Bravery & Courage

'Bravery's' companion, 'courage', is now finished. These little projects may look silly but I enjoy playing with the various media and allowing them to come together. As I worked on ‘courage’, I just knew in my heart, even though these two words are interchangeable at times, that courage is a condition of the heart, mind, and spirit. However, today, I began to doubt myself and have gone back and forth; is there really a difference; yes, no, maybe, yes. What’s one to do but turn to the dictionary; so grabbing my very favorite and very old Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, I looked them up.

Bravery – the quality or state of being brave.
Brave – to face or endure with courage.

Well, there you have it; no difference. Then I looked up courage.

Courage – mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger fear or difficulty…implies firmness of mind and will in the face of danger or extreme difficulty…also suggest a quality of temperament enabling one to hold one’s own…stresses firm determination to achieve one’s ends…

Okay, there you go, kind of a difference. Then I happened to glance at the root of the word courage which I found to be cuer meaning heart and the Latin cor meaning more at heart.

I thought of yesterday’s entry about my son, Garth. It took courage, a state of mind and spirit, to choose to sign up for and endure wrestling training. His courage evolved to bravery as he faced some of the tough competition at the wrestling matches.

Yes, I believe life requires both bravery and courage; however, I’m all for keeping it so simple, so I won’t get too caught up in interchanging them if I so desire.

Did this bring me closer to knowing who I am on this, my 49^th year? I don’t know yet. I think what I need is a trip down the rabbit’s hole and a meeting with a hookah smoking caterpillar to ask me, “whoooo are youuuu?”

Humm, but how far down the rabbit’s hole do I dare go?

So what do you think? A difference between the two words? Do you think life requires either one of them? I just noticed something funny. Yesterday, I wrote on facebook about how I was enjoying wearing my hair in pigtails, the up high kind. Look at what I did with 'courage', she has pigtails, the down low kind. Yep kinda funny.