No. 20: Clarity Courage
Before being courageous, decide what courage is.
Premise for what to do moving forward:
We are lost if everyone stays the same.
No one person can or will change the story alone.
You are one of “we.”
I am no expert in history. I can’t look inside the fascist’s scorecard, but it looks pretty bad for freedom and democracy right now to me. I imagine that if our trajectory does not change, we could be lost for a time. That is not the direction I look. I look for the path out. The path back. Tim Snyder’s 20 Lessons are part of that practice.
If not enough people change what they are doing, we will lose Democracy in America.
I am yet another tiresome person asking you to be more courageous. When I say courageous though, I don’t mean to be what I want you to be. I have come to think of courage as being more of what you already are. Reading today’s (final) lesson On Tyranny, it reads as an invitation not a push:
Lesson 20: Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
I would rather he did not call out dying so explicitly. It is the habit of people calling for courage. How about:
If enough of us are a bit more courageous than we were yesterday, we win.
The big requests for “heroic” courage are making killers and world destroyers. Let’s not add to that trash fire.
The stories of courage we are told don’t tell the story of what else is going on in a human life. Now, we are in a place that needs people to show courage. We know what it is like to be inside those stories. If someone is asking for your courage, you can understand how much sacrifice and transformation they are asking for. Look around yourself. Some leader may ask for Courageous Sacrifice, but you still have all the gravity in your life that you did yesterday: families to preserve, worries to manage; other goals and needs. The call to courage does not stop your children from growing and needing you, nor stop your desire to plan for a good retirement. They don’t eliminate the delicate balance of your worries and hopes that you manage every day.
There are those that exhort you to abandon all of those for the cause. That you must sacrifice, eliminate yourself. That way you can be a body for the cause, a pawn of your chosen side of conflict.
I don’t see that as courageous today. And it will only make the world worse.
Here we are in this actual powder keg moment. Look where we are. Note how you feel.
A young leader beloved by many named Charlie Kirk was killed horrifically. People are sad and angry.
Killing Charlie Kirk was no act of courage. It was stupid and cruel and made our world worse. Any killing, violence, or threat that follows will not be courage either. They are an abandonment of self and of community in service to fear. They abandon humanity that we can see in each other’s eyes, social order that holds children safe, hope people hold for the future, and each person’s search for happiness.
That is not courage. That is a surrender in advance. That is compliance.
Imagine the courage that you brew for yourself. Now imagine that customized courage across a few more people. Courage to be more present, to do one more thing. Courage to be a little more yourself — that is, to love your family more deeply. To feel the wonder of the world more powerfully. To be guided by more of that love. Clarity Courage.
Leaders and social media exhortations are incentivized to ask for as much as you will give. They exhaust you in advance.
I am politically active. I don’t think everyone should have to be.
But, I know the fantasy of political activists. It comes from a logical place; If everyone who agreed to me showed up to county Democratic Party meetings, we would win. This would be over.
In the past 9 months, I have been taught that there is no benefit to urging people to do things that do not feel true to them. Most will not heed the call and those that do are un-rooted, unsure. They don’t bring creativity and will. They are zombie activists.
My courage builds from doing what is true to me. It starts with the courage to ask myself what is true. This is much harder and scarier than one might suppose. The practice of doing one thing has for me built the ability, the clear and strong ability, to do a little bit more.
I am sorry now for all those I have tried to urge to abandon themselves to live in my convenient fantasy.
But imagine we were in a condition as a nation where we all knew this time would be decisive.
While still holding all you love,
While still knowing all your fears.
You can do a little more. You can exercise clarity courage. You can be guided by your own reason and your own passion. Courage is not the guides of mindless, manipulated killers bent on useless martyrdom and glory among fellow numbskulls. It is the guide of world changers who need no spotlight. Complete, conscious people are doing what they believe. And when they are done they will turn their love and power again to their families, their gardens, their future.
Now imagine if a few more people found that extra action. The one powered by their senses, pumped into the world by the even beats of their heart.
Do not be cut away from your love. Don’t be another weapon that tears at those of us around you. Be the light you are. Be it as courageously as you can.
Really appreciated this post Joel.