Courage

It ain't that hard to find.

Photo by Dylan Hunter on Unsplash

In the past week, the billionaire owners of both the LA Times and the Washington Post scotched endorsements of Kamala Harris for president by each paper’s respective editorial boards.

Both billionaire gentlemen can say whatever they want about “not telling their readers what to think” or “returning to our roots and not endorsing candidates”, but everyone knows what happened. When each editorial board has a history of endorsing candidates, and each newspaper owner has other “real billionaire” businesses that could be harmed by a candidate who is cool with using the state for political retribution, the math isn’t hard.

You know you live in the darkest timeline when news organizations are quick to reframe cowardice as a shrewd business decision.

Most of those media organizations are owned by other billionaires who want to stay on Trump’s good side as if there is such a thing.

Hurray for cowardice! It is always there to reveal one’s true character when hard decisions need to be made.

If courage is not valued, what is it that we have here?

Courage is knowing the job will be painful and dangerous, but doing it anyway because it needs to be done. Maybe less than a week before the presidential elections in the United States is a bad time to write about courage, or maybe it is the best time.

Just maybe stay away from your television set, or your newsfeed if you are looking for it. You aren’t going to find it there.

The book, Profiles in Courage was written in 1956 by John F. Kennedy with Ted Sorensen as a ghostwriter. The book profiles eight United States senators who defied their party and constituents to do what they felt was the right thing.

I can’t think of eight US senators in the last two decades whose story would deserve to be included in a collection. I might be hard to pressed to find eight in my lifetime. A book titled Profiles in Cowardice would likely have hundreds of stories to tell. Many of these I already know. Many of these you already know. (I looked it up. There already is such a book. It is about what you think it is about).

The story is similar in other nations. Our leaders have not wrapped themselves in glory recently.

I don’t pity them, but I understand the phenomenon. In a world in which forever economic growth is the religion of the nation, our leaders are going to fall over themselves to prove that they are best for growth. That ethic puts profits above people and the planet in almost every situation.

I know not all acts of cowardice have money at their core. But the actions of Patick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos certainly were. Our leaders in Congress and the business community are made of no different stock.

Don’t expect courage from your leaders. There is no money in it.

Our current historical moment does not seem to value courage in the classical sense. Our society is chasing growth, clicks, and money, and as long as the relatively good times roll, that will likely continue. When courage is called for, and someone demurs, they will continue to be spun as shrewd businessmen or businesswomen.

But we will not be in that historical moment much longer. Just yesterday, the areas of Eastern Spain got a year’s worth of rain in one day. At this time there have been 95 reported deaths. This follows hurricanes Helene and Milton in the US just a month ago that killed hundreds and caused over $100 billion in damage. As I write this the largest humanitarian crisis the world has ever seen is playing out in … Sudan. You thought I was going to say somewhere else, but so much death and destruction is happening that Sudan has largely slipped through the news cracks. Gaza, and Ukraine of course make that list too. Yes, there are always wars famine, and disasters, but because of the lack of courage of our leaders for the past 50 years, those crises are lining up at a much more frequent rate.

Not all of these events have been caused by environmental collapse, but most of them have, and more of them will be with each passing year. The people who hide behind their wallets, and only are interested in clicks will lose influence over time. People with courage will be needed, and with any luck, they will become the leaders we need.

Be the courage you want to see.

An interesting thing happened to me years ago that I have never told anyone about. It’s not a very exciting or titillating story, but one that enjoyed at the time, and I’ve thought about it now and again since then.

I was sitting in a café in the St. Pancras train station in London. I was there on business and was taking a train to Brussels to speak at or attend a conference. I don’t remember those details. I had about an hour until my train came and was eating a quick dinner of a sandwich and a Diet Coke (I’m an American. I don’t do tea.) before my early evening train.

A young man, about 10 years my junior walked up to me (I was sitting down), made eye contact with me, and said, “Can I talk to you?”

I said yes, and he did.

I don’t remember his exact words, but he told me that he had done this on occasion, walked up to people he didn’t know, and asked them the same question.

I was intrigued, so I said, “Sure, what is your question?”

He asked. “What is one piece of advice you can give me?”

It was a great question. I wasn’t expecting it, and I wanted to give him a good answer, so I stayed quiet and thought about it for a good while. I thought back through my life and searched for any advice that anyone had given me that I should pass on. There were such words of wisdom, but I thought I should say something that was my own, so I started over. My temporary companion patiently waited. I didn’t feel hurried. I calmly sat and thought and after about a minute it hit me. I turned to him and said, “There really is nothing in life worth being afraid of.”

He smiled, said thank you, and walked away.

I didn’t get his name, and I never saw him again.

I hope he took my advice.

I have a feeling he did.

I hope he is out there changing things, unafraid.

I hope you do so too.

There really is nothing worth being afraid of.

The worst you can do is fail.

But the rest of us are here to catch you.