There is a lot to be appreciative for in this category. Sadly, too many people ignore or take these elements of life for granted. Many people confuse good health with the health that they are born with. Nature gives us a health plan when we are born. Some of us get a better plan than others. Fortunately, happiness and success are not totally dependent on the plan we are born with. There is a large category of mental health which I am not going to talk about. It is important to recognize though that mental health and physical health while no doubt correlate to some degree are not perfectly correlated. There are many instances of people with major disabilities who are quite happy and quite successful. The element of mental health and mental fitness are essential to overall happiness regardless of your physical conditioning.
Physical fitness or PHY ED classes are remembered by most former students as either something they tolerated or something they hated when they are were in high school. The lessons if any that they learned in GYM classes were promptly forgotten when they left high school. Those that excelled in sports and loved the extracurricular sports confuse sports with fitness. I have met many former athletes who played football, soccer, baseball, or basketball and thought that was enough to be fit.
There is a great deal more to being fit than simply exercising or playing sports. If you look at the people around you today, you will see a nation of unfit people. Years ago, the obese person in your high school was a minority. Today, they are a majority. Walk down most any street in America and you will see a nation of fat and overweight people.
When I taught college, I would see entering freshmen coming in many of whom would have met health guidelines for weight. Four years later, these same students had joined the ranks of obese Americans. All too many had no fitness plan. High school never gave them a fitness plan and neither did college.
But I want this blog to be about appreciation and not about how to do a health program. If you need a fitness plan, you can search my blogs and find a great deal of information about starting such a plan. Today, lets look at the fun and value in each of the six major elements of physical health.
I have put together a model based on my experience that includes six elements I think are essential to overall physical fitness. These include: Stamina, Strength, Balance, Flexibility, Nutrition and Weight Control. Each of these elements are interdependent with the other five elements but each are unique in many ways. I think there is great joy and fun in all six of them and I want to share some of my appreciation of each with you. Let’s start with stamina.
Stamina
Instead of talking about Cardio or Cardiovascular activities, I chose to call this group Stamina. Stamina activities build endurance and also build a strong heart and vascular system. People can be overweight and still have good stamina. I was in a bike race and I looked over my competition. It was my first race, and I selected a few guys with muscles on their legs that looked like basketballs. I was sure one of them would take first place. Two hours later, the winner was this skinny kid from the University of Connecticut who looked like he could not punch his way out of a paper bag.
Activities like running, swimming, biking, skiing, roller blading, ice skating, all build stamina. Experts call them aerobic activities as opposed to anaerobic activities. I have met many overweight men who see me running and say, “I wish I could run but I blew my knee out playing football in high school.” I want to say “Bullshit. There are many other stamina activities that put less stress on the knees, and you could use to get in shape.” The truth of the matter is that most of these guys would rather sit on the couch and watch football than get out and exercise. Walking is a great stamina activity, and you can walk with extra knee support and it will improve your conditioning without doing more damage to your knees.
You can and should appreciate the range and variety of stamina activities that have been developed and that are available today. They offer variety and fun and surely beat sitting on your couch remembering the “good old days.”
Flexibility
Can you touch your toes? Can you manage a day without your back aching? Do you get aches and pains whenever you do any physical activity? Over the years, I have noticed when going to the gym or involved in some sports that men gravitate towards weights while women gravitate towards flexibility exercises. Karen and I started doing Yoga about 25 years ago and we do it together about 2 or three times per week. Most of the Yoga instructors are women. We use Yoga tapes that are on DVD or now on Amazon Prime. It is rather sad that many men think flexibility training is something for women and that “real” men lift weights. The two are not mutually exclusive and in fact, the two are essential. They have a Yin and Yang relationship.
I can’t say that I ever liked stretching. After thirty years of doing Yoga, I am still not much more flexible than I was when I was forty. I would rather lift weights and I can see more progress when I do. I have been running for nearly 45 years now. About 25 years ago, I started developing back problems. Back aches, back pain and back spasms would hit me at the oddest times. I did not see the relationship between tight hamstrings and low back pain. I finally made the connection and started doing Yoga.
