pop culture, i think, gives us a mostly wrong picture of where courage comes from. in pop culture courage often comes from knowing you are the chosen one and/or have superpowers. in my experience i have been the most courageous when i felt most “in the flow of the world”
Conversation
some of the boldest things i’ve done are things that didn’t feel like “me” doing them - mostly the opposite of how pop culture heroes work (with interesting exceptions, eg avatar). it felt like i was “channeling” something, or like i was “playing improv with the universe”
2
1
59
conversely the times in my life i have felt most cowardly (i mean this neutrally) were times i felt most “cut off from the flow of the world.” alone, isolated, not just from people but also sunlight, water, all good things. can’t hear the music playing so i can’t dance
Replying to
maybe one way to say it is that courage is not a thing a person has. it can’t be localized to a person. courage is relational. it is a kind of fitting of a person to the world. that fit is what distinguishes it from recklessness, which does *not* fit to the world
2
51
i have been kind of shocked how much better i feel now than in december, and most of what’s different now is that i’m talking to people, about the stuff that’s really on my mind. and they’re *responding*! with what’s really on *their* mind! that’s the “flow of the world” for me
6
1
42
Quote Tweet
but what it tells me is that
if I make bold, audacious leaps of faith
there will be people who show up quietly behind the scenes to support me
to lend me their strength, their knowledge, their expertise
it's a huge honor and also like a massive societal-level optical illusion
Show this thread
1
8
Replying to
In this vein, one of the most sickening feelings I know is abruptly falling out of that flow, or realizing I was wrong about being in it.
It's like watching a parkour-gone-video, fluid understanding suddenly derailed by some bit of the landscape you're not in tune with.
2
1
parkour-gone-wrong is a really vivid metaphor for the thing yeah oof
1