Episode 19: Courage is Calling

Welcome to Episode 19 of Metamorphosis, this time featuring the book, Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday, host of the Daily Stoic podcast and author of numerous bestselling books on the ancient philosophy and wisdom of Stoicism.

The Stoics held four virtues or commandments: Courage, Temperance, Justice and Wisdom. The touchstones of goodness, as the philosopher king Marcus Aurelius called them.

Interrelated and inseparable, yet each is distinct from the others. Doing the right thing almost always takes courage, just as discipline is impossible without the wisdom to know what is worth choosing. What good is courage if not applied to justice? What good is wisdom if it doesn’t make us more modest?

In a world that raves about a culture of personality, this book focuses on the historic culture of character, as the ancients were fond of saying ‘Character is fate.’

This is Ryan’s first book from the Stoic virtue series, rich in stories and lessons from examples of great men and women of history whose character and deeds are likened to those of heroes. The common thread in all those examples is fear being a bygone conclusion.

The people followed in the book are Charles de Gaulle, Theodore Roosevelt, Marcus Aurelius, Frank Serpico, Florence Nightingale and James Stockdale.

The title is voluble, echoing bravery, fortitude, honour and sacrifice as cardinal tenets of one’s character, as the opening pages supplant Hercules at the crossroads:

“Where was he headed? Where was he trying to go? That’s the point of the story. Alone, unknown, unsure, Hercules, like so many did not know.

Where the road diverged lay a beautiful goddess who offered him every temptation he could imagine. Adorned in finery, she promised him a life of ease. She swore he’d never taste want or unhappiness or fear or pain. Follow her, she said, and his every desire would be fulfilled.

On the other path stood a sterner goddess in a pure white robe. She made a quiet call. She promised no rewards except those that came as a result of hard work. It would be a long journey, she said. There would be sacrifice. There would be scary moments. But it was a journey fit for a god. It would make him the person his ancestors meant him to be.

For Hercules, the choice was between vice and virtue, the easy way and the hard way, the well-trod path and the road less travelled. We all face this choice. Hesitating only for a second, Hercules chose the one that made all the difference.

The tripartite approach to this book dissects fear to the core, and aggregates the principles for courage and the bravado of heroism.

My takeaways with a toothcomb through each part follow:

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real

It’s okay to be scared, who wouldn’t be? It’s not okay to let that stop you. It’s impossible to beat an enemy you don’t understand.
Fear is inevitable, it holds us back, and freezes us and every single person is affected by it but letting it take you hostage is a disgrace.

We fear something bad might happen, fear things might not work out, but what, when, where, how, who?
That we cannot answer, because we haven’t actually looked into it. Our fears are not concrete, they are shadows, illusions, and refractions that we picked up somewhere or glanced at only briefly.

To tackle fear we need to take things logically and upfront. Hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst, has ancient roots in Stoicism. Premeditatio Malorum: the deliberation on the evils we may encounter. In other words the exercise of fear-setting.

There are parallels found in the military: ‘The only inexcusable offence for an officer is to be surprised. To say, I didn’t think that would happen.’

However, one shouldn’t get too bogged down on thinking about what might go wrong. It was Seneca who said We suffer more in imagination than reality.

There is no one more miserable than the person in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. No one is more miserable than the person who has made cop-outs and cowardice their go-to decision.

By articulating and defining the fears that hold us back we can benefit from the inertia to actually answer the call for courage. The craziest thing about the gladiators in the Coliseum. Would you believe that many of them were actually volunteers? They wanted to see if they had what it took.

Courage

The management of and the triumph over fear. It’s the decision - in a moment of peril, or day in and day out to take ownership, to assert agency over a situation, over yourself, over the fate that everyone else has resigned themselves to.

Doing the thing you cannot do because it needs to be done…. with fortitude and spirit, guts and grit, even if you have no idea if you’ll succeed. This will not be easy. But we cannot fear. We must, as Shakespeare said, “meet the time as it seeks us.” Our destiny is here. Let’s seize it.

In words of the decorated Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, to get over fear, you go. You jump when it’s the scariest to jump. You just do. You leap into the dark. It is the only way.

The rarest of the gifts from Gods, Acheson realised was the ability to decide. Because while fear wants you to spend the day in deliberation, courage knows that won’t be possible.

“Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

Always do what you are afraid to do. Courage like fear is contagious, one man with courage makes a majority.

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.

You can find strength in the examples of the past. Letting great deeds and inspiring words steel our resolve and harden our commitment. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.

Heroism

Megalopsuchia. The Stoics called it the greatness of soul. The road one takes to surpass oneself. To get there, we must triumph over fear, we must cultivate courage in daily life, and we must be ready to seize the opportunities life presents us - however big or small.

What must one go through to get there? Wilderness:

“Every prophet must come from civilisation, but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must have a strong impression of a complex society … and he must serve periods of isolation and meditation. This is the process by which psychic dynamite is made.”

The opposite of fear?

If fear was the vice, then the virtue is Love. Although self-evident, Love is the answer, it’s what hits us in the solar plexus.
Between mountains lies the valley, cross it. But you’ll need patience and endurance and most of all love. You can’t let this period make you bitter. You have to make sure it makes you better. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up on them. They know not what they do. You, on the other hand, do know. It’s part of the journey, the struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

Life is meaningless except for its impact on other lives.

“Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts.”

Fortune favours the brave we make our own luck.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever is going on. There’s more you can do. A hero is a person who does what needs to be done, not just for themselves but for others. Marcus Aurelius writes, “True good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions and good actions.”

David Brooks talks about the “second mountain”, the thing we dedicate ourselves to climbing for reasons beyond just the courageous love of a good challenge or the rewards that go along with defying the odds that deterred everyone else. The mountain we climb after braving the difficulties of the first mountain and realising that just being successful is not all that fulfilling.

The stoic heal themselves by focusing on what they can control: Their response.

This is not an idea exclusive to the West. There is a form of Japanese art called kintsugi, which dates back to the fifteenth century. In it, masters repair broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of simply fixing them back to their original state, they make them better.

This is not glued together but instead fused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or silver. Kintsugi was invented as a way to turn the scars of a break into something beautiful.

Will you find a way to become stronger at the broken places?

The thing is Courage calls us in our fear. It’s our decision how to answer the call. Not just once but a thousand times in a life. Because, courageous is a superlative paid for over the course of a life of courageous decisions.

Like always ending this episode with some words to live by:

“There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as a heroic deed.”