For the past ten years of so, I have seldom had any back problems. I can’t do many of the Yoga postures like the instructors. I often wonder if my muscles could ever be that flexible. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but both Karen and I will swear that Yoga has helped us over the years to avoid back, hip, knee, and shoulder surgery. If you look at the list of surgeries, these are epidemic today. The medical profession makes more money doing surgery than referring people to Yoga classes.
I appreciate Yoga and I am thankful that there are so many great teachers who will put their classes out on Amazon, YouTube, or other media. Yoga is actually fun if you don’t try to imitate your instructor or compete with your spouse.
Strength
Lift that bag! Tote that bale! Pick up that grandkid! Strength looks like big muscles to many people. Everyone wants a six pack abs, bulging biceps and great triceps. The funny thing is that I have seen many really strong people who don’t fit the stereotype. There are different types of strength training. Years ago I would focus on power training to build large muscles and lift large weights. Now Karen and I use small dumbbells and focus on endurance training by doing higher reps with lower weights. I don’t need to pick up a 100 lb. bag of cement. I will leave that to the people that are twenty or thirty years old. But there are days when I will need to do some yard or garden work and the ability to shovel a ton of dirt, or more is very much appreciated.
Just a few weeks ago, I put a new rock river in our home here. I had a yard or about 1600 lbs. of river rock loaded into my pickup truck. I got home with it and used a large Home Depot red bucket to scoop the rock up and put the river rock down. It took me about two hours of steady work, but I had no aches or pains the next day. I was quite surprised, and I give credit to one of our strength trainers that we use a lot. Her name is Cindy, and we purchased her DVD on Amazon.
Balance
Balance is probably not something that you think about or much appreciate when you are young. You take your balance for granted. As you age, balance becomes more salient in your life. More and more experts are telling elderly people that balance is essential to preventing falls and broken bones. Karen and I added some balance DVDs to our exercise regimen a few years ago. I thought at first that these “silly” exercises would be easy. I run four or five times a week on rugged mountain trails, “What do I need balance exercises for?” Then the instructor said, “If this is too easy, try doing it with your eyes closed.” I closed my eyes and fell into my wife. I still have not been able to do many of these exercises with my eyes closed.
I have noticed that some of our friends have had bad falls resulting in broken bones. The older you get, the longer it takes for anything to heal. I have had three falls so far this year since returning to Arizona and running the mountain trails. I thank both my flexibility training and balance training with preventing any serious injuries when I fell. The most I have received has been some scrapes and minor bruising. As the years go by, we will focus more on balance training. It may look silly, but it is another one of those elements that have improved our lives and that we can be appreciative for.
Weight Control
Do you like McDonald’s fries, fish sandwiches, or biscuit with sausage, egg, and cheese? Do you enjoy Olive Garden’s Lasagna? Do you go to the Golden Corrals’ breakfast buffet or do you prefer the Saturday night fish buffet at your local casino? Do you expect me to tell you that these are all high fat options and that you should eliminate them from your diet? Are you waiting for me to tell you that a garden salad full of greens and tomatoes is a much better option? If so, you will have a long wait. I love all of the aforementioned.
I now weigh 139 lbs. and am 5’ 7” inches tall. You might think that my running and exercise is what keeps me thin. OF course, exercise helps but let me tell you a secret. If I run for 60 minutes, which is an exceptionally long run for me, I will burn up maybe 600 calories. A McDonald’s Sausage, Egg and Cheese McGriddle is equal to 550 calories. A large fries at McDonalds is 490 calories. I can go through a buffet at Ak-Chin’s Casino and on my third trip to the buffet will easily have eaten enough calories for three runs in the mountains. I can get an apple fritter at the Circle K after my run, and it will give me back 450 to 600 of the calories that I have just spent an hour or so losing. I can eat a McDonald’s sandwich in about ten minutes and the apple fritter in less than five. Here is John’s Law: “You cannot exercise off more calories than you can eat.”
Weight control is essential to good health. A host of health problems are associated with obesity and being overweight. We live in a society of food abundance and higher than ever before calories per item in the supermarket. The supermarket should be called “The fat Market” because of the high calories food you will find there. A standard box of Pringles holds 900 calories. If I wash that down with a Modelo beer, I will have just consumed 1100 of my daily allotment of 1800 calories. You want to know another secret? In two hours I will be hungry again. My wife made me a Mexican cheesecake the other day. Ninety grams for a standard size piece of this cheesecake gives me almost 450 calories but “Oh, is it delicious.”
