Flexibility & Fortitude 👊✌️

Persistence and perseverance come up a lot when it comes to writing and creativity, but lately I'm considering the word “fortitude,” which means having courage in the face of adversity. It points to a state of mental and emotional strength that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage--the root of which is coeur, meaning “heart” in French.

Strength of heart. Strength of mind. We need these right now.

Every generation faces some form of social, political, and existential turmoil. And we’re deep in our own present-day version of that. A phase for the history books for sure, but, meanwhile, we’re living the reality of it day-to-day. And that takes fortitude.

The word is rooted in the Latin, fortitudo, from fortis, which gives us the French word for strong (fort), which the English and others borrowed for physical structures like fortresses and forts, also known as strongholds.

But we also need flexibility, which is from the Latin, flexibilis, from flexus, meaning “to cause to go in a different direction, bend, curve.” We need to be willing to adapt, to bend or curve in response to changing conditions. The tree that bends in the wind can do so because of strong roots.

In times of chaos, confusion, or strife, the impulse might be to build a protective wall around us and pull up the drawbridge to keep danger out. But this doesn’t work in the long run.

As turmoil spreads, where can we turn? What can we rely on? Firstly, ourselves—we need to clean up our own acts to be of use to anyone else. Secondly, each other—because we don’t live in a vacuum, and we can’t survive as if we’re islands unto ourselves.

We must build capacities within ourselves so that we can respectfully share rather than spill our fears, anger, and sadness on others. Such capacities can help us help others bear up, and in doing so, they might be there for us when we falter.

This being human isn’t a fixed state. It’s a constant flow of emotions and ever changing situations to react and respond to. Reaction can be knee-jerk, rooted in old, unhelpful patterns, but with some degree of fortitude, and flexibility, we can respond more thoughtfully, calmly, and with an awareness of a “bigger picture.” As events in the world appear to be unraveling, we are naturally triggered. So many people are behaving badly. Many others are suffering, often needlessly, and this is both painful to experience and also to witness. (Research has shown that observing others being bullied or abused creates stress and trauma in the observers, not just the victims.)

How do we respond to this? How do we first stand our own ground, and then, if we have some extra resources, how do we also stand up for others? We can’t run into action from an emotionally triggered reactive place. We’ll only add to the mess. Fortitude means responding to adversity with courage, which means heart is involved too. How can the heart lead us through our challenges?

A writer friend shared a Finnish word, sisu, which is like fortitude, but it adds extra, useful layers denoting strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity. It also implies an ability to sustain one’s courage over time, a lifetime even.

Others have gone before us. Others artists had to contend with social and political turmoil in their times and relied on flexibility and fortitude to navigate their life and career challenges.

Frida Kahlo experienced a lot of physical pain as a young woman, but she painted nonetheless, moving fluidly between folk art and surrealism. James Baldwin faced racial and sexual discrimination and met these challenges with a sense of flexibility in genre choice and writing styles, using essays, novels, and plays to share his ideas. Toni Morrison turned experiences of racism and sexism into important stories about deep issues with heavy themes using a range of narrative styles. Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath suffered from mental health issues, and while they had untimely ends, they were expressive and experimental in the creative work they left behind, and this paved new paths for artists who came after them.

Each of those artists lived through some degree of social and political strife. And now here we are too, facing our own challenges. As we cultivate our own capacities for flexibility and fortitude, let’s ask ourselves: Will we use our creativity to build walls around ourselves or bridges between each other?

“Hardship, in forcing us to exercise greater patience and forbearance in daily life, actually makes us stronger and more robust. From the daily experience of hardship comes a greater capacity to accept difficulties without losing our sense of inner calm. Of course, I do not advocate seeking out hardship as a way of life, but merely wish to suggest that, if you relate to it constructively, it can bring greater inner strength and fortitude.” 

~ Dalai Lama ~

“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~