is courage? I will tell you what it isn't. It's not weakness, it's not cowardice, it's not laziness or indecisiveness. It is not wishful thinking, blaming, or bargaining. It is not about having excuses, or complaining. Courage is accepting the consequences of our actions.
It is not easy. Courage, is not easy. Not much that is a meaningful act or emotion is.
According to Wiki:
Courage is bravery, will, intrepidity, and fortitude, it is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. "Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, or threat of death, while "moral courage" is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.
It is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.
It is the ability to confront.
It is an ability.
"Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, or threat of death.
"Physical courage" is courage in the face of physical pain.
Facing or confronting pain.
Confronting pain.
Courage is the ability to confront uncertainty.
"Moral courage" is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.
"Moral courage" is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular opposition.
"Moral courage" is the courage to act rightly in the face of discouragement, even depression.
"Moral courage" is the courage to act rightly.
"Moral courage" is the courage to act.
Courage is 'action', or a decision not to act (in a certain way), an act of will that may lead to discomfort or a change in popularity.
It is my firm belief that there are very few courageous people around. They are in the minority. This is why we face a leadership crisis around the world. Even our leaders are cowed into submission. No one seems to know what to do, yet we walk around with the perk confidence of roosters. It is laughable.
I have written about entitlement, control and consequences. These are evident in the world today in a mixture that should concern all of us. Particularly our sense of entitlement is skewed out of all proportion. Our idea of 'control' is nonsensicial. If you cut me, do I not bleed? Will my heart not give out one day, my breath? Is there any one here among us who will not die? Is there any one among us who knows of some place other than our home here, a place other than the Earth - here where we are - where we can live? It is not good to imagine that there are no consequences, or worse, to believe in consequences but only after we die. That sort of belief foists the consequences we've left on those we leave behind. It's a selfish, stupid and narrow-minded paradigm, and also a false one.
We deal with our fixations - our sense of entitlement, our delusions of control, and our failure to imagine consequences - by slowly, little by little, one step at a time, digging up the courage to face our fears. It is not irrational to fear the future. We are moving towards a dark time, where a myriad of consequences will manifest. The saying in Afrikaans, van lekker lag kom lekker huil (from lots of laughing comes lots of crying) is troublingly appropriate. We have enjoyed the benefits, the endowments of a cheap oil fiesta for so long we expect it, we consider it normal. We are so used to it, we are addicted to it in all our habits. As such we don't recognise our own gluttony, our greed, our lustful selfishness, our hyper-individualism. We recognise what we want, even though we are not sure what it is we want. We know that because when we get what we want we aren't satisfied, and we want something else. Fear is a good start, and from there we must learn to accept the future, and that takes courage. That's guts. It is no exagerration to suggest we need a lot of courage to deal with what's due to us.
There is a difference between a consumer, someone who wants, who uses, and a being (we were once called human beings), a creature that exists, observing the world (the real world that is) around us, connected to it, experiencing it, fully alive. A consumer is not happy. A consumer is hungry for more, and what word better describes this era, than more. A human being is part of the experience, the unfolding of a day. A human being finds meaning in the simplest - from the sun rising, to raindrops on a hand, to a beetle inching along a windowsill. All these moments are precious, and unique. A consumer squanders time, a human being treasures every moment. Which are you?
To honor ourselves, the dead and the living, we have to confront the whole hard cold truth. And until we do, we dishonor and delude ourselves. That we are living on a daily basis with depression and anxiety, with emptiness and loneliness - this is incontrovertible. Until we begin deal with the uncomfortable truths that rest in reality, we deserve the discomfort of each day. A discomfort that haunts the opening closing minutes of every hour. Courage is like love, and like living. It is something that we have to call on ourselves to answer.
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