Weight control is not about good nutrition. It is about balancing the calories that you get in with the calories that you put out. You can get 2000 calories of good food or you can get 2000 calories a day of bad food. You can drink yourself to death by consuming a bottle of alcohol a day. You can eat fatty foods that will give you high blood pressure and high cholesterol and increase your chances of a heart attack. Foods that they say are “bad for you” are also foods that we enjoy eating.
I started off by saying that I would not tell you to avoid certain foods. That is still true. What I will tell you is that you will enjoy these foods even more if you eat them in moderation. Rosie Greer the famous football player had to watch his weight. He loved ice cream sundaes. He did not give them up, but he would make a mini-ice cream sundae with a fifth of the calories of a full ice-cream sundae. I often use the “Rosie Greer” strategy in my eating. Instead of eating a large amount of something, I will dish out a smaller plate and put the rest away and out of temptation.
Two items are excellent for weight control. One is a health scale. This is more than just a scale that tells you your weight. Mine tells me such things as muscle percentage, bone density, body fat and BMI. I put these down in a log and every few months or so, I add the updated information to my log. This way I can track how I am doing over time. You can purchase a good scale for about fifty dollars.
The second essential item is a food scale. Karen and I keep one on our counter and use it at dinner to weigh out our portions. It is easy to eat a sixteen-ounce steak. Instead after weighing it out, we might only eat six ounces and save the rest for a second dinner. Looking at how much we are putting on our plate helps us deal with the number of calories we are putting in. We lose it when we go for third helpings at the casino, but our casino trips are much less frequent than our dinners at home. If it were the other way around, I would probably weigh 1000 lbs. Last Sunday we went to the Angry Crab Shack in Phoenix for lunch. We had a two hour wait and missed lunch but had dinner. When I came home, I calculated that my one meal there with two beers, fried oysters and soft-shelled crabs on a po’boy sandwich was over 1700 calories and I took ½ of my sandwich home. Nevertheless, it tasted mighty good.
Nutrition
Nutrition and weight control are another balancing act or Yin Yang relationship. I mentioned above that all things in moderation is a good strategy for eating but good nutrition should also be on your scheme of things. It is important to eat food that provides a balanced diet with the right amount of fats, carbs, protein, vitamins, and minerals. It is much easier to do this with fresh foods. The world is full of “diet” plans and most of them seem designed to sell you some book or program. There is plenty of good information freely available on what constitutes healthy nutrition.
You do not have to be a nutritionist or doctor to form a plan for good nutrition. I have heard it said that being poor leads to lower nutrition and higher fat and sugar intakes. I have also heard it said that a mobile society has no time to prepare healthy foods from scratch. I do not believe that either of these two constraints cannot be overcome. Both Karen and I have worked all of our married lives with two full-time jobs and now two part-time jobs. Both of us are very frugal and look for bargains at the grocery store. We minimize the number of high-priced cuts of meat or fish that we purchase and do the same with vegetables. If I can get Mexican squash for ninety-nine cents a pound, I will purchase that over asparagus that sells for 4.99 a bunch. We will purchase chicken at 1.39 a pound with bone in rather than 3.99 chicken filets. We will seldom buy frozen pre-cooked foods.
Here are some of my simple principles for good nutrition.
- Learn the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.
- Look for healthy foods in the grocery store that are bargains.
- Some grocery stores are more expensive for some things than others, explore your local stores to find the best deals.
- Measure your portions to your desired weight.
- Don’t buy “junk” food except in moderation. Think of it as a special treat.
- Always eat leftovers. Use first in first out to eat leftovers before they spoil.
- Cook meals that will last a few days in the refrigerator. Such meals as
- Crock pot pork roast
- Chicken soup
- Turkey stew
- Chili
- Fried rice
- Freeze any leftovers before they go bad. Use a marker to put title and date on the container.
I love eating. It is one of my greatest appreciations of life. I love eating exotic or interesting foods. I love trying new restaurants. Food is more than just a way to live. Food brings us companionship and adventure. New places to visit and new tastes to acquire. Eating a balanced healthy diet should be thought of as a challenge. Life seldom offers us as many challenges that are as important to living as eating.
“Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale.” — Elsa Schiaparelli
Well, you are probably thinking, “You can’t always pick your relatives, but you can always pick your friends.” This is absolutely true, but how many people do you know that have lifelong friends that they can trust and rely on in an emergency? I could start a long list of friends that I have left behind over the years for one reason or another. I have ex-friends who became rabid Trump supporters whom I said goodbye to. I have ex-friends who said goodbye to me, and I never knew why. I just did not hear from them anymore. I have other ex-friends who I could no longer relate to for one reason or another. Friends seem to me to be like annual flowers. They pop up for a while and then they fade away. I have five good friends left. I would have more, but some died early and one committed suicide.
have put the bad and the ugly out first so that you would not simply hear a chorus of how wonderful friends and relatives are. The truth of the matter is that as in most of life, you often have to take the bad with the good.
Friendships based on utility derive some perceived benefits from each other. Perhaps helping each other with building or fixing things. Friendships based on pleasure derive fun or shared activities together. Friends who canoe or ski or golf together. Friendships based on virtue derive mutual benefit from pursuing shared values and goals. Friends who work together for a common good. According to Aristotle, friendships based on pleasure and utility tend to be shorter than friendships based on virtue or goodness because needs and pleasures often change over time. Our values in life are less transient and more permanent. Friends who share your same values will be friends for life.
I have written about friendship several times in my blogs (See my 
Thus, the question arose in my mind about the difference or relationship between appreciation and gratitude. Perhaps this is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a needle, but I thought the question deserved some reflection. Is the relationship between gratitude and appreciation similar to the relationship between tolerance and respect?
If you do not like to try new things, you should not travel. One of my mottos is “I have never met a food I did not like.” Karen and I eat at street vendors. We often shop locally and pick out foods that we do not even know what they are. When we were on Naxos, we found a meat market. We entered and were greeted with a variety of skinned animals hanging from hooks. There were no labels on these various creatures. We assumed they sold the meat in kilos, so we asked for a ½ kilo of this and ½ kilo of that. We decided that we would take the meats or whatever they were back to our little apartment and cook them. We figured that once we did this, we might be able to guess what we were eating. This was many years ago and I do not think we ever figured out what we were eating. The food was good and twenty-five years later we are alive and kicking. It was a great adventure. One that we have replicated many times.
I was forty years old before I had my first trip out of the USA. I had always wanted to travel and my four years in the military had not provided me the opportunity to travel. Later on, I became so busy with school and work that traveling seemed like a remote luxury. One day I was on a plane coming back from Thompson, Manitoba. (Canada does not count as foreign travel.) I had been working with a mining client that week and was now headed home. Next to me sat a young woman holding a travel guide to Spain. It was May and schools were getting out for the summer. I remarked “Are you going to Spain?” “Yes,” she replied. “Oh”, I said, “you must be very excited.” She answered somewhat petulantly, “No, I went there last summer but my parents wanted me to go again since I am studying Spanish.”
I did not say anymore to the young woman, but I thought “My, would I love to go to Spain or anyplace for that matter.” Then and there in that moment, I made up my mind. Karen and I were going to travel. We were going to see the world. When I arrived home, I shared my decision and determination with Karen. She was delighted but wondered how we would manage it. We have since been to 33 countries for a total of about 25 or more trips. We like to go to one country and see various sections of it rather than trying to see the whole of Europe or Asia in one trip. Usually we go for three weeks or so. We are very budget oriented and try to behave like pilgrims rather than like tourists. Our trips are usually a balancing act between being a pilgrim and being a tourist.
“What do you need help with?” asked Mr. Bullfrog.
Mr. Bullfrog thought about this for a while. In some respects it made good sense, but he still could not see that the rewards outweighed the risks. He had read Dr. Persico’s book on strategy several years ago and applied many of the ideas to his own life. One of the key concepts concerned risk mitigation. One should always access the gain of an action against the inherent risks associated with the action. Mr. Bullfrog concluded that the risks still outweighed the gain. “What is in it for me,” asked Mr. Bullfrog?
