I looked for picture of the old rocket ship playground at burns park I used to play on but I couldn't find it. I don't know if this is it or not. For explanation see *.
This morning I was thinking about brave vs. fearless. They are synonyms. However their usage and stigma are not the same. The fun things about words is language is fluid, meaning adapts to dialect.
Brave: one with mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty
Fearless: free from fear (see brave)
You can look up both in the dictionary if you want a more complete etymology.
However I feel like the two we mean slightly different things. My speculative differences in the two:
Brave: Knowing the danger/cost and doing it anyway.
Fearless: Disregarding the danger/cost and doing it with a slight disregard.
The difference is slight but I feel like it is important.
Brave is running up out of a trench towards the enemy knowing you will probably die. Fearless is running up out of a trench towards the enemy not caring if you die, maybe you have a war cry while you run.
A brave soldier gets honored, a fearless soldier gets honored and feared.
Brave is going to ask your boss for a raise.
Fearless is going to ask your boss for a bigger raise than recommended.
That is just how I feel the difference in how we use the words in our common vernacular. No fearless isn't "better" than brave. If there is a cost to an action that you can't afford to lose, maybe you should be brave rather than fearless. If all you have to lose is something of negligible value to you then by all means be fearless.
Maybe in my head I'm confusing fearless with reckless.
This begs the question then: What is worth protecting or being careful with? What is worth being fearless with or reckless with? When to be brave, when to be fearless?
*Why a picture of a rocket ship playground? Well I thought I would put a picture of a jungle gym to add levity to the conversation of "playing with words", then I thought I would make it a picture of the rocket ship jungle for the purposes of nostalgia. So the end result is a picture that is otherwise confusing. TAda!
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