It’s my second month in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is bustling, Even in the suburbs, New territories, it’s busy, people everywhere, rushing.
I’m preparing to leave the house. I do a last check in the mirror, to calm myself. And I go through in my head making sure I knew what to say, the phrases I will need to use. My intonation. I turned off the bathroom lights, gather my wallet and reusable bag, and leave the house.
I put my AirPods in hoping that music will psyche me up and give me the confidence that I need. I just started taking lessons a while ago and it was going pretty well, I feet confident. I assure myself as I walk briskly across the street to the market. I chose this timing to leave the house on purpose, hoping that there will be less of a crowd, but as I turned the corner towards the market, I was wrong. Hong Kong is busy at anytime of the day anywhere. I am thinking to myself, It’s ok, I can do it, If I could perform on stage in front of hundreds of people, I can do this.
So I walk in to the market, made one round, as if I need to think about what I wanted and as I saw one of the stalls freed up, I make a beeline for it. My heart rate is increasing and I start to feel my face flushing.
I ask for some tomatoes and a head of cabbage. All in cantonese. All was going well. But then it was time to pay. I’ve practised it many times in my head and in my lessons. And so she says___. I’m confused. I’ve not heard that in my lessons or my self study. So I pretend to understand and hand her a 20$ note. She looks at the note and me and repeats ___. I followed suit to look at my wallet and back at her. Unable to articulate my confusion, I looked at her wide eyed. So she shouts in a booming voice, as if increasing the volume will magically unlock new languages in my head, which I guess it does, because I immediately thrust another $5 note at her and apparently that was the amount that she needs. At this point, people are staring at us so I grab my vegetables, try to play it cool and walk as fast as I can out of there.
While walking home, in my embarrassment, a little upset, but also underneath all that, I feel a small amount of relief that I was able to gather the courage to put myself out there to try speak another language. It is also humbling that I now also need courage to complete daily tasks in my day.
I had been struggling with this particular thing called courage. Having lived between two countries in two years, I find myself having to gather the strength and courage to do simple daily things. Now that I am living in Hong Kong and when was living in France previously, I do not speak the local language in both these countries. In my efforts to learn and try to pick up some words and phrases, I have been trying to use it during my interactions with people I meet in my daily routines. Although it might burden them to listen through my broken sentences, I believe that it is important to learn the language as a foreigner also to show respect.
But it is so intimidating and frustrating, to be unable to articulate myself, to not understand what people are saying. And to constantly, on a daily basis, struggle.
Also on a deeper note, After years of dancing, I am also struggling with finding the courage and confidence to start something new. The paralysing fear of uncertainty made me unable to move forward, to make decisions. Having let go of my history, is as if the ground beneath has become just a thin layer of ice, crumbling if I took a step forward. I have no inkling of what I wanted or how to move forward. I was completely disorientated with the vastness of freedom I had. Having lived with the rigidity that comes with dancing, this overwhelming freedom that I now have feels foreign and it terrifies me. Ironically, conflicting with that freedom, I felt shackled to my dancing. Unable to escape the linearity of my life, I was bothered by the fact that I only had one skill(dancing), and I began to resent that. I saw that as an obstacle, a hurdle that I can’t get over. The world felt so far ahead and I am back at the beginning. To start anything meant having to start from scratch, to run a losing race.
The loneliness and solitude of this journey also inspired fear. The fact that I was alone on this journey. I have no longer have a community that I was bounded to. The realisation that I was fully responsible for myself hit me, a new sense of solitude. Throughout life, there is always an affiliation with a community larger than myself. First under the construct of a family, then it was the education system and then the company I worked for. There was a larger shelter above me. Now that I am truly on my own, there are no more external expectations, disappointments and there is also the loss of connection towards a collective.
And as the stoics says, there is dead time and alive time, I could succumb to this new freedom and live my life not reaching for anything, just existing. It will be my choice, and that is my deepest fear.
The reluctance and strain of change, leads me to ponder the fear of death. As humans, there is such a primal fear of death, the biggest mystery in life. And it can be applied to a changing phase of life, a changing world.
We fear the death of a chapter, the knowledge of the possible end of what we know. And thus leading towards the fear of change. Holding on to history is what grounds us, so that we do not need to extend beyond our capabilities of imagination. We fear the strain and the suffering that comes with change. Maybe the reluctance of change is also what manifests the repetition of history.
The more we have, the more afraid we are to lose that.
“It was hard to climb to the top of this mountain you’re on, and now you are faced with the idea of losing it” – Courage is Calling
I have come to recognise the seduction of relinquishment of control. To be rid of this confusion, and struggle, I realised the human desire for boundaries and rules and the laziness of the soul to avoid responsibility on things of importance. Preferring to have authority or a higher power to steer our lives, to take over the burden. Still we are the ones suffering the repercussions.
Fear however is essential. It protects us, it’s an instinct. Like a lot of emotions, it gives us information about ourselves, the insecurities, obstacles deep inside us. And it is our choice whether to face these fears.
In Courage is Calling, by Ryan Holiday, fear is as much a main character as courage.
“A scare is a temporary rush of a feeling. That can be forgiven. Fear is a state of being, and to allow it to rule is a disgrace.”
Much of courage today is undervalued, misunderstood. Society tends to see courage as a traditional masculine display, with outwardly validation. However, what is required the most and is also the strongest form of courage is always in the smallest things. Having the strength and courage to reject a loved one, the strength to let go, to grow up, the strength to stand up for your values and go against the grain. And this form of courage is undervalued, by an outside eye, it often happens intrinsically and go by without recognition, often going to the big outwardly displays of bravery. And as written by Maria Popova in her article The Promethean Power if Burnout, – “The courage to change our mind and our lives – the most rewarding kind of courage.”
As seen from the lenses of the stoics, the way to overcome fear is through agency. Using fear as information and awareness. Taking small steps to break down the problem.
“The only way through is to attack that fear. Logically. Clearly and empathetically.”
“We were afraid because we did not know. We were vulnerable because we didn’t know. But now we do. And with awareness, we can proceed.”
And having belief, which is slowly lost in society, disappearing behind cynicism and nihilism. Disenchantment and apathy, has slowly been more prominent mindset in today’s world. However more crucial now than ever is the courage to stand up for one’s values and beliefs, however difficult it may be.
And following suit, to not demand for anything more than just knowing deep down, the belief of what you have done is right.
“You lose the moment. You lose the momentum. You lose your ability to look yourself in the mirror.”
“The best time to have tackled a problem was a long time ago; the second best time is now”
And lastly, Courage can be seen as a more humanistic raw instinct as we evolve through life, like how David Whyte poetically describes in Consolations, – “Courage is a measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another with a community, a work; a future.” And “To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made”.
In Transit 
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