About halfway across the pond, Mr. Bullfrog suddenly dived beneath the surface of the water. The scorpion was flung into the water. Mr. Bullfrog paddled a few yards underwater and then came up. When he came to the top, he heard the scorpion pleading “Why have you done this? We had a deal.” 
Several of my stories have been influenced by Aesop’s stories. When growing up, I loved reading stories of foxes, rabbits, scorpions, and other animals that Aesop used in his writing. His parables and morals still guide my life in a myriad of ways. I watched a few of August Wilson’s plays that were performed at Penumbra Theater in St. Paul, MN. It was my introduction to the world of African American literature which was sorely missing in our education system. For a good escape into the world of murder, drama and spies, MacLean and Christie cannot be beat. On countless rainy and often sunny days as well, I have curled up and said, “To hell with the world. I am dropping out for a few hours into a world of fantasy.”
Camus, Eldredge Cleaver, and Cervantes could not be more different. Camus the existentialist. Cleaver the revolutionary. Cervantes the dreamer. What puzzle pieces they inspired in me. Hard to find out how they fit together but in the grand scheme of things, I would not leave any of them out. Cleaver wrote, “Soul on Ice.” One of the most inspiring prison writings ever written.
Anatole France and Ian Fleming. I discovered Fleming’s books on James Bond, after I saw the hit movie “From Russia with Love.” I subsequently read every one of Fleming’s books and have seen every movie in the Bond franchise. I loved the character so much I continued to read “Bond” books even when they were written by other approved writers. I was attracted to the character who was everything I wanted to be. Handsome, rugged, dashing, brave, a man’s man and a woman’s man as well. I will never forget the line from one of Fleming’s books, “Boredom is the worst curse of all.” Eventually, I outgrew James Bond but there will always be a part of me that wonders what it would be like to live in his world.
J. K. Galbraith, Goethe, and John Gardner. Perhaps my favorite story as well as my favorite opera are based on a man selling his soul to the devil in return for some privilege. Goethe wrote the story and called it Faust after a learned man who wanted more than knowledge. Gounod did the opera based on Goethe’s story. Many other stories have been based on the idea of a bargain between Satan and humans. One other that I have always liked was “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” It told the story of a New Hampshire farmer who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for success. When the devil came to collect his due, the farmer called on Daniel Webster to defend him. This story ended happily as opposed to Goethe’s story which has a tragic ending.
Ivan Illich and Washington Irving. When I was in my undergraduate program in education which I started in 1971, I decided to read as much of the counter-education literature that I could find. My most memorable readings were “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by P. Freire, “How Children Fail” by John Holt and “Deschooling Society” by Illich. I have read many more books on education since the 70’s but it seems to me that nothing new has been added to the schooling critique leveled by these educators. Schools are still failing students and society. Educators are like fish. They live up to the Chinese saying that “The fish are the last ones to see the water.” I have written numerous critiques of the education system in America as have many other educators, but nothing changes. The solutions to the problems that ail our education system are rooted in a theory of education that was appropriate 100 years ago but is now obsolete.
Carl Jung was one of the many theorists I studied at the University of Wisconsin for my M.S. degree in Counseling. Carl Jung was one of the acolytes of Freud along with Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Reich, Otto Rank, and his daughter Anna Freud. Each follower eventually broke with Freud and founded their own school of psychology. Jung started the most esoteric and enigmatic of these schools. His philosophy or methods are called Jungian Analysis and appeal to many people due to his emphasis on the interpretation of dreams, archetypes, and symbolic behaviors. Jung gave me an appreciation for the elements in life that we might simply write off as useless or meaningless. To undergo a dream interpretation can be a very life changing experience. I discovered that there is no single path to self-awareness and psychological health. Different schools of therapy appeal to different people and each may be effective.
John F. Kennedy, Ezra Klein, and Daniel Kahneman. What do a President, Journalist and Nobel Prize winner in Economics have in Common? I learned from Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” about what integrity really means. Kennedy may not have written much of this book but the lives of the people he shares puts an exclamation point on the values that JFK had for this country.
