Gratitude 104

I am grateful for chutzpah, which I am told, I tend to have a lot of.  At times, anyway.  I don't really give it a lot of thought.  I don't even think of it as chutzpah, nor its English equivalent, brazenness.  First, a station break for a little definition:

Chutzpah:

Chutzpah (/ˈhʊtspə/ or /ˈxʊtspə/)^[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English through Ameridish has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The word is sometimes interpreted—particularly in business parlance—as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardor that an individual has.

(Don't you just love those little links, Gentle Reader?  From Wiki, of course.)

Brazen:

brazen (comparative more brazen, superlative most brazen)

1. (archaic) Pertaining to, made of, or resembling brass (in color or strength).  [quotations ▼]
   • 1786, Francis Grose, Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the English Army, from the Conquest to the Present Time, London: Printed for S. Hooper No. 212 High Holborn, OCLC 745209064; republished as Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the English Army, from the Conquest to the Present Time, volume II, new [2nd] edition with material additions and improvements, London: Printed for T[homas] Egerton, Whitehall; & G. Kearsley, Fleet Street, 1801, OCLC 435979550, page 262:

     Brazen or rather copper ſwords ſeem to have been next introduced; theſe in proceſs of time, workmen learned to harden by the addition of ſome other metal or mineral, which rendered them almoſt equal in temper to iron.

   • 1836, [Harvey Newcomb], The Brazen Serpent: Being a Simple Illustration of Faith Drawn from Scripture History. Written for the American Sunday-School Union, and Revised by the Committee of Publication, Philadelphia, Pa.: American Sunday-School Union, No. 146 Chestnut Street, OCLC 135368271, pages 40–41:

     And Moses made a brass image of the fiery serpents, and put it up on a pole, where all the people could see it; and when any one was bitten, he could look upon the brazen serpent, and was cured.

   • 1859 May 2, X. X. X. [pseudonym], “Looking at Lodgings”, in The Ragged School Union Magazine, volume IX, London: Ragged School Union, 1, Exeter Hall; Partridge & Co., 34, Paternoster Row; and all booksellers, OCLC 614851442, page 91:

     The women, stout, strong, brazen-faced creatures, in most cases looked able to thrash any of the partners with whom they consorted.

   • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Plant Men”, in The Gods of Mars (Project Gutenberg; EBook #29405)^[1], New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, published September 1918, Project Gutenberg version dated 17 May 2012, OCLC 3364543, archived from the original on 5 March 2016:

     The vegetation was similar to that which covers the lawns of the red Martians of the great waterways, but the trees and birds were unlike anything that I had ever seen upon Mars, and then through the further trees I could see that most un-Martian of all sights—an open sea, its blue waters shimmering beneath the brazen sun.

2. Sounding harsh and loud, like brass cymbals or brass instruments.  [quotations ▼]
   • 1697, Virgil; John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. Translated into English Verse; by Mr. Dryden. Adorn'd with a Hundred Sculptures, London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, at the Judges-Head in Fleetstreet, near the Inner-Temple-Gate, OCLC 839376905; republished as The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. Translated into English Verse by Mr. Dryden. In Three Volumes, volume III, 5th edition, London: Printed by Jacob Tonson in the Strand, 1721, OCLC 181805247, book IX, page 822, lines 667–670:

     And now the Trumpets terribly from far, / With rattling Clangor, rouze the ſleepy War. / The Souldiers Shouts ſucceed the Brazen Sounds, / And Heav'n, from Pole to Pole, the Noiſe rebounds.

   • 2001, R[alph] N[ixon] Currey, “The Horn”, in Collected Poems, Oxford: James Currey; Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, ISBN 978-0-85255-573-6, page 246:

     Often a traveller, when the air is quiet, / Will make the night reverberate with this riot / Of brazen sounds, whose singing cadence swells / The harmony of bleating and lambs' bells.

3. (archaic) Extremely strong; impenetrable; resolute.  [quotations ▼]
   • 1870, The Sunday at Home: A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading, volume XVII, London: Religious Tract Society, OCLC 1587811, page 587:

     The giant [Goliath] was thus conquered by the youth [David]; the man-at-arms by the unarmed; the stone of the shepherd pierced the brazen defences of the warrior.

   • 2015, Bertolt Brecht, “Frank Wedekind”, in Marc Silberman, Steve Giles, and Tom Kuhn, editors, Brecht on Theatre, 3rd rev. and updated edition, London; New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4725-5861-9, page 19:

     In the autumn, when a small group of us heard him [Frank Wedekind] read from Heracles, his last work, I was amazed at his brazen energy. For two and a half hours without stopping, without once lowering his voice (and what a strong, brazen voice it was), barely pausing for breath for even a moment between acts, bent motionless over the table, he read – half from memory – those verses wrought in brass, looking deep into the eyes of each of his listeners in turn.