Is it more courageous to show vulnerability than to show strength?
“I learned that courage wasn’t the absence of fear, but the triumph over it” –Nelson Mandela. Courage is what it demands to abolish fear, so to claim that courageous individuals evince their weakness directly impugns courage’s essence. Heroes, successful people, and epitomes are all adorned with courage: that remarkable characteristic that fears none and compels oneself to commit the right. Undeniably, courage is the antithesis of weakness: the latter is negative while the former is positive. Although many people call for courage by showing their vulnerability, I dream and espouse the courage resides in our ability to face life unfearfully and caution evil by our strength not by our vulnerability.
To show strength is to hesitate one’s opponent: a fact that implies that the opponent is almost beated. Supportingly, Ernest Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea depicted in colors of valor and persistence how Santiago, an old, skilled fisherman, was ‘’vulnerable” to win the battle with the fish. Since he hooked the fish, the old man remained two days and nights holding the fish line; he was so ostensibly indomitable though the fish’s strength and his age repudiated the conviction. Nevertheless, he finally killed the marlin, but sharks dispelled its flesh. Since courage was blended with the old man’s character, he fought the sharks, but due to laws of nature, it was impossible for the old Santiago to kill around six sharks and save the fish. To the shore were Santiago and his fish’s mammoth skeleton that magnetized incredible gazes from the village. What was more admirable than the fish was the old man’s capacity to persist and never feel weak, despite his age, to win the battle. Therefore, he is undeniably unsung for his courage that didn’t just reveal but also didn’t succumb for weakness.
However, due courage’s demanded strength and hiding fears, many great authors warned in their works from taking them for granted. Once the enemy is revealed about our fear, the enemy welcomes our fear as a piece of fruit, for it promises him our annihilation. For instance, the Shakespearean play Othello attributed the courageous warrior’s debacle to his obvious fears. Since Iago wished Othello’s devastation, he inspected for his fears that he found his love to Desdemona, though not revealed but obvious, the key to his request. Through same intricate scenario, Iago indirectly convinced Othello that Desdemona betrayed him, causing Othello to murder her. Revealed about the Iago’s cruel play Othello committed suicide. Iago profitly consumed vulnerability , so does every enemy: a fact that demands hiding fear, weakness, and hesitation and revealing an impervious courage and strength. Othello was a great, courageous warrior, but he missed one constituent to satisfy courage’s needs: hiding vulnerability. Due to their counterintuitive effect, fears should only between shared one and his\herself.
Throughout history, many people were great paragons who fathomed the salient ingredients of courage: veracity, strength, and revelation of ostensible invulnerability. For example, Rosa Parks, a peaceful black activist, demonstrated that she was successful due to her inexpression of her fears. Once the white driver asked her out of her seat, she “felt courage cover [her] like a quilt on a winter night.” By saying so, she implied that she hid her fears to face the circumstance and refuse committing to the command. Nevertheless, her fears were partially true; she was sent to prison, but she was set free, for there was not patent reason for her prison. Accordingly, drivers were no more courageous to command blacks off their seats. If fears were to control parks, she’d probably tremble, or would simply give off her seat: a condition that (thank God!) didn’t happen. In addition, Parks’s specimen evinces that our fears should be patent nor our demeanors be diaphanous to our vulnerability even if what occupied our anxiety was played in reality.
Summing up, courage is what distinguishes the successful individual from the futile one. To entrench it, we must obey its commands: primarily, not to reveal, but typically have, fears and, secondly, to remain faithful and persistent. However, fear is an attribute of evil, for it fears lawfulness, but from what should rightful, courageous individuals or groups fear?
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