R. D. Laing and Fritz Leiber. Do you know Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser? If not, you are missing two of the most interesting and funny characters in the genre called Sword and Sorcery. Fritz Leiber coined the phrase “Sword and Sorcery” and helped birth an entire new form of literature. When we think of fantasy, most often we think of Lewis Carroll’s, “Alice in Wonderland.” This classic story is imbued with fantasy and magic, but no one actually does any magic in the story. Magic is limited to Alice’s dreaming. Many fairy tales have more actual magic than Alice in Wonderland. Tolkien’s “Hobbit and Ring Trilogy” come to mind.
Mishima was an author, poet, actor, and modern-day samurai who wanted to reinstate the Bonsai spirit in Japanese Culture. After WWII, Americans occupied Japan and did everything they could to drive out the Samurai attitudes and policies that dominated Japan the previous fifty years or so. Mishima created a group of followers who thought that they could overthrow the elected Japanese government and restore the old ruling order. He greatly overestimated support for his ideas and after a failed rebellion he committed Seppuku or Hari Kari as it is also known. I read a few of his novels and came to appreciate his writing and even his politics to some extent. In his “The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea” he states that “living is merely the chaos of existence.” He has also noted that “I still have no way to survive but to keep writing one line, one more line, one more line….” A sentiment that I think anyone serious about literature would surely appreciate.
The color of its trunk was somewhere between blue and green as its hues ebbed and flowed. One minute it looked blue and the next minute it looked green. The most striking feature of all was in the middle of its trunk about five feet above the floor. It had a large round eye about 9 inches in diameter. There was no mistaking it as an eye since it included a large red pupil, a green cornea, and a yellow sclera. The pupil was about two inches wide and the cornea was about four inches wide. The eye seemed to follow every movement in the room and when you looked at it, the alien seemed to be able to look right through you as though it was reading your mind.
“You have taken my space craft to one of your many military bases. Some of you wish to stop me from leaving. That is impossible. I have no desire to harm any of you. I have already repaired my vessel and it is back in orbit. I will go to my ship. Perhaps you will see me again in the future if you survive. I doubt it. Goodbye.”
When I grew up, the only art in our house was an Elvis on velvet painting that my mother had hanging over the living room sofa. We also had a wooden ship with metal sails and a clock that did not work built into the side of the ship. It was featured prominently on the mantle over our fake fireplace. Our furniture would have done the Salvation Army proud. I do not remember any other art besides Elvis displayed on our walls, floors, or ceilings. Neither my father or mother had any interest in art. My mother liked Elvis and that is why she got the painting. 
When I think back upon my schooling, I do not recall ever having had a single class in art appreciation. We would occasionally go on field trips but usually to a library or a science museum. No one in my schools acknowledged the world of art. For blue collar kids like myself, the world of art had little relevance or practical use. Everyone knew that artists died poor. The great Van Gogh sold only one picture in his lifetime and that to a relative. The purchase of art was for the rich, spoiled, eccentric scions of old aristocratic families with more money than they knew what to do with. 
When Karen and I first moved down to Arizona, we took a day to go and visit Scottsdale. Scottsdale is a wealthy upper-class community. Scottsdale is generally considered the most affluent large city in Arizona. The average income of a Scottsdale resident is $51,564 a year. The US average is $28,555 a year. According to Zillow.com, the typical price of a home in Scottsdale is $582,292. We walked around the downtown portion of Scottsdale and expected to see the usual mix of clothing stores, jewelry shops, antique shops, and restaurants. We were not surprised except when it came to the antique shops. 
Art reflects the beauty that life holds. Paintings portray ideals and impressions that intrigue and magnify the senses. Sculptures mirror the objects in our world that mystify us or that remind us of magnificent events. Pictures bring us to other places and times that would be forgotten without the images the photographer captures. Art does not attempt to simply mirror reality; it attempts to augment and enhance reality. Art can be a caricature which like a Rorschach text enables us to see many different visions. Art is a realization of values, norms, pain, happiness, the past, the present and the future. Art can simultaneously create fantasy and reality.
You may be rightly thinking, “But what good does art do me if I cannot afford to even walk into an art shop?” I often asked myself this same question. Why look at stuff that I could not afford? It took me years before I even ventured into an art museum. I have since visited the Louvre while in Paris and many other museums in the USA and in Europe. My attitude is now one of gratefulness that someone has purchased these magnificent works of art to share with the public. The vast majority of us could never begin to afford the pricelessness of these museum pieces. I strongly encourage you to visit an art museum sometime. 
