Courage
Listening to an interview with the firemen from Station 11 who worked to rescue people when the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, I was struck by their courage. One man talked about walking through the wreckage, aware that a concrete pillar could fall at any second, killing him. Another talked about being paralyzed by fear for a moment–his legs would not miove although he wanted them to. It struck me, as I continue to struggle with my little book: if a fireman can work his way across concrete rubble, keeping one eye on the pillar towering abvove him, sensing that the rubble would shift, that a tremor could send several tons of concrete spilling onto him, crushing him to death–if a man can do that and keep going forward, to save the life of another human being–I can keep going with my book. Failure in a single day of bad writing is not final, not fatal. To have fear of the blank page (screen) is absurd and embarrassing. .. and even idiotic in the context of real bravery.
