This is the week of Total X. Today X = Courage. David Steindl-Rast opens with : "Stop, Look and Go". Stop and Look are the key to rediscovering how fascinating the world is and being grateful for it. Go is what 'emerges' from your Stop and Look. Go is the key to moving forward. Go is courage. It is the natural outcome, the epiphenomenon of our gratitude towards life and existence. You might fail to feel gratitude at any given moment. But Steindl-Rast reassures us: There is always another moment. See ? Gratitude is the key to courage ! Impossible !
Raphael Enthoven, in his talk about Courage, explained, similar to Steindl-Rast, that courage is a continuous renewal. He echoes Bergson by conceiving of it as a prowess of every moment: When the mind is invested in seeing how unique the moment is, every moment, it is no longer cluttered by second-guessing and the only possible and imaginable thing to do is : move. Courage emerges from investing in the moment !
Courage and self-sacrifice for Tachikoma robots in "Ghost in the Shell" emerges from not fearing death anymore !
Stop (seriously - stop). Look (around you). And go. Courage emerges out of mindfulness (i.e. paying attention). The moment you're able to pay attention to the breadth of reality you've been missing, you grasp the ridicule of every mentally fabricated obstacle ("I'm not like this", "What if?", "If only" ...). Then when the road is clear and the prospects uncluttered, courage emerges as the only possible option. Moving forward is all there is. Einstein kindly closes: "Life is like riding a bicycle - In order to keep your balance, you need to keep moving"