Merriam-Webster Dictionary : mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
Short and sweet, pretty much covers the definition.
Wikipedia on the other hand is a lot more verbose. This being the difference between methods of distribution of expensive printing with ink and paper versus the access to unlimited cyber space and memory. “Courage is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, even death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss.”
But my all time favorite was said with the least amount of words, but is stronger and easier to understand then either Merriam-Webster or the long winded Wikipedia. It is from Marion Michael Morrison, known to all those my age as John Wayne. “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
My soul mate and reason for my “Carpe Diem” passed away 10 months ago. Every morning I have to saddle up anyway. Face another day of spiritual desolation and loneliness. Going through the motions with no directions or destination in mind. Just keep moving. They can not hit a moving target. Then throw in a severe case of arthritis in both knees, getting x-rays and being told in my celebration month of my 65th orbit, “yes you need both knees replaced but you are over the recommended weight for this procedure. You need to go home and get skinny.” One thing I like about this doctor is the only sugar he has is in his coffee. So I went on a diet. Twenty percent of me has now gone where ever excess weight goes when it disappears from the scales. So with the weight meter needle in the safe zone, the “procedure” was on the calendar, I attended all the required “joint” classes and tests were passed. But it was not to occur. The virus pandemic kicked in and all elective/non-emergency surgeries were put on hold. By this time in my journey with bad knees, the pain was rapidly approaching the thresh hold of unbearable. The doctor was sympathetic but no matter who up the chain I knee capped to demonstrate the pain, I would have to wait.
To bring this back to the title, I have a deep seated fear of the medical profession. This fear is border line phobia. There is a triangle of secrecy between insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and the medical hospitals/doctors. The medical “industry” is the third highest killer of citizens in this country. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-many-die-from-medical-mistakes-in-us-hospitals . And the top two are disease related. So I had to take the virus test. The nurse was soft spoken, kind and understanding. She said for me to lean my head back to expose my right nostril and she was going to get a running start from across the room to gain enough inertia to ram a wooden stick recently removed from the broom in the maintenance closet, all the way back to the area located at the junction of my Occipital Lobe, Cerebellum and the Temporal Lobe, count to 793 rotate said broom handle and ever so slowly retract so all membranes can reseal themselves.
Now after a thirty five day stay of execution, on Monday, the fourth day of May, a gathering of people wearing masks, face shields, gloves, gowns and holding all manner of sharp instruments, will gather around my unconscious physical container of all my thoughts and soul, to replace my left knee with three pieces of titanium.
I hope this will not be my swan song https://www.famousfix.com/topic/harry-chapin-dance-band-on-the-titanicEdit