From my Long vacation- Courage

I have  ended my one year blog less vacation. This can be attributed to several things. The first,  my friend Fiona, who constantly blogs  and has a rich audience among my peers . This  is definitely inspiring  and I marvel at how she can in the most subtle ways reduce her life experiences into a blog post worth reading at any time of the day. I hope that I might be able to write like her. However, my greatest fear is that I have not written a narrative post in a long time, as whatever I  have written over the last year  is often poetry or a legal argument . I am treading on fresh territory (so do not judge me by this post) .

Secondly,  the general fatigue has led me to blog.  It was  a consequence of the heavy medication I  received during this struggle against malaria.  This got  me two days off  from my new work place. I ordinarily  plan my week before it begins, having two free days has been a great cause of anxiety and a lack of a sense of direction as I am not accustomed to having unplanned free time. A mixture of  the nuggets of inspiration  from my friend and  my struggle against malaria are to blame for this blog post(if at all that is blameworthy).

In the previous days when I took forced leave due to  malaria. I decided to read the book, "profiles in courage" by John. F. Kennedy. Since our country is short of people with this great virtue(courage), I thought that maybe I could relay some of the ideas that are espoused in the book.

Courage is a very abstract concept and idea when one hears it for the fist time . The instant picture that comes to ones mind is  a modern day rendition of  a roman centurion battling at the Colosseum or the more contemporary image of Gerard Butler in the holly wood blockbuster of 300 taking on the most fierce monsters. This is not far from the truth, but what is courage really! Is it tenacity ! or standing bold. I believe courage is the unresolved belief to confront challenges  in  our way. Courage is one of the virtues that J.F. Kennedy admired the most. 

When he was young a story is told of how he had serious back trouble.  John  in the period after the war  in which he had participated  had a major painful operation on his back in 1955 and he actually campaigned on clutches in 1958.He had a temperature of over 106 degrees and no one thought he would live, but during that time he was never compliaining. He never said anything that indicated that God had treated him unjustly. Those who knew him would only know he was suffering because of his face which was a little white and the lines around his eyes were a little deep.  Was this courage !

 

He pointed out that, when he battled that illness, fought in the war, ran for senate an stood against powerful people’s interests. When he took the blame completely on himself, when he spoke for equal rights and stood against the soviet missiles from Cuba. These and several other things were reflecting what is best in the human being and the unprecedented resolve of the human spirit. This was courage.

To him courage was demonstrating conviction and desire to help others. Recognizing what needs to be done and going ahead to do exactly that. As Dante is infamously quoted to have stated , that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a great moral crisis maintain their neutrality. The quote presents two main propositions. That each individual in a moral crisis  has a duty to act.  Secondly, any omission to act in a moral crisis is devoid of courage.

We are all given a role to play in our day to day lives. It could be as simple as standing up to the conductor who is overcharging the unsuspecting members of the public. Or it could be holding a child's hand as you walk with him/her side by side to help the child  across the zebra crossing. We should in one way or the other, cultivate the capacity for courage. Our talents and energies are needed wherever we are to stand up to vices and forces that try to derail us off our path.

I know that in the 21st Century where technology has created a limitless world, universal vices like slavery that prompted courageous acts of men like William Wilberforce and Fredrick Douglass are of rare ilk. There is nevertheless a need for each one of us to be courageous. Courage could be when a teen mother decides to keep her child other than terminate its life.  It could be found in a cancer patient  that goes to church every Sunday to pray to God, knowing  so well that that he/she  has 10 days to leave.

This courage motivates, inspires and makes the world a better place.

We should as a result, be courageous in all that we do.