This section of my Substack is dedicated to one topic: guts.
Guts, as in, courage. Grit. Gumption.
What things require guts to do? How do people summon the guts to do them? What are the steps human beings must take to create, build, and deploy guts? And what obstacles are in the way? These are the questions I’m asking.
Let me address my own guts.
I have none.
I am, in essence, a coward. On a typical day, my cowardice is total. However, on my very best days - which are few - I am merely 99% coward. A remnant of me somehow transforms into a person of confidence, decision and action.
This is not self-pity. I am typical. For all of us, cowardice is our default state, probably for excellent reasons. Millenia of genetic selection have rewarded the avoidance of pain, doubt in the face of uncertainty, and the easiest way up a hill. Cowardice is normal. Cowardice is often the most responsible choice. Cowardice is also an essential part of guts. This is not a paradox. Cowardice is what makes having guts meaningful. The only thing that makes the possession of guts remarkable is the deafening hum of cowardice, vibrating everywhere.
This applies to most people, and also applies to the very greatest people (among whom I do not include myself). The bravest soldiers, the greatest artistic performers, and the finest teachers would, I suspect, privately admit that they wrestle with self-doubt on a near-constant basis. The most honest of them admit it loudly, confessing that it required months and years of doubting, cajoling, dragging and training themselves, so that for one strange hour on an occasional afternoon, they could demonstrate guts of a barely comprehensible kind. They run at a machine gun nest. They perform Odette in Swan Lake. They incept a life-altering thought into the mind of a student.
Most of us will do anything to avoid the call of such searing, impossible hours. Some of us can embrace it, perhaps for just a few hours in a lifetime. The happy few can live in a handful of those hours a year. The truly extraordinary can do so on a weekly, even daily basis. Yet even for those exceptional people, most of their hours are not dictated by confident action. So this is the question I will ask in dozens of ways, until I receive the most satisfying answers. What makes a person’s confident hours different from the cowardly ones? What is in their guts? What is in yours? And mine? And why?
Next week: Spaced repetition as a confidence-building tool
The cowards, at least by your criteria, are almost always more interesting and intelligent. Nothing worse than a self-satisfied boor. That said, the 1% guts is essential