Courage VS Bravery

Alright, so I haven't been writing that often, and maybe it's cuz I don't have anything to write about, but in actual fact, it's cuz I have too much to write about and honestly don't know where and how to start..

I think it's appropriate to break the long silence with a post about a conversation I had with KX some time ago. This all started early this year, during the literature mentor ship exhibition. Ms Cheng was at our booth, and we were talking about how the soldiers in the past were so brave to fight in the war and sacrifice their lives, but were not brave enough to admit to the world about their sexual orientation. So then I said something from the top of my mind really, and when Ms Cheng asked me to explain what I mean, I realise that I myself have no clue what I just said...

Basically I said, "Well, the soldiers were brave, but not courageous..." 

Hmmm... Sounds so deep right??? ;p Well I've been thinking of what I meant by this ever since then, at random times really, but KX was the first person I told. She was just sitting there that Friday morning alone, and I just felt the urge to go sit next to her, (not caring whether or not i was intruding actually... sorry about that... ;p) and for a while we were just quiet. We talked about something, I'm not sure what, but then after a moment of tranquility, I just asked her, "What's the difference between courage and bravery?" 

She told me something along the lines of the two of them being somewhat interchangeable, and actually I think so too... To some extent these two are interchangeable, and if you wanna get into the real difference, you probably have to dissect the word and do some long and deep research to figure out.

But then I got home and one night, when "Mr Sleep" does not want to be my friend like usual, I thought of what those two words meant to me.

And I got it.

You see, though bravery and courage mean the same thing essentially, they have different connotations really. You use bravery to describe "oh the soldiers are so brave to put their lives at stake and fight for their country", but you use courage when you say "please dear God, please give me the courage to live". You don't hear people say "please give me the bravery to live", do you?

And so I think, bravery is something more tangible than courage. It's hard to articulate this, and probably you won't understand me, but I think maybe courage is deeper and more noble than bravery... Bravery could mean completing a dangerous action maybe, but courage could exist in the smallest and most minute things, in fact, I think courage is shown more through the most inconspicuous details.

So maybe what I meant when I said that to Ms Cheng was that the soldiers were brave to risk themselves for their country, since they could potentially lose everything by going out to war, but they didn't have the courage, something that is more powerful than bravery, to be true to who they are.