Lights Along the Road · Hiroshi Kanda
Chapter 42: Courage as the Price of Peace
The Words: Amelia Earhart, 1920s
In the late 1920s, before her first famous flight, Amelia Earhart wrote a short poem called "Courage". It begins with a line that many people have kept close to their hearts: "Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace." In my own words, the poem goes on to say that the person who does not know courage is never set free from small worries. Such a person never knows the lonely feeling of fear, and never reaches the mountain heights where a bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.
The poem does not say that brave people feel no fear. It says the opposite. Courage means meeting fear and going on. And the reward is not glory, but peace. In Earhart's view, a life without courage is not a peaceful life at all. It is a life held down by many small anxieties that never go away.
The Life Behind the Words
Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in the Americas. As a young woman, she tried many kinds of work, and she also worked as a nurse's aide during the First World War. In 1920, she took a short ride in an aeroplane, and she knew at once that she wanted to fly. She took lessons, saved money and bought her first plane. In the years when she wrote "Courage", she was not yet famous. In 1927 she was working as a social worker, helping families in a community centre, and flying whenever she could.
The next year, in 1928, she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an aeroplane, as a passenger. In 1932, she flew across the Atlantic alone, the first woman to do so. She wrote and spoke widely, encouraging women and girls to follow their own interests and helping to start a club for women pilots. She disappeared on a flight in 1937. Her poem about courage was written before all her great flights, by a young woman who already knew what it cost to follow her dream.
What the Words Ask of Us
The words ask us to see courage in a new way. We often think of courage as something for heroes, for rare moments of danger. Earhart's poem suggests that courage belongs to ordinary life. It takes courage to speak honestly, to try something new, to ask for help, to say no, or to begin again after a failure. Each time we avoid such things, a small worry stays with us. Each time we face them, we gain a little more peace.
Think of Aiko, a woman of sixty-two who never learned to swim. For years she has stayed at the edge of the water while her family played in the waves, telling herself that it was too late. One spring, she signs up for lessons. The first day, she shakes with fear as she lowers herself into the pool. By the end of the summer, she can swim a whole length. The fear did not vanish all at once. But something in her is now at peace, and she smiles every time she sees the water.
Similar Words From Around the World
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a poet who wrote in German, spent much of his life on a long poetic drama called Faust. Near the end of its second part, published in 1832, a choir of angels sings words that mean, in my own paraphrase: whoever keeps striving, we can save. This echo adds an important note to Earhart's poem. Courage is not only one brave leap. It is the steady effort of going on, again and again, even when we fall short. Such striving, Goethe suggests, is itself a kind of rescue.
Confucius, a teacher in East Asia about two thousand five hundred years ago, said, in my own words: only when the year turns cold do we see that the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves. In warm weather, all trees look green and strong. Only in winter do we see which ones stay firm. This echo shows a quieter side of courage. It is often hidden in easy times and appears in hard ones, not as a dramatic act but as the strength to stay green.
Living It Today
These words can help anyone who feels held back by fear. A young person may be afraid to share an idea in class. A worker may fear asking for a change. A person recovering from illness may fear starting again. An older person may fear learning something new. Earhart's poem says that each of these fears has a price, and that paying it, little by little, buys a peace that cannot be found any other way.
Here is something to try this week. Think of one small thing you have been avoiding because it makes you nervous: a phone call, a question, a new activity, a hard conversation. Choose a day and do it, even if your hands shake a little. Afterwards, notice how you feel. Courage is not the absence of fear, and every brave step, however small, brings us closer to peace.
Chapter 43: Caring for the Body and the Mind
The Words: Virginia Woolf, 1929
In 1929, Virginia Woolf published A Room of One's Own, a book that grew out of two talks she had given the year before to women students at two colleges. In the first chapter, she describes a rich lunch at an old and wealthy college for men, with many courses and fine wine, and then a plain dinner at a young and poor college for women: thin soup, beef with greens and potatoes, and prunes with custard. After the plain dinner, she writes a line that has been quoted ever since: "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."
The line is light, even playful, but it carries a serious point. Good food, rest and comfort are not small matters. They are part of what makes thinking, loving and creating possible. The whole book makes a related argument: that a person who wants to write needs some money of her own and a room of her own, a little space and freedom in which the mind can work.
The Life Behind the Words
Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 in Europe and wrote in English. She grew up in a house full of books, was taught mostly at home, and read widely in her father's library. She became a novelist, an essayist and a critic. Her novels, such as Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, follow the thoughts and feelings of their characters from moment to moment, in a way that was new in her time.
With her husband, Leonard Woolf, she started a small printing press at home, and together they printed and published books, including some of her own. She thought deeply about how ordinary life, money and freedom shape what people are able to do. She died in 1941. Her words about dining well come from a writer who knew how much the conditions of daily life matter to the life of the mind.
What the Words Ask of Us
The words ask us to take care of ourselves as whole people. Many of us treat the body as if it were only a vehicle for carrying the mind around. We skip meals when we are busy, sleep too little, and forget to rest. Then we wonder why we feel tired, cross or unable to think clearly. Virginia Woolf reminds us that the mind and the body are closely joined. A good meal, eaten in peace, is not a waste of time. It is one of the foundations of a good life.
Think of Jun, a young man in his first job. He wants to do well, so he works late, eats a sandwich at his desk and sleeps only a few hours each night. After some months, he feels slow and unhappy, and his work is not as good as before. One weekend he cooks a real meal for himself and a friend, sits at the table for an hour, and sleeps well that night. On Monday he is surprised by how clear his mind feels. He begins to keep one proper meal each day, and his work and his mood both improve.
Similar Words From Around the World
In 1691, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun and scholar in the Americas who wrote in Spanish, defended her love of learning in a long letter. In it she says, in my own paraphrase, that she discovered many truths while cooking, for example by watching how an egg holds together when fried in butter or oil but falls apart in sugar syrup, and that if Aristotle had cooked, he would have written much more. Her words fit beautifully with Woolf's. The kitchen and the mind are not separate worlds. Food feeds our thinking, and even cooking can be a way of thinking.
About sixteen hundred years ago, the poet Tao Yuanming, who wrote in Chinese, described his simple life in a poem from a series called "Drinking Wine". In my own words: I built my hut among other people, yet I hear no noise of carts and horses. When the heart is far away, the place itself becomes quiet. Picking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, I calmly see the hills to the south. This echo adds another side to Woolf's room of one's own. A space of our own may be a real room, but it can also be a quiet place inside the heart.
Living It Today
These words can help anyone who has been running on too little. A student studying for examinations, a parent who eats standing up while feeding the children, a worker who never takes a break and an older person living alone who no longer cooks for one may all need this gentle reminder. Caring for the body is not selfish. It is part of being able to care for others, to think clearly and to enjoy life.
Here is something to try this week. Choose one meal each day and give it your full attention. Sit down, put your phone away, and eat slowly, perhaps with someone you like, perhaps alone by a window. Then find a small space of your own, even a corner or a quiet half hour, where you can read, think or simply rest. When we dine well and rest well, we can think, love and sleep well too.