Watched the new Star Trek yesterday, and it finally dawned on me that courage is not suppressing fear, but embracing it. There was a book some years back titled “Feel the fear, but do it anyway.”. I would append that with “and don’t forget the fear.”
To become truly brave, I think you have to have the self awareness to know when you are scared, and to do what needs to be done anyway. But I think you also need to keep that fear present. You should never reject any part of your experience. And what I think true warriors do is use that fear for greater effectiveness. They would in fact be weaker, less able, if they did not more or less consciously accept the fear flowing through them, and channel it into an adrenaline rush.
Put another way, certain types of people are attracted to certain kinds of fear. Why do roller coasters exist? Why are there always rock climbers in Joshua Tree and Yosemite? Why go 70 mph (or whatever it is) down a ski slope?
Could I posit that “fear is excitement we resist”? That might be close to the truth.