Courage (May 2014) by Josh W.

“When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us, where do we find the will and courage to continue?  The answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith.” –The White Stripes album Elephant “Little Acorns”

Courage is a visceral sensation, somatic and spiteful.   Many corporal words can be substituted for it: intestinal fortitude, guts, nerves, heart, balls.  It stems from the pit of your stomach, you retch it forth in spite of your situations.  Life goes on and you persist.  It’s whimsical, uncalculated, and illogical. Shirking a draw towards complacency, despair, apathy, avoidance, and self-preservation.  It’s a fire from within, a stubborn persistence to act.  Tenaciously, problems are faced head on.  There is nothing to fear, except for the seed of fear taking root and choking out courage.  But even if you are fearful, life goes on.  And the choice is to courageously plow forth or begrudgingly trudge onwards.  

Courage (May 2014) by Katie

When the sun and all its visions slips around the corner to trick the other side of the world, step out, look up, and see. Really see. We are standing in eternity. One dot, staring out at a thousand others, with more emptiness than substance between. 

When the sun returns, she draws the blue shades, and turns on the lights, to illuminate that which is immediate and close. 

Is it more fearful to be tethered to this rock, or floating in space? 

There will be a day when it ends for us. There can be no other way. A day when one generation will not beget the next; when a generation will be the last generation. 

And who can say what is worse? The horrors of that moment, or all the horrors around the world on any given day, or all days cumulated throughout time. Our time. This strange human existence. 

Both day and night, we are powerless. We are as clueless about meteors and black holes as we are about relationships and our own ambitions. 

It doesn't feel like our choice. We just have this life. And this black and blue sky. And this awareness. 

And, it seems, awareness will always have fear as its shadow

and courage in its bones.

Courage (May 2014) by Katie

Most of our lives have progressed with help. Our journey was mapped out. Begin school. Move from first grade to second. Years were marked with change, and we had no say in it. We graduated high school and could continue with undergrad or begin working, but we couldn’t stay seniors. We graduated college, and the world was open to us, but we had to move somewhere. As an adult, it is different. There is no one telling us when it is time to take that next step. I think it takes a lot of courage as an adult to try something new. And it takes courage to not follow your cohort. To stay.

Courage (May 2014)