The Cure for Fear

The cure for fear is action. Action requires courage. – Aristotle Winter of 1939. Finland is invaded by the Red Army. The Finns are far inferior in numbers and artillery. But they have “sisu” in greater quantities as the story goes. Using their cross-country skiing skills, they manage to surprise and disperse the Russian troops. The Finns describe “ sisu” as the guts, the courage of the lesser. A mixture of audacity and perseverance which leads to never giving up, even when all seems lost. It is an inner strength that transforms one’s supposed inferiority to advantage by thinking out

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Victor Hugo on Courage

  It is necessary, for the sake of the forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of courage.   The legendary French writer and poet Victor Hugo (1802-1885), in his eternal book Les Misérables, portrays the nature of hesitation and indecision likening to a cat’s pause  : Everyone has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not said to a cat : ‘Do come in !’   There are men who, when an incident stands half-open before them, have the

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