About Being Brave
How being a coward is the bravest act
Fear is perhaps the most ancient human emotion or feeling. Adam, the first man ever created, embraced his fear of being expelled from heaven until he was persuaded to commit a grave sin. What he was afraid of actually happened in the end; in that point of view, Adam committed a cowardly act and suffered the consequences.
Through Adam’s story, can’t we conclude that we are cursed always to feel afraid? Humans descend into the world not with courage or other positive feelings. We are cast down to earth carrying fear, regret, and self-deprecation.
However, to avoid this pessimistic viewpoint, humans must first understand why we are cursed with fear. I understand fear as a natural alarm that alerts me to imminent danger. It’s just that sometimes I don’t recognize the alarm properly. I only understood it as a sign that I had to run away from what I was facing because it had the potential to harm me physically and psychologically.
Made me a child of Adam: a coward.
Become a Coward
“Fearless People generally die young. Only people who know fear become strong in the end and can overcome their fears.”
— Sheng Daren, Old Man from Kenji Manga
Being a coward is never wrong. Humans are born for it. I am a coward who, until now, still has difficulty breaking free from its chains of bondage. Sometimes the fear forces me to sink into various innate feelings that come with it. However, I don’t think this reduces the value that exists in humans. Fear makes humans human.
In fact, I think being cowardly is the bravest act. How come? By being cowardly, you will recognize what you are afraid of — continuously feeling the turmoil in the stomach, cold sweat that wets the shirt collar, and various other body reactions. I consider humans to do brave things only by recognizing the darkness of fear.
How humans respond to fear is another matter. I believe a coward can be distinguished by how he responds to fear. No one has the wrong response when humans are faced with what they are afraid of.
One type of coward is those who are too brave. A coward like this is a human with high capability and self-confidence. They face fear head-on. Charging while clenching fists and hoping not to get hurt in the process. Some of them sometimes feel numb, don’t feel sadness or pain when facing scary things. They believe they can overcome their fears, regardless of the outcome of their fight against fear.
Another type of coward is those who wander. This type of human insists on turning around and looking for another way when confronted by something scary in the middle of their age. They provide distance, sometimes close, often far. Some of them took quite a while to shorten the distance and then faced their fear. But some need time until the end of their lives to face the darkness in front of life’s tunnel.
Another I know is the coward who never returns. The humans who ran and fled. Until their breath is choked in the face of death, they are reluctant to face and overcome their fears — among them, sometimes tucked in people who stay in place. Build walls complete with bars of confinement to secure a sense of security and safety between the wrinkles of their skin.
What differentiates the early two types from the latter is their condition of fear. The last kind of coward, still letting his fear live. They will not cross the street for fear of being hit by a car. They were silent at the crossroads, crouching, shivering, and not going anywhere — the type of coward always cursed by the world and the humans who move in it.
What kind of coward am I?
This is the most fundamental question that must be answered after humans know their fears. I realized I was the second type of coward, tending to shy away from what I feared. Sometimes I manage to consciously face my fear again, although it often takes a push like coercion or time is running out.
One of the things I fear the most is rejection. Some unpleasant life experience is often the catalyst for that fear. Like when I always postponed submitting my master’s degree application, I was afraid I would fail to be accepted at the university I was aiming for. In the end, I submitted the application not because of pure courage in my heart but because I realized that if I did not submit the application, I would never be accepted in the end either.
The main point is that when I realized which type of coward I was, I could condition things that I needed to condition, like risks and other annoying things. When I understand that I am a coward of the second kind, then I have to take the detour I take to face my fear conditionally. Whether by coercion, a little recreation, or even by other fears.
However, one thing that must be remembered is that any coward is a brave person. By feeling fear, humans can become something according to their nature: weak and helpless. Weak humans will later learn to be strong and able to live fully. They know to be brave.
“A coward is not the one who runs but the one who never returns”
Cowardly written from a cold balcony, August 7th
