Editorial note: Age of Iron will be moving off of WordPress hosting to a new location in the next month or so. I will be combining it with my professional site, wherein you will find all of my witty (and unfailingly accurate) wordsmithy for hire!
We all grow up learning about heroes and villains. Or, rather, I did, though I suspect my experience is hardly unique. TV, books, video games, theater; the hero archetype is unarguably a core aspect of Western society. Despite the many forms the hero takes, certain traits permeate the story:
- The hero is fearless
- The hero is selfless
- The hero must have a villain
- The hero has a foil
- The hero typically has someone he cares deeply about
Of course, many other traits surround the hero, but for our purposes I’d like to talk about #1 – Fearlessness.
This is, of course, how the majority of our heroes appear. Nothing can phase them; they rush into burning buildings, they stand between the abusive and the weak, they take on fights of long odds. We assume this is because they don’t feel fear. Perhaps that’s the case in fiction, but I’m more interested in the real-life hero. The fireman, the police officer, the doctor, the teacher.
To say these people are without fear is disingenuous. Nobody can truly be without fear. Fear is a natural response to external stimuli dictated by thousands of years of evolution. I personally feel fear all the time; any time I have to learn something new, or I go on a date with a beautiful woman, or I walk on stage for a show. All these acts take a certain amount of courage.
We tend to think of courage as the opposite of fear, but I see them as symbiotic. You can’t have courage without fear; it would be meaningless. Rather, I see courage as being able to act despite all your fears. To describe this through metaphor, imagine a vast ocean. This ocean can be whatever fear you’re feeling at the time. Now imagine that you’re on a great ship sailing over the ocean. This ship is your courage. Courage is the ability to move above your fear no matter how strong it may be. It is still there, certainly, and it should be. It tells you that you’re alive. That you are moving outside your comfort zone.
Really, that’s what courage is. Breaking free of any self-imposed shackles and living your life without the cloud of fear governing your actions. Oh, it’s still there. But like any negative influence in your life, you can always choose to ignore it.
Good metaphor. :)