I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath again after many years. I find myself ever so drawn to one story in particular which is the one about Jay.
Listen to this.
"We are all of us not merely liable to fear, we are also prone to be afraid of being afraid, and the conquering of fear produces exhilaration…The contrast between the previous apprehension and the present relief and feeling of security promotes a self-confidence that is the very father and mother of courage"
"Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all."
I keep circling back to this idea that courage isn't innate. That it's not some fixed trait you either inherit or don't. And I think what unsettles me is how much of my own internal narrative has been built around avoiding fear, like as if the goal is to become the kind of person who doesn't feel it at all. But the quote suggests something almost opposite: that fear is not only inevitable, it's actually necessary. It serves as a prerequisite condition.
And then there's the notion of being afraid of being afraid. That feels uncomfortably precise because it forces me to wonder how much of what we call hesitation or self-doubt is really just fear of anticipation. We're not fearful of the thing itself, but the anticipated exposure of our own vulnerability in encountering it. Almost like we're trying to preemptively protect our identity as "competent" or "composed" rather than just moving through the experience. There's a term for it in psychology but I can't remember it for the life of me. I wish my brain was good enough to remember every book I've read. It would greatly simplify my life.