When it comes to art that I would like to own, it is simply a matter of what I can afford. The art world is full of overpriced works of art. Many would rebel at my labeling art this way. My critics would say that it was high priced and not “over” priced. That may well be. I have talked to a number of artists and the vast majority do not get paid for the value of their efforts and creativity. However, just like in athletics, a few stand out and are disproportionally rewarded for their efforts. 
This type of courage is the most obvious and perhaps least subtle. The mountain climber, the motorcycle racer, the football player, the sky diver all display what to some of us would seem to be a reckless disregard for life. Each of these individuals risk life and limb for either fame, fortune, fun or to achieve some goal. Often money is the least of their motivations for risking their lives. These people do things that leave most of us awestruck but also inspired. We watch their events on TV, in the movies and at live shows. We never fail to be impressed by the exploits and daring do that such individuals undertake. Risk is the hallmark of their efforts and we note that many of them pay for their risky behaviors. Death is an ever present companion for these people. Somehow though, they rise above the fears that chain the rest of us to the TV and they are out there doing what many of us only do in our dreams.
What do you do when someone tells you that your ideas are stupid and that you will never amount to anything? If you are like most of us, you give up and go on to something else. The person with intellectual courage though is different from the rest of us. They don’t give up on their ideas. They plod forward in the face of distain, insults and criticism. Many times they are dead and buried before the value of their ideas are recognized. Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur and Copernicus were all ridiculed and ostracized for many years before their ideas were accepted. Socrates was executed for his ideas. Indeed, here is what Socrates said at his trial:
I have a good friend of mine who will not go to funerals. They make him feel very sad and he tries to avoid such feelings. No one of us likes to feel sad. It takes a kind of courage to go to a funeral. What do you say at a funeral to the friends and relatives of the departed one? How do you act? What if you did not know the person very well? There are many ways to feel embarrassed or like a fish out of water at a funeral. Easier to stay home then go. But it takes a certain kind of courage to deal with emotional risk. Any courage is difficult because of the risk. Emotional risk entails looking stupid, feeling stupid or having to deal with difficult feelings. A person with emotional courage confronts these situations with a degree of bravery and élan that escapes many of us.
One of the greatest fears that many people have is called “stage fright” or fear of public speaking. Many professional speakers and actors/actresses feel significant stage fright. Actress Carol Burnett was so nervous that she threw up before many of her performances. Most of us would never think of getting up on a stage. I know that people call it stage fright, but it is not really about the stage, it is really about us. Who wants to look stupid and particularly in front of hundreds or people? It takes emotional courage to deal with life. All of us have it, but we often choose not to exercise it. We simply spend our lives trying to avoid situations that might make us look dumb or embarrass ourselves. The people with emotional courage deal with these situations and take the risk that the rest of us hide from.
The world is full of examples of moral courage. However, to my way of thinking, the amount of moral cowardice far outweighs the shining examples of moral courage. The number of Martin Luther Kings, Gandhis, Mandelas, Parks, Kellers and Kyis are dwarfed by the number of moral cowards who turn the quote I noted above around. These are the people who when in the majority would tyrannize the minorities. They are the moral cowards who use their positions to foster hatred and bigotry and intolerance towards the disadvantaged and weak. They prey on the sick and 
hungry and would deny benefits or help to anyone who is not a member of their tribe or affiliation. They go through life pretending to be good people and deluding themselves that they are.
Nevertheless, in the face of all this iniquity, the majority of humankind has a spiritual courage that defies logic. The majority of people want to do good for the world. The majority of people are good and most people try to leave the world a better place then they found it. This is truly an amazing observation. More people are spiritual heroes than not. Every day those who have the courage and strength to get out of bed and to start a new day show a sense of spiritual courage. It would be easier to hide and to do nothing then to face the daily rigors of life on our planet. Yet, that is what the majority of people do each day. They get out of bed. They go to work. They volunteer. They innovate and create. They campaign for their ideals. They build. They love. They pay taxes. They die. And the cycle starts all over again for the next generation.
Aging Capriciously 