Courage ahead!

Breaking out of the "mainstream" takes strength-but only dead fish swim with the current.

It takes a lot of courage for us to navigate through the current stormy times. Courage is not about not being afraid. Courageous is leaving one's comfort zone, even though this may cause disadvantages. Such people are needed today. It needs courageous women and men who swim against the mainstream and show the world that a different life is possible.

by Kerstin Chavent

[This article posted on 9/28/2023 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/mut-voraus.]

Courage - according to the dictionary, the ability to overcome one's fear in a dangerous, risky situation, fearlessness in the face of a situation in which one might be afraid - is a rare commodity, as is the willingness to do what one believes is right even in the face of expected disadvantages. But while on the one hand there is a majority of those who have allowed fear to take hold of them in recent years and have primarily preserved their own privileges under the pretext of solidarity, the courageous among us have also gained a higher profile.

You don't necessarily see it on their faces. Often it is the inconspicuous ones who have the courage to act as they see fit, despite many disadvantages, regardless of what those they care about think of them. Courageous are those who dare to leave their own comfort zone and swim against the current.

Only dead fish swim with the current. It is a sign of liveliness not to drift in the mainstream and to drink from different sources. Alive are not those who do what they are told, those who do what most do. Alive are those who risk burning their fingers and being excluded from the community in which they live.

Borderline

Having courage does not mean not being afraid. How afraid must have been those who defied the prevailing current in the history of mankind! How many have paid for their courage with ostracism, with loss, with torture, with their lives. How did the people in the resistance movements feel in the face of daily danger? What made them not stay seated in their comfort zone? What strength pulsated in them to stand up even for the people who mocked and disregarded them?

Again and again there have been such people. There were people who did not move on with the group to nurse an injured person, people who stood up for the protection of others without expecting any personal gain from it, people who went to their deaths for others. They are people who have overcome their ego and trusted in the connection of the living, people who have achieved perhaps the highest that humans can achieve.

Role models

Someone like Jesus could have shut up. He could have saved his own skin. He could have remained a carpenter and died a natural death. The cup could have passed him by. But he drank it, knowing what was in store for him. He knew that those for whom he gave his life would spit on him and mock him. Yet he went up to the cross and left a memory for mankind that is still alive today.

It is immaterial whether Jesus actually existed in this way. The cult of personality hides the real thing. What is decisive is that his story exists. There is the archetype of the human being who commits himself with his whole being to unconditional love.

Two thousand years of church history have not changed this, despite distortions, despite the Inquisition, despite mass murders, despite the immeasurable suffering done to people in the name of the Most High.

A door has been opened that remains open to this day. The example is intact and shines into the present time. It reminds us that being human is more than being as comfortable as possible. It is more than fulfilling any duties or accumulating supposed securities. More than shambling from weekend to weekend, from vacation to vacation, more than trying to muddle through somehow before fading into nothingness again, and enjoying yourself to the maximum.

Development takes courage

It takes courage to see things differently. It takes courage to see a meaning in one's own life, according to which we are more than poor sinners, replaceable cogs in the wheel, superfluous eaters, dangerous exhalers. It takes courage to counter the prevailing defeatism with trust in a humanity that is not doomed to be artificially replaced.

It takes courage to keep examining and questioning ourselves: Is this okay? Can I represent this? It takes courage not to become numb in the masses, in the megacities that have displaced the manageable structures of life, in the overcrowded means of transportation and shopping malls, on the assembly lines, behind the screens that captivate billions of people.

It takes courage to neither underestimate nor overestimate ourselves and to recognize: We cannot stop this machine. The train has left the station. A posthuman world is the final destination, a world in which the living is replaced by the dead. This vision cannot be fought. We can only replace it with another. For this, we must get off the train while we still can.

I make the world for myself

Only the individual can muster the courage it takes to do this. Only the individual, the indivisible, has access to the power that enables him to position himself clearly. Yes or no? Do I support this vision or create another? Do I play into the hands of the determinists who talk about the end of humanity, or do I take the leap into the unknown, into an artistic chaos in which I make the world as I like it?

There was a time when every child knew that this would work. We can make the world the way we want it. We can make sure that what we want manifests. It doesn't happen by sending wish lists to the universe, but by making use of what people have always tried to talk us out of: our creative power.

This power is what makes us as human beings. We have received it as a gift. Unlike other living beings on this planet, we have the possibility to let our thoughts and wishes become reality. But whoever stands up for this realization is not applauded. A strong headwind blows against him. Because he puts his finger where it hurts: on the responsibility of each individual.

Even otherwise level-headed people can become grasping when it comes to their enemy images. A peaceful world is simply not possible. Hasn't that been proven time and again in our history? Is man not fundamentally flawed, selfish, bad? Of course, those who consider lasting peace to be impossible do not include themselves in their negative image of man. They want the best. Only the others do not.

The dignity of man

It is these people who prevent the community from developing for the good. They do not like to realize that their negative attitude helps to shape the world. They are content to make themselves comfortable in their bubble and do not perceive themselves as parts of a greater whole that are mutually dependent. Without being aware of the destructive forces they are feeding, they are mainly nurturing their own powerlessness.

Here it takes as much courage as humility not to judge, to let everyone go their own way and not to lose trust in the process. Let us not leave the helm to fear, to anger, to impatience.

Every person has the right to behave as he or she sees fit. The dignity of the human being is inviolable - even when we think we see that harm is coming from the behavior of another.

This is how we preserve our own dignity. Whatever is going on out there, however others behave: No one can stop us from being the change we want to see in the world ourselves. No one can stop us from believing in the good in people and from resisting without violence, no one can stop us from supporting initiatives in this sense (1).

They exist, the courageous role models who work for openness and understanding even under the worst conditions and in the greatest danger (2). There are people who never tire of reminding people of the ways of peace throughout their lives (3). Whether known or unknown: The brave ones are there, the people whose hearts are so big that there is room for everyone in them, so big that the human family can grow together again.



Sources and Notes:

(1) https://www.masselverlag.de/Ueber-uns/

(2) https://www.manova.news/artikel/leben-in-der-stadt-des-todes

(3) https://www.manova.news/artikel/die-wahre-zeitenwende

Kerstin Chavent lives in the South of France. She writes articles, essays and autobiographical stories. Her works published in German so far include The Revelation, In Good Company, Lay Down Your Arms, The Light Flows Where It's Dark, Illness Heals, and What Wants to Grow Must Drop Shells. Her focus is on dealing with crisis situations and illness and raising awareness of the creative potential in people. Her blog, Conscious: Being in Transition.