Valor

Courage comes in different sizes, different forms, different hues, different tales and different faces. The Greeks provide us with wide arrays of academic works and tales of courage. The Greeks gave us Diomedes in the Iliad is characterized as the bold one who bested Ajax and whose paternal uncle is Heracles or Hercules in the roman literature. Hercules is depicted as a great figure of valor and strength. He is a mortal who became a god because of the twelve improbable labors he had successfully accomplished as his penance for murdering his wife, Megara and his children. The term Herculean strength must come from Hercules’ extraordinary courage. His labors are collectively termed as dodekathlos. The Spartans were the strongest in the battle arena. Sparta has the best militia and they surely have the best warriors. The Holy Bible has its fair share of tales of courage. The Holy Bible gave us Samson who trounced the giant Philistine Goliath.
Diomedes, Samson, and Hercules are all paradigms of courage. They are men of valor. These men could be pictured as lean beings with wondrously built and muscle-toned bodies-bodies of a Greek God as an idiom often says.
Be brave. Be strong. Words so effortlessly said when one renders pieces of advice. But what is the true measure of courage? Does being bold as effortless as uttering the words be brave and strong? Does one have to complete twelve improbable labors like Hercules to possess audacity? Does one have to be part of the twelve-year Trojan War like Diomedes to be worth of the title man of valor? Does one have to slay a giant Philistine to be called courageous?
Courage in its truest and clear-cut sense lies beyond what is physical. It is not only about physical display of one’s audacity but also accepting every fiber in your being that shrieks your weaknesses. True courage is not just about winning and succeeding but rising up when one stumbles down and continuing the fight even if one is on the verge of losing. Sometimes courage is simply letting your tears fall to wash all the hurt away. It is never giving up but also knowing how to surrender. Courage cannot be gauged by the number of well-shaped muscles you have, the envious six-pack one has nor the perfect vital statistics of 36-24-36. It lies beyond muscular strength and endurance. Courage lies not just in our physical beings but in our spirits as well. It is seen not in times of peace but in times of war; not in times of laughter but in times of strife; not in times of prosperity but in times of adversity; not in times of bliss but in times of despair. True courage is not exemplified by a bloody carnage as one slays all the opponents and the hero is the only man standing. To quote: “courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall but by those who fought, fell and rose again”. One labor of Hercules states that true strength is only strong as it is gentle. Courage is continuously dreaming despite the disillusionment; it is dreaming again after one’s dreams have been shattered. Winston Churchill taught as that courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. It is not just about winning but losing and taking risks. Courage is loving someone despite the fact that the person you love cannot and will not love you back. It is loving again after having your heart crushed for the nth time.
We deserve to be dubbed bold as those Greeks heroes and Samson. We are the real heroes who incessantly wrestle with the ironies of life. The squatters crammed in the teeny space in Metro Manila who cohabitate with the rodents and roaches are as courageous as Hercules. They need not slay a Nemean lion or an Erymanthian boar. Seeing how they live in misery and how hard they wrestling with poverty while the corrupt boars and lions in the government live like kings and queens are more than enough to warrant their bravery. More valiant are those street children whose fate stripped them of your youth and innocence. At their tender age, they carry the weight of the world on their small shoulders. The anguish in their faces is testimony of how valiantly they face every waking day all by themselves having no one to lean on. They are left to fend for themselves and agonizing inch by agonizing inch they let the world devour them. Being brave is arduous. Paraphrasing what Anne Brontë has said, to be brave one must grasp the thorns in order to crave for the rose.
To be brave means standing up and fighting for the truth whilst accepting the censure of the wicked, the unjust and the dictates of this material world. All of us are men and women of valor. We are all modern day Hercules, Diomedes or Samson. We labor as hard as Hercules labored for his penance in order to survive and live righteously. We fought and still fighting a war- waged for love likes Diomedes. Like Samson, we always battle with unrelenting Goliaths in order to defend what we believe in. And our stories deserve to be recounted and written as those mythological and biblical stories. Courage may be indefinite but the definite fact is: being brave, like happiness is a personal choice. Be bold- play the game and fight or cower-wade forever and remain on the side lines choose!