Courage Is Calling – Quote #110

Gates of Fire, the epic historical novel of this battle by Steven Pressfield, is today passed from soldier to soldier, person to person, as a kind of tribute to that example. The central question of the book was: What is the opposite of fear? It’s not enough to simply conquer or quench fear. In writing the book, Pressfield wanted to know, as the Spartans did, what lay beyond it. If fear was the vice, what was the virtue? It’s not just courage. Because you can be courageous for selfish reasons. You have to override fear to jump out of an airplane, sure, but if you’re doing it for fun, is it really that meaningful?