Courage is moving toward the good in the presence of fear. There is an invisible wall of fear blocking the good. It’s always there, as a constant deterrent, making any noble pursuit difficult. Fear, if translated into plain English, tells us the following:
wow, just wow. This needs to be heard. This is a banner, a war cry, a rallying point for those who are tired of the constant fear-mongering, the manipulation the general hesitancy to actually live, feel, get hurt, gain wisdom, rinse & repeat. Forwarding this on to so many people...
Like Rijon Erickson, I was struck with the ringing clarity of “Without courage, wisdom is impotent." And at the same moment I was stuck with a sense of responsibility that we all carry when we "encourage" others ... for encouraging others to face risk with action is, if we are sufficiently informed, a act of greater love. Becoming sufficiently "co-informed" (to bend a word in search of deeper meaning) is going to become increasingly costly as complexity and urgency mingle. It will take increasing measures of courage for us to help each other stare deeply into the eyes of fear and pierce its soul ... and encourage our collective actions. We should not send others into struggles when we are not ready to march with them. So, then, encourage each other is essential ... but also not sufficient. Maybe?
Right on. Yesterday, I let a little of my "intemperance" show, in expressing how passionately I opposed burdening the victim with yet more load in the hope that someday, someway, that victim might recover that additional burden. Breakthrough! New ally :) And suddenly there is an open field ahead and my cautious interlocutor is available to block the next potential tackle. Folk want to be on the side of the angels. But leading that play? That's tough.
Slowly as I am more aware of my re-sourcing, My open hearted gaze in sensing and live updating my awareness. I come to sense of why my presence matters and what is mine to do. and then I don't seem to need courage, because there is resonance that connects me to what is transforming.
I have no doubt about "less foolish" as a way to practice being more impeccable.
But do we need the opposite of encouragement really? I understand cowardice as it has long lived in me, embodied experience that entangled character. It wasn't de-cowarding or some kind of intiation but deep transformations that allowed my to find alignment and moments. It was getting tired of living with an anxiety and judgement filters. It's so much easier NOW but it's slow inner work to find ones own authentic way, connection to source and how I bring spirit and presence... not punchiness.
Is the claim here that courage is not needed once one gets to a certain re-sourced place? If so, I am curious, from this re-sourced place, is fear experienced or non-existing?
A few thoughts emerge: everyone’s “dharma” and life stage is different, with some needing more courage than others to face their challenges. Also, curious about spiritual bypassing in sans courage cases; where one becomes re-sourced, connected to source, unfolding from source, but in a way that plays small, never meeting moments that invoke fear.
Great questions, so I took a few days to notice where I am with them.
I was once a senior ski Instructor at Lake Tahoe CA. One of the perceptions that became clear to me and is visible when I look at those who have practiced to the level of mastery is. "It's hard to leap while falling but that is what mastery allows." To dive down the hill when one feels off balance, to open up to an audience when fear of being wrong or bullied shows up. It is a character capacity to shift relationships beginning from inner status that comes through practice and is visible in performance as Presence.
Does the fear exist? Courage is a blend of capacities (open awareness, open heart & open will, O. Scharmer) to sense ones well-resourced and opening ability at the edge of skill, while falling well into creative possibility and a future that can only unfold from now. The opposite for me is the situation where soldiers are sent into battle without being ready to fight as competent companies and the purpose isn't true or integral, in relationship to their potential pain, trauma and perhaps death sacrifice.
The cowarding response, a type of absencing, is as Thomas Hübl, Gabor Maté and many other experts is cause by layers of cultural trauma that have been internalised by individual lived experience as class, race & gender encoding that hold large groups of people in frozen and anxiety as normal everyday unembodied "Status" . We see this in almost any form of addiction. So there is a huge retraumatising problem of "status" generation through unconscious social body signification in social media because the industry treats online users as a Matrix, built on dumbing down click-bait, double-bind agreements and AI commercial collect and control strategies. Social Media needs to die so that something integral can take it's place.
The opposite of well resourced and embodied courage is the animal body overload which results in nervous system existential reactions that block responsible behaviour and learning-creative capacities. Huge topic. Note that in the animal kingdom, species and ecosystems create more health and aliveness than humans create for themselves.
Your restorative and sourcing practice may come from any study that allows you to deeply connect to your unique existence and spirit and is noticable as personal, group and collective presence. Mine are: Meditation, 5 Rhythm and Contact Improv dance, climbing, hiking and ski touring in the Alps. What I do with my body and mind helps me integrate.
What are your 3-5 practices that bring joy, integration, and quality into all your relationships?
It took me several years to get through a chain of addictive habits with awareness based learning, thanks to several great teachers and three compassionate communities. In those years I met and even subscribed to several spiritual by-passing fields with their own sets of beliefs and inequalities that I came to see as my own stuckness projected on others in those groups. I guess my need to re-solve my unique, "what is mine to do" and "how am I here" helped me steer through those waters.
My sense — and perhaps it's a mistaken sense? — is that for the past few months you've been on the cusp of making a bold and potentially divisive declaration about a shift in your political worldview. If I'm mistaken, ignore this. If I'm not mistaken, then in the spirit of what you're saying here, I encourage you to say it. Or, at the very least, I'll just note that I'm interested in what you might be about to say. :)
No aspirations to express divisive political declarations (yet), but I have shedded the "transperspectival masturbatory" view (https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/transperspectival-masturbation), which has a bothsidesism/allsidesism vibe. The courage focus is more related to preparing to launch a few things this fall, which requires courting more attention, and noticing subtle fear arising, along with the undue effects it has.
There are many sayings throughout literature. What is worth living for, as an example, and what is worth dying for as another. This morning when I woke up and was analyzing the dreams of the night I thought about what was worth dying for and the answer was nothing.
There is nothing worth dying for because if you die you will share no more wisdom with any others. That scenario where your death actually results in a permanent and substantial change in something is unreal. You need to remain and keep teaching, keep inspiring and keep tearing down the falseness of a world built more on advertising today than anything else. The advent of radio and television brought about in our species unprecedented levels of fakeness and surreality. Radio and moving pictures brought with them the ability to convince many of many things that were just never real.
Be courage in the face of surreality, absolutely, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth dying for.
wow, just wow. This needs to be heard. This is a banner, a war cry, a rallying point for those who are tired of the constant fear-mongering, the manipulation the general hesitancy to actually live, feel, get hurt, gain wisdom, rinse & repeat. Forwarding this on to so many people...
Nice word! Has solid-punchiness, certainly more impactful than “fear-inducing”
This line floored me: “Without courage, our wisdom will be impotent. Many people are living with cowardly impotence, denying the world their good”
Yes! Courage is moving toward the good in the presence of fear. I love that our proper response is to create an encouraging world.
Like Rijon Erickson, I was struck with the ringing clarity of “Without courage, wisdom is impotent." And at the same moment I was stuck with a sense of responsibility that we all carry when we "encourage" others ... for encouraging others to face risk with action is, if we are sufficiently informed, a act of greater love. Becoming sufficiently "co-informed" (to bend a word in search of deeper meaning) is going to become increasingly costly as complexity and urgency mingle. It will take increasing measures of courage for us to help each other stare deeply into the eyes of fear and pierce its soul ... and encourage our collective actions. We should not send others into struggles when we are not ready to march with them. So, then, encourage each other is essential ... but also not sufficient. Maybe?
Right on. Yesterday, I let a little of my "intemperance" show, in expressing how passionately I opposed burdening the victim with yet more load in the hope that someday, someway, that victim might recover that additional burden. Breakthrough! New ally :) And suddenly there is an open field ahead and my cautious interlocutor is available to block the next potential tackle. Folk want to be on the side of the angels. But leading that play? That's tough.
Slowly as I am more aware of my re-sourcing, My open hearted gaze in sensing and live updating my awareness. I come to sense of why my presence matters and what is mine to do. and then I don't seem to need courage, because there is resonance that connects me to what is transforming.
I have no doubt about "less foolish" as a way to practice being more impeccable.
But do we need the opposite of encouragement really? I understand cowardice as it has long lived in me, embodied experience that entangled character. It wasn't de-cowarding or some kind of intiation but deep transformations that allowed my to find alignment and moments. It was getting tired of living with an anxiety and judgement filters. It's so much easier NOW but it's slow inner work to find ones own authentic way, connection to source and how I bring spirit and presence... not punchiness.
