On Courage, Nine Noble Virtues - Part one
It's 4am pacific time as I write this from my hotel in San Diego. I'm fighting insomnia for some unknown reason. I should be sleeping like a log as a danced for over 2 hours tonight... and that's what I want to talk about.
When I said I would be blogging about this over Christmas, my intention was to do all sorts of scholorly research and write heady thoughts about the virtues that I wish to live my life by. As we will see... I haven't gotten to disciplne yet :D. But that's not the way I operate. I don't know why I was trying to change the way I process info for a subject that is so near and dear to my heart such as virtue. I'm pretty dumb for a smart guy.
Courage, as is said by so many people far wiser than me, is the brother of terror. One cannot be brave and possess courage if one is not afraid of anything. I've said previously that I am NOT afraid of terrorism. And by correlary, it is not brave of me to say it does not influence my life... rather that is simply logic and reason.
What IS courage is what occured tonight at the Avanade party. I danced. Things that DO scare me are myriad; Some reasonable, such as making a fool of myself in front of people I know, some not reasonable, like my fear of Miller mothes (I can't explain it either). Tonight, there was a live band wailing tunes that are fun to move to. Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolfe, Rock this Town by The Stray Cats, and Mustang Sally by I don't frakking know (lol). When I got to party, there were a ton of people just standing all around a nice empty dancefloor. One, just one, person was attempting to get a friend of theirs to dance... to little affect. I had half a gin and tonic left (my ONE AND ONLY drink of the night, so I was not drunk at all), which I finished at a table next to the floor over a single song. Then something strange happend. I was scared of making a fool of myself as I always am, and knew I had a choice. Dance, or Drink.
Before I knew what was happening, I was right there next to my buddy on the dance floor trying to tease our mutual friend to get up and move to. Now that there were two of us, it didn't take a long time. And then there were three. Then several kids saw us having fun and there are 4 more on the floor, 2 kids and 2 parents, dancing and carrying on. all of us having a grand time.
Then I find myself dancing with this classical beauty of a woman. Think Sofie Marceau (from Braveheart). Long story short, she's a good friends wife and it was just good fun of dancing. (He's still recovering from a horrific accident involving a drunk driver that left his legs shattered... he's looking great and walking fine, but dancing is still a bit much. More on that in a bit). Now she's a FANTASTIC dancer... enough so to make me look decent. I was trying some spins and other things that were just freestyle spazzing on the floor, but it was all smiles and before we knew it... the floor had a lot of people on it. I feel fantastic about that.
*** Reader warning... I'm going to get very frank here on my observations... what's new? Nothing. Just fair warning. ***
As the evening wore on, my dance partner was definately getting worked up physically (she has eyes that positively smoulder *swoon*). Her husband is deployed away from home with Avanade for a while and with the recent Denver snows... they haven't seen each other much. Every break in the music they are standing closer and closer and being quite happy to be around each other. Eventually, they just vanished after a restroom break. I'm sure he was tired as well as his legs still have surgeries to do to fix.
You know what I felt like... Cyrano de Bergerac. One of my favorite literary characters. It wasn't in a melancholie way either. I was not making a move on a friends wife, but I did help energize her a significant amount in a way he couldn't at the moment. She actually said to him on a break once, "Hurry up and heal baby so I can dance with you." He responded positively I can assure you... a lovely lady like that wanting you to dance is fine motivation to heal I'm sure. I feel wonderful.
So because I was able to face my fears, I had a fantastic, wonderful evening which afforded me the opportunity to step into the shoes of a romantic hero. Courage isn't something I can study and write about... it's like so many other virtues in that it must be lived to be understood. Thanks be to the gods for that lovely reminder tonight. Heil to the Aesir.
V
When I said I would be blogging about this over Christmas, my intention was to do all sorts of scholorly research and write heady thoughts about the virtues that I wish to live my life by. As we will see... I haven't gotten to disciplne yet :D. But that's not the way I operate. I don't know why I was trying to change the way I process info for a subject that is so near and dear to my heart such as virtue. I'm pretty dumb for a smart guy.
Courage, as is said by so many people far wiser than me, is the brother of terror. One cannot be brave and possess courage if one is not afraid of anything. I've said previously that I am NOT afraid of terrorism. And by correlary, it is not brave of me to say it does not influence my life... rather that is simply logic and reason.
What IS courage is what occured tonight at the Avanade party. I danced. Things that DO scare me are myriad; Some reasonable, such as making a fool of myself in front of people I know, some not reasonable, like my fear of Miller mothes (I can't explain it either). Tonight, there was a live band wailing tunes that are fun to move to. Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolfe, Rock this Town by The Stray Cats, and Mustang Sally by I don't frakking know (lol). When I got to party, there were a ton of people just standing all around a nice empty dancefloor. One, just one, person was attempting to get a friend of theirs to dance... to little affect. I had half a gin and tonic left (my ONE AND ONLY drink of the night, so I was not drunk at all), which I finished at a table next to the floor over a single song. Then something strange happend. I was scared of making a fool of myself as I always am, and knew I had a choice. Dance, or Drink.
Before I knew what was happening, I was right there next to my buddy on the dance floor trying to tease our mutual friend to get up and move to. Now that there were two of us, it didn't take a long time. And then there were three. Then several kids saw us having fun and there are 4 more on the floor, 2 kids and 2 parents, dancing and carrying on. all of us having a grand time.
Then I find myself dancing with this classical beauty of a woman. Think Sofie Marceau (from Braveheart). Long story short, she's a good friends wife and it was just good fun of dancing. (He's still recovering from a horrific accident involving a drunk driver that left his legs shattered... he's looking great and walking fine, but dancing is still a bit much. More on that in a bit). Now she's a FANTASTIC dancer... enough so to make me look decent. I was trying some spins and other things that were just freestyle spazzing on the floor, but it was all smiles and before we knew it... the floor had a lot of people on it. I feel fantastic about that.
*** Reader warning... I'm going to get very frank here on my observations... what's new? Nothing. Just fair warning. ***
As the evening wore on, my dance partner was definately getting worked up physically (she has eyes that positively smoulder *swoon*). Her husband is deployed away from home with Avanade for a while and with the recent Denver snows... they haven't seen each other much. Every break in the music they are standing closer and closer and being quite happy to be around each other. Eventually, they just vanished after a restroom break. I'm sure he was tired as well as his legs still have surgeries to do to fix.
You know what I felt like... Cyrano de Bergerac. One of my favorite literary characters. It wasn't in a melancholie way either. I was not making a move on a friends wife, but I did help energize her a significant amount in a way he couldn't at the moment. She actually said to him on a break once, "Hurry up and heal baby so I can dance with you." He responded positively I can assure you... a lovely lady like that wanting you to dance is fine motivation to heal I'm sure. I feel wonderful.
So because I was able to face my fears, I had a fantastic, wonderful evening which afforded me the opportunity to step into the shoes of a romantic hero. Courage isn't something I can study and write about... it's like so many other virtues in that it must be lived to be understood. Thanks be to the gods for that lovely reminder tonight. Heil to the Aesir.
V
posted by Voodoo at 4:53 AM
3 Comments:
Nice! Though I'm compelled to point out that the classic rock song you refer to (perhaps one of the most popular ever) is "Mustang Sally". :-)
Look at that, V makes a typo at 4:00 am. Surprise Surprise. Thanks for pointing it out, I've corrected it in the main post :)
شركة مكافحة البق بالخبر
شركة مكافحة البق بالقطيف
شركة مكافحة البق بالدمام
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالقطيف
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