22/12/2022
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. G. K. Chesterton
Having no fear indicates a total absence of the emotion of fear, which is a scary prospect in itself. If someone has a total absence of fear, his judgment will be faulty in many situations. A total absence of fear is not a virtue, but rather a mental deficiency. Fear is a necessary emotion, designed to warn us and protect us. It is only when fear becomes obsessive, and we allow fear to control us, that fear becomes a problem.
Mark Twain wrote that, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” If a man has absolutely no capability to feel fear, then he really has no capacity for courage. Courage is overcoming your fears to do what is right in the face of some danger, uncertainty, pain, or embarrassment. A man who has no fear or anxiety where danger, uncertainty, or pain is concerned, has some other mental issues going on which make him seem brave, when in actuality, what his actions are revealing are simply his mental deficiencies.
To call a man who is incapable of feeling fear brave could be compared to giving a two year old boy a hand gr***de to play with as a toy. Of course the young boy would have no fear of the hand gr***de because he doesn’t have the intelligence to understand what it is or that it could hurt him. He doesn’t have the knowledge or wisdom to understand what the dangers of this “toy” truly are, so he has no fear of it. It would be wrong to classify this boy as courageous or brave for playing with the hand gr***de, when in fact, he is not displaying courage, but merely his ignorance.
The same principle applies to the man who is incapable of feeling fear. If a man does not have the wisdom to know what should be feared and what shouldn’t be feared, his actions cannot be classified as courageous. He is not acting out of courage, but out of his ignorance or lack of understanding. Thucydides, the Greek historian who documented the courageous story of the Peloponnesian War, wrote, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and, notwithstanding, go out to face it.”
If a man does not understand what he is facing, he cannot be brave in that situation, only ignorant. The difference in a courageous man and a foolhardy man is that the courageous man understands what he is up against. He understands the possible consequences of standing up for his principles, or of engaging in some physical battle, but he still acts according to his principles despite his knowledge that his actions could cost him.
The foolhardy man simply acts. He is rash and compulsive, and either doesn’t take the time to reflect on what the dangers are, or doesn’t have the intelligence to understand the dangers. Bohdi Sanders ~ excerpt from the #1 Bestseller, MODERN BUSHIDO: Living a Life of Excellence, available from Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008S26INK or from The Wisdom Warrior website at: https://thewisdomwarrior.com.
