[That Part 2
bit in the title tips that it is a good idea to read in conjunction with Part
1 which immediately precedes this offering. All quotes are from the masterful
pictured volume.]
“How is courage
spent in war? Courage is will-power, whereof no man has an unlimited stock; and
when in war it is used up, he is finished. A man’s courage is his capital and
he is always spending. The call on the bank may be only the daily drain of the
front line or it may be a sudden draft which threatens to close the account.
His will is perhaps almost destroyed by intensive shelling, by heavy bombing,
or by a bloody battle, or it is gradually used up by monotony, by exposure, by
the loss of the support of stauncher spirits on whom he has come to depend, by physical
exhaustion, by a wrong attitude to danger, to casualties, to war, to death
itself.”
An imminently useful observation
for we not in the trenches. Will Power/Courage are exhaustible resources—we do
not possess an infinite supply; just as we need to build and foster muscular power
via rest the same goes for the human resources of Will and Bravery.
Most of us are lucky
enough not to experience sudden true stressors [bombshells, etc.] eating into our
reserves, but…
How often do we succumb
[that is, to submit, that is to be defeated] to the juvenile peevish habit of
bewailing the First World Problems of everyday life, how often do we allow these
to be relabeled as stressors?
How often do we allow
the self-chosen repetitive routines of “Work, drive the same route home, thumb
the phone, watch the telly, etc.” to become our form of trench monotony?
The sameness of WWI
trench warfare life is applied by outside forces, adopting trench living in the
midst of wealth is, well, ….
Lord Moran wisely
advises to us to reduce exposure to stressors so we have an able supply of will
and bravery when it is needed. One easy way to reduce stress, is to stop childishly
labeling everyday life as stressful.
I ask, with all
honesty, how is being in traffic in any way, shape or form comparable to the
every present worry of a shell burst?
Calling both a
stressor is an absurdity and an insult to intellect and brave men and women
everywhere.
“A man of character
in peace is a man of courage in war.”
This point was
belabored in Part 1, but it so valuable an observation and practice that it
need be shouted daily.
We forge our courage
by the daily small acts we engage in. No discipline or will for the small?
Well, what does that spell for the large?
Lord Moran would look
askance. I bet the experienced side in this wager.
“There seemed to be
four degrees of courage and four orders of men measured by that standard. Men
who did not feel fear; men who felt fear but did not show it; men who felt fear
and showed it but did their job; men who felt fear, showed it and shirked. At
Ypres I was beginning to understand that few men spent their trench lives with their
feet firmly planted on one rung of this ladder. They might have days without
showing fear followed by days when their plight was plain to all the company.
At other times they were possessed by the fear that they would be found wanting
and branded as cowards, when in the toil and bloody sweat of trying to conquer themselves
they would end by doing their job without a sign of fear. The story of modern
war is concerned with the striving of men, eroded by fear, to maintain a
precarious footing on the upper rungs of this ladder.”
Bingo and Bravo!
The Courageous are not
men or women without fear; Courage is the everyday Man and Woman who feels that
fear, feels it deeply and yet does what needs to be done in spite of that fear.
To perform well with
no burden, is far less impressive than the burdened performing anything close
to well.
We lift weights to
improve our strength over time.
We engage in small daily
“courage” to improve our character over time.
Just as there is no credible
program of “21 Days to Big-Honkin’ Biceps” there is no “Read
These Quotes and You’ll Be Magically Courageous Without Doing Anything!”
[Brace yourself for
the next one…]
“Men suffered more
in the last war, as it seems to me, not because it was more terrible but
because they were more sensitive. It was not that the horror of battle had been
raised to a pitch no longer tolerable, but that their resistance to fear had
been lowered. Some subtle change in men’s nature which was not the effect of
the war, but of the conditions of life before the war, had taken place, that
left them unprotected, the sport of battles.”
Lord Moran describes a
populace “softened” pre-battle conditions leading to increased suffering under stress
and, perhaps, reductions in instances of personal bravery.
His observations come
from World Wars I and II.
If we consider the men
and women who “wallowed in excess” pre-war in that less luxury rich time as
soft, how much more so might we 21st century pampered gods be softened
by our own pre-large-stress ways.
This is not to lament
in the usual manner of, “These kids today” such blather is less than
useful to the individual.
Toughening the “Society”
hardening the “Culture” is liberty-restricting and in no way a guarantee of toughening
and hardening the individual.
Cultures are not hard,
individuals choose to be hardened via their own action or participation in an adopted
culture of hardening. Period.
Lamenting abstract nouns/categories
is a cognitive “Escape Self-Responsibility” card.
Lord Moran’s
observation is there to inform our own lives, habits and practices.
It asks us to examine
the self and see what “rigors” [occasional and regular] we are willing to
partake of to better prepare the ineffable Will and Self for Courage.
[In Part 3 we will
continue to delve into this imminently useful work and begin to move into
tangible tactics to train for courage.]
[For more Rough& Tumble
history, Indigenous Ability hacks, and for pragmatic applications of old school
tactics historically accurate and viciously verified see our RAW/Black Box
Subscription Service.]
Or our brand-spankin’ new podcast The Rough and Tumble Raconteur
available on all platforms.
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