Is the claim here that courage is not needed once one gets to a certain re-sourced place? If so, I am curious, from this re-sourced place, is fear experienced or non-existing?
A few thoughts emerge: everyone’s “dharma” and life stage is different, with some needing more courage than others to face their challenges. Also, curious about spiritual bypassing in sans courage cases; where one becomes re-sourced, connected to source, unfolding from source, but in a way that plays small, never meeting moments that invoke fear.
Great questions, so I took a few days to notice where I am with them.
I was once a senior ski Instructor at Lake Tahoe CA. One of the perceptions that became clear to me and is visible when I look at those who have practiced to the level of mastery is. "It's hard to leap while falling but that is what mastery allows." To dive down the hill when one feels off balance, to open up to an audience when fear of being wrong or bullied shows up. It is a character capacity to shift relationships beginning from inner status that comes through practice and is visible in performance as Presence.
Does the fear exist? Courage is a blend of capacities (open awareness, open heart & open will, O. Scharmer) to sense ones well-resourced and opening ability at the edge of skill, while falling well into creative possibility and a future that can only unfold from now. The opposite for me is the situation where soldiers are sent into battle without being ready to fight as competent companies and the purpose isn't true or integral, in relationship to their potential pain, trauma and perhaps death sacrifice.
The cowarding response, a type of absencing, is as Thomas Hübl, Gabor Maté and many other experts is cause by layers of cultural trauma that have been internalised by individual lived experience as class, race & gender encoding that hold large groups of people in frozen and anxiety as normal everyday unembodied "Status" . We see this in almost any form of addiction. So there is a huge retraumatising problem of "status" generation through unconscious social body signification in social media because the industry treats online users as a Matrix, built on dumbing down click-bait, double-bind agreements and AI commercial collect and control strategies. Social Media needs to die so that something integral can take it's place.
The opposite of well resourced and embodied courage is the animal body overload which results in nervous system existential reactions that block responsible behaviour and learning-creative capacities. Huge topic. Note that in the animal kingdom, species and ecosystems create more health and aliveness than humans create for themselves.
Your restorative and sourcing practice may come from any study that allows you to deeply connect to your unique existence and spirit and is noticable as personal, group and collective presence. Mine are: Meditation, 5 Rhythm and Contact Improv dance, climbing, hiking and ski touring in the Alps. What I do with my body and mind helps me integrate.
What are your 3-5 practices that bring joy, integration, and quality into all your relationships?
It took me several years to get through a chain of addictive habits with awareness based learning, thanks to several great teachers and three compassionate communities. In those years I met and even subscribed to several spiritual by-passing fields with their own sets of beliefs and inequalities that I came to see as my own stuckness projected on others in those groups. I guess my need to re-solve my unique, "what is mine to do" and "how am I here" helped me steer through those waters.
YES!
Love the neologism and concept.
My sense — and perhaps it's a mistaken sense? — is that for the past few months you've been on the cusp of making a bold and potentially divisive declaration about a shift in your political worldview. If I'm mistaken, ignore this. If I'm not mistaken, then in the spirit of what you're saying here, I encourage you to say it. Or, at the very least, I'll just note that I'm interested in what you might be about to say. :)
No aspirations to express divisive political declarations (yet), but I have shedded the "transperspectival masturbatory" view (https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/transperspectival-masturbation), which has a bothsidesism/allsidesism vibe. The courage focus is more related to preparing to launch a few things this fall, which requires courting more attention, and noticing subtle fear arising, along with the undue effects it has.
Looking forward to the launch
There are many sayings throughout literature. What is worth living for, as an example, and what is worth dying for as another. This morning when I woke up and was analyzing the dreams of the night I thought about what was worth dying for and the answer was nothing.
There is nothing worth dying for because if you die you will share no more wisdom with any others. That scenario where your death actually results in a permanent and substantial change in something is unreal. You need to remain and keep teaching, keep inspiring and keep tearing down the falseness of a world built more on advertising today than anything else. The advent of radio and television brought about in our species unprecedented levels of fakeness and surreality. Radio and moving pictures brought with them the ability to convince many of many things that were just never real.
Be courage in the face of surreality, absolutely, but nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth dying for.