Tag: Courage

• August 12, 2015

  5 Puzzles About Courage

  In preparation for a fall course I am teaching at Kaos Pilots entitled “Time to Get Tough,” I am reading William Ian Miller’s interesting book The Mystery of Courage. In the “Introduction,” Miller writes, “The core of courage’s ancient tale is attack and defense against the Other, other men to be exact. The core is about the…
• July 20, 2015

  Aristotle on Toughness

  We have become soft and it’s time to get tough. Aristotle says that “it is softness to fly from what is troublesome” and so the coward does. But then most of us are flying from what is troublesome. Can we even recall what courage is? Aristotle: The coward, the rash man, and the brave man, then, are…
• January 21, 2014

  The eager volunteer

  Think back to a time early in your schooling. Recall the moment (maybe it was in third grade or sixth) when your teacher asked for a volunteer. One boy’s hand shoots up into the air–that boy, you think–and the teacher, looking at him, quips, ‘But I haven’t even told you yet what you’re volunteering for?’…
• March 26, 2013

  Facing up to life

  We had fallen for the lure. A day before the Vernal Equinox, there were plenty of inklings of spring. The robins, even before this, had grown plump and plentiful and were everywhere seeking and pulling plump worms clean from the earth. The Pileated Woodpeckers were bashing their heads against the locust trees and, in the…
• May 19, 2012

  O brave woman

  At 5:47 a.m., the rim of the sky wore a pinkish hue. It was fuchsia. At 7:46 p.m. last night, the stain glass of the bell tower was lit all in fuchsia. I awoke early, recalling the cool steps of the courtyard, awoke, curled up like a fetus, and thought of you. O brave woman,…