I have been asking myself: What is courage?

I saw a TED talk video of a lady who was asking a similar question and I realised as she spoke that "courage" etymologically has been used only in context of epic acts of heroism, saving lives, rescuing distressed women, so on and so forth. Courage is never spoken about when we are talking about our everyday actions. Courage in little things. 

Standing up to a bully takes courage.

I have been asking myself this question that demanded to understand the nature of courage, because I feel I will need a lot more of it because I have decided to stand up to a bully myself. This bully looks like me, talks like me, and is a far superior creative being, focussing all his energies into one thing: to hold me back. I have listened to him for far too long. But I have now outgrown my beliefs of self and I wish to be more.

So, what is courage? What does it feel like? What inspires it? I have tried listening to music that makes your adrenaline increase exponentially, I have tried watching anime that can be inspiring (that one scene in Haikyuu when Hinata does a perfect receive in the match against Inarizaki gives me chills every time), but I am worried that I have no idea what courage looks like. Another reason why talking about courage in an epic setting is helpful to no one. 

I had had a strange thought in the evening, a few hours back, that perhaps there is a connection between courage and patience. At least for me. I don't think I'm a patient person. When I was younger I thought I was a patient boy. I had perhaps hoped to grow up to be a patient man. But I realised I'm not. 

But what if, courage, for me, looks a lot like patience? That somehow, holding back my emotional responses, waiting for the pieces to fall where they may, so on and so forth, is courage for me? Is that all there is to patience?

And now I ask myself: what is patience?

 There has never been a more useless, more pointless pursuit than to find the purpose or meaning of life.

I curse the one that asked this question in the first place. That everyone asked after them. Most of us have or inevitably will ask the question of ourselves. In fact, we all might. It is the ego of the adults. Because we spend so long looking up at these people who may be bigger than us, stronger than us when we were children, that when we inevitably become those big people we feel the need to be bigger in all aspects. In our mind we grow so big that we become the center of our own universes. That we must need a defined purpose or we are the anamoly in an otherwise perfect universe. That we are the mistake in a cosmos that did not make mistakes. Or if we do "find our purpose" we go about doing it with a smug glow about us, because we "have done what others couldn't", so of course we are gonna look down on those poor souls. With benevolence of course. Fuck it all.

It is by far the worst fate to ask yourself the purpose of your existence. 

"Why are you here?"

Because two stupid people had unprotected sex and made it your problem to deal with consequences.

"What is the meaning of Life?"

The meaning of Life is to churn our idiots who buy into the illusion of profundity by asking vague pointless questions like this in an endless loop.

"What is my Purpose?"

To die.

Everything dies. Fuck the rest. Fuck purpose, fuck meaning of Life.