It takes a lot of effort to be scared. You have to constantly remind yourself that arbitrary events somehow hold relevance and secure your life into place. You have to ignore the pang of hunger that curls across the lining of your stomach when an opportunity makes itself known. You have to lie, little and often, to micro-dose yourself into a false sense of security.
We’re all cowards with something or someone. I’m the same woman who confronted an adulterous relative, and yet, less than three hours later I was on the phone with an ex-boyfriend who had screamed at me outside Leicester Square station.
Over fifty percent of Britons call themselves “people pleasers”. That’s thirty-three million bitten tongues, afraid a whisper of what they’d like hitting the air would cause the room to sour. Fear can feel human and comforting. Exciting. There’s something in travelling the night bus, sensing everyone on it, might know the prickle of anxiety before a salacious touch or the success of robbing a supermarket.
There’ll always be an urge to invite fear over for lunch. With age comes a drive to avoid life-and-death situations, so it tracks. But, caution feels like a foreign intruder, not a seasoned guest. Are limits actually appealing or just a biological means to a socially acceptable end? Who knows; but what I can say is that I’m not ready for “those things” yet. So, I refuse to be convinced that time isn’t still rolling out its ticking red carpet ahead of me.
Even still, moving along the signposted road does come with a sense of calm, the distance ahead quietly calculated for you. “Rules are helpful benchmarks”, you decide; “And when broken”, you pause, “...it’s only when they really have to be”. You appreciate the guidelines; they protect you from your hidden bitterness, carefully rehearsed apology monologues, the hive-inducing thought of raw-dogging your free will. And as we’ve established, fear is a lot of hard work; all that angst has to go somewhere.
But honestly, does it matter at which point you emotionally impale yourself to ask “Why couldn't have I just…?”. It happened as it did; and you’re playing an infinite loop with versions of you that didn’t show up.
Bravery is kinder. Yes, it is going to upset your partner, your boss and your best friend; the one who refuses to say anything but “All good, thanks!” when asked about their objectively strained relationship. We wed ourselves to suffering because we believe the trials make life meaningful. But life doesn’t inherently have any meaning and neither does the hard stuff. We are meat sacks of flesh, bones and blood that can perceive that they are meat sacks of flesh, bones and blood. Bravery is understanding that and choosing instead to use suffering as a marker of ‘aliveness’. But boy, does being alive hurt.
Kierkegaard believed suffering got you closer to God, Watts thought it God’s sense of humour and Drake said “You weren’t with me shooting in the gym”. I don’t know why being brave can cost everything and being a coward pays dividends.
Bravery means accepting that the choices you make, as informed and assured as they are, might have consequences that don’t match the hazy pictures you create in your mind. Yes, they could be wildly different. But then they could also be better.
It takes a bold person to create purpose from a random collection of explosions. It takes a resilient soul to craft small parcels of wonder in the day-to-day. It takes a true iconoclast to worship at the altar of “I can grow from this because I have to. Things are as important as I want to make them”.
Courage awards you with authenticity. You know in your cytoplasm when it’s time to let something go. It sounds like a seashell in your head when it’s quiet. Your skin has worn in. Risks have somehow granted you the luxury of boredom. You really fucking did it.
It takes a lot of effort to be brave. You have to unleash all the dogma that you’re good enough with the low hum of anxiety as an anchor. You let your skin prickle with the thought of another adventure; knowing you means not knowing in general and still it feels safe. You have to try, again and again, to hit the bullseye and smile.
M. Blunden, ‘Britain’s workers are ‘passive-aggressive, sulking backstabbers’, Evening Standard, 27 July 2018, pg. 1
F. Moeinkorberkandi. Kierkegaard’s View on the Suffering Aspects of Life and the Role of Love in Decreasing the Suffering of Life, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013, pg. 13
A Watts. Become What You Are, USA: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2003, pg.89
A. Graham, N. Jones, K. Kharbouch, W. L. Roberts II and Anthony Tucker ‘Stay Schemin;’ California: Def Jam, 2011