One of the most resounding lessons I’ve learned in life outside of an ancient philosopher was from a simulation, a third person action-adventure game called God of War (2018), set in a world loosely inspired by Norse mythology.
It happened during one of the campaigns when Atreus, Kratos’ son, observed a Stone Ancient (a menacing giant figure that attacks with beams of ice), was moving about, unaware of their party’s presence. The pair were sneaking their way into the dark tunnels in the abandoned mine while avoiding its detection.
Meanwhile, Atreus kept inquiring with his father about the intimidating figure — feigning curiosity for apprehension. The father-and-son duo were warriors and had battled countless monsters as they journeyed for the highest peak of the Nine Realms.
The enormous creature, although terrifying, would have been beatable if encounter was inevitable.
After quite some time of stealthily moving about the tunnels and Atreus’ incessant remarks about the Stone Ancient, Kratos declared in the most remarkable way which left an imprint within me: “We will fight it, because you are afraid of it.”
Those words were profound. It did not only mean that I had to move on with my journey in-game filled with adrenaline as I faced a frightening monster, but it also created a shift with my own understanding of fear.
Like the Stone Ancient, fear is what I’d like to run away from. It is the desire to sneak my way through life to avoid the things that are unpredictable, the circumstances that make the future uncertain, the paths that lead to the most of the unknown. Making decisions that radically changes my way of being is terrifying.
So it is fear that justifies inaction, and it is the same fear that creates the illusion as if failure means death. And ultimately, it is death that I feared the most.
This is where I draw in parallel what Seneca speaks about courage: “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.” (Ep. 104.26)
More often than not, the task at hand is easier to carry out when the doing has been done. Break it down to the smallest actionable step that can be made, and to the minimum viable product that can be created — anyone who has set out to accomplish such feat shall say in hindsight: the anxiety before the doing carried more burden than the act of doing by itself.
Things appear more difficult because we were afraid.
It is almost always the first step that is the hardest, the waiting that is the longest, the speculating the scariest. As Seneca has written: “There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” (Ep. 13.4)
We tend to agonize over change that has not happened yet because looking into a future that is unknown scares us: we do not know what is right ahead, how to get there, and what danger lurks in the shadows. Our worries make us think of the worst things that can happen, therefore often rendering ourselves helpless: unable, unmoved, and undecided — incapable of instigating change.
In the four cardinal Stoic virtues, wisdom tells us what needs to change, prudence tells us when to change, justice tells us why change, but it is courage that tells us how to change.
Courage emboldens us to push forward despite fear.
Courage isn’t innate, it is drawn upon — that’s why we muster courage when we face our anxieties. Courage is imminent when it is the only choice there is. You see, we’re often not aware of what we’re capable of not until we’ve overcome our trials — and it is likely in those times when we’ve found courage when first there was none.
It is courage that inspires us to endure, despite pain or failure. It is courage that equips us with confidence, despite our own insecurities or insufficiency. It is courage that provokes us to remain steadfast in character, despite external pressure. It is courage that encourages us to be cheerful and grateful, despite misfortune. It is courage that urges us to be conscientious, despite arduousness.
Courage leads us to the change that needs to happen undeterred by any other external circumstances. We are made strong not because we go through life the easy way, but we are made strong because we chose to persevere.
In the same way that Kratos and Atreus have come out of the shadows to face the monstrosity that is the Stone Ancient, courage makes us run towards the very thing that we fear the most; because what may lie ahead and behind those fears are the very changes that need to happen which make life worth living.
This post was originally published at Modern Stoicism as an article contribution for their Online Symposium on Stoicism and Courage, posted on September 17, 2022.