Naturally no one can live life through quotations but there are some quotations that kind of manage to capture a sentiment of importance. These also tend to stick in my mind – not that I remember the exact quote, more the general idea. While in Kalmar I came across a second hand bookshop and found a philosophical book on the topic of courage. I am looking forward to reading it.

One of the more curious quotes that I like is from Camilo Jose Cela’s Journey to the Alcarria

Sometimes one has frightening sensations of well-being, strong enough to move mountains; one must fight them courageously, as one would fight an enemy. And then, with the passage of time, they leave something like a drop of gall in ones heart…

Contentment is one of the more dangerous enemies that prevent our development. When we arrive in a situation of contentment we occasionally do not dare to take a risk that may help us develop. Not really sure about the “drop of gall” part.

Part of the problem is the fear of failure or the fear of losing out. But, to quote another writer, there is another way of looking at this problem:

By embracing the inescapable, I lost my fear of it. I’ll tell you a secret about fear: its an absolutist. With fear, its all or nothing. Either, like any bullying tyrant, it rules your life with a stupid blinding omnipotence, or else you overthrow it, and its power vanishes like a puff of smoke. And another secret: the revolution against fear, the engendering of that tawdry despots fall, has more or less nothing to do with ‘courage’. It is driven by something much more straightforward: the simple need to get on with your life.

This is from Salman Rushdie’s “The Moors Last Sigh” and it hits the exact point that the fear of fear is more serious than the thing we fear itself. Overcoming our fears are as Rushdie puts it not really a matter of being overly courageous but more a need to get on with our lives…