Pieter Lastman: Odysseus and Nausicaa (1619)
"A country that cannot distinguish between Courage and Coruge can only corrupt its purpose."

The Plague Year now passed if not nearly over provided many opportunities for mere mortals to demonstrate extraordinary courage, by which I mean, of course, the perfectly ordinary kind. One doctor, when recounting her first encounters with the COVID-19 virus, explained the dilemma she faced. If she didn't touch the suffocating patient, he would surely die, and he might die anyway. If she did touch him, she might die. She touched him. She and her staff completed their wills and set to work. That's courage. I describe her act so that I might clearly distinguish it from another side-effect of this plague still ravaging us: Coruge. While courage seems fundamentally generous, Coruge seems merely self-important. It takes no courage to refuse to wear the most effective defense against this plague, a mask, it only requires a stubborn self-importance, as if that, in any larger scheme of anything, qualified as in any way important at all. I would call Coruge foolhardiness, but it hardly seems quite hardy enough to qualify. It's merely foolish, a form of arrogance acting out, the insistence of exception to a well-established rule. It's an extension of the more primitive notions of freedom running around these days, the ones that its adherents insist amount to God-given rights to assert whatever they believe to be a right as received wisdom, superior to every other.

I hold no great insight into the nature of Coruge, other than to say that from the distance I maintain, it seems rather pointless and stupid. Yes, I understand how one might feel a desperate need to maintain a lifestyle regardless of intruding factors. Self esteem, too, seems awfully important, but only ever relatively so. I know, or believe that I know, that some situations demand that I forego satisfying my usual desires, and understand that I usually become all depressed when forced to engage as such, and it always first seems like too much is being asked of me, like I just cannot in good conscious contribute. My innate sense of self-importance insists upon winning, at least until I can focus upon some bigger picture, one, perhaps, where I'm not even included within the frame. Then, I gratefully catch myself engaging in the age old game. Then, I might not seem to matter all that much. I get humbled for a moment, and with that humility comes an enlivening sense of myself. No longer important, I'm liberated to do my part as if I might not have ever been the purpose of my presence here. I can then allow myself to slip back into the chorus and just belong, no longer alienated or put upon.

Coruge seems a form of cowardice, one committed to denial rather than acceptance. Denial discounts significance for the purpose of deflecting understanding. It refuses to respond to inquiries which might, if considered, reveal a larger context. It will not listen. It cannot hear. It jeeringly asserts instead, producing equivalences of 'I know you are but what am I?' responses to even serious questions. It insists that it already understands what's important. It chases windmills in lieu of dragons and perceives itself heroically defending some tradition indistinguishable from perdition. It prolongs suffering rather than alleviating it. It takes unwarranted risks, those offering no discernible payoff. It's the loser's strategy, smugly insisting upon its own righteousness, for its own sake. Those committed to Coruge corrupt whatever they touch. They become True Believers, as Eric Hoffa long ago reflected, to perhaps escape their own deep self-revulsion. They tend to imprint upon false gods and leaders who enthusiastically lead them only into ever deepening temptation. They will defend their self-importance even unto death, an ultimately impossible contradiction with which to live.

Would it kill them to wear a mask? Not wearing masks have already killed plenty, but, yes, it might well kill them and their self-importance to wear masks. Same story with social distancing. We're still surrounded with the most astonishing mass deflection in modern history. We learned a century ago how to neuter a virus. It was hard-won learning but didn't seem to last. We created a strategy for dealing with an invasion then threw out the plans before the first contact with the enemy. Many of our leaders took clearly Corugous stands, encouraging those with little understanding and mocking those with wisdom. They led their dedicated followers, those who'd apparently traded in their personal frustrations to imprint upon someone better at promising, into a lion's den for the apparent purpose of feeding the lions therein. Some weighted economics above preserving the lives of actual citizens under the transparent guise of behaving rationally. No need to do anything different, they insisted. Difference overwhelmed them anyway, though their heartfelt denials continue. Crimes of the century unacknowledged, never likely to be punished. A country that cannot distinguish between Courage and Coruge can only corrupt its purpose.

How does this essay fit into my HeadingHomeward theme? It might represent a distracted meandering. No one ever achieves any objective by employing the Straight-line Method. The shortest distance between two points seems pointless, since we're pretty much certain to veer off that course in the course of actually arriving anywhere. We remain engaged in the steadfast creation of an ever-more perfect union, though we're accomplishing that end via the historically more popular Meandering Method. We chase bright shiny distractions. We find good reasons to display misguided Coruge to amplify some popular self-importance, losing our deeper and more enduring purpose. We golf our way toward salvation. We mistake mammon for righteousness. We conflate almost anything with success, such are the wages of insistent self-importance. Benjamin Franklin announced that we'd have a republic if we could keep it. It seems almost beyond our capacity to even hold the notion of a republic some days. We're presently screwed, and it provides little encouragement to acknowledge that we've screwed ourselves. Again. Our own HeadingHomeward seems meandering, already offering daily dedication tests, little ordeals which could convince us we're chasing wild geese. Then our purpose washes back over us, even in the darker days, reminding us to remain courageous and not to long wallow in any passing invitation to settle for Coruge instead. Our HeadingHomeward isn't just about us. None of any of this is.

©2021 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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