Nobody could ever break down fear for another person. That is impossible. That isn’t how fear works. People can help each other to face their fears, but nobody can face your fear for you.
Bravery is actually simple. Bravery is just a decision. Bravery is a choice. It is the kind of decision that you make over and over again. In every moment you either choose to be brave or to be afraid.
Fear is ignorance pretending to be knowledge. Nobody can fully predict the outcome of a moment, yet fear likes to pretend that it already does know the outcome. It has certainty about failure, disaster and doom. Certainty is only an emotion. Having a feeling of certainly about failure does not mean that you actually know the future. You don’t really know if you are going to fail or not. Bravery involves honoring the undecided nature of the moment. Bravery is part of honoring the possible good. Bravery means letting go of a false certainly. It is choosing uncertain hope over certain despair. It is choosing honest ignorance over dishonest knowledge.
A brave man is a fool. He is a fool in the sense that the outcome of a moment may prove that his thought had been incorrect. The potential good was not what manifested. The lack in that one moment doesn’t control the next, unless he lets it control the next moment. He can hope again for the good in the next moment. He can be brave.
Bravery requires accepting uncertainty. Bravery is the habit of choosing hope when things are still unsettled. Bravery is accepting the potential good in moments of uncertainty.
I don’t ever remember making the wrong decision. I’ve always, without fail, had the right answer. Although I have, on occasion, failed to ask the right question. I don’t know about the bravery part, but I certainly identify with the fool.
I want to jump off the cliff not knowing whether I am able to fly but I’ll try. Courage isn’t looking for the good, courage is risking all, good and bad and every grey bit inbetween. It is heart beating loud and strong so that even though the outcome may not be known, the direction is clear. If ever your fear has prevented you from moving, it is always your heart that beats physically in your chest showing you that courage still exists in the face of fear.
“Towards the core.” I like that. I don’t really know what any of it means, I do know that there is a close relationship between overcoming ego and courage.
Yes, bravery does involve facing fear, and not yeilding to it. The choice aspect does not eliminate the emotion aspect. One can choose to be brave while one also has the emotion of fear. That is when it is difficult to choose bravery. Language fails a bit here. It is almost that feeling brave or fearful isn’t as important as choosing to endure in hope.
I would ask, hope of what and to what end? It seems to me that hope has an agenda -ie- a desire to be fulfilled in the future. And if a future hope is never realized, what then? The opposite of hope is despair. It would seem that hoping becomes a dangerous affective agent.
Acting to bring about a certain result in spite of fear or impossible odds does require courage and perhaps bravery, but should it be connected to hope? Is there a possibility that bravery is a spontaneous act not connected to outcome?
Hope and despair are both emotions related to the future. Hope accepts that there are benefits in the future while despair looks forward to only harm. This forward focus is part of how our planning ability operates. Looking at the possibilities, it is better to believe that there is good in the future.
I don’t know how you can be brave without hope, except maybe if you are stoic and avoid having either hope or despair. I am primarily interested in bravery that I can help to manifest. That may not cover every kind of bravery that exists.
I don’t know about the bravery part, but I certainly identify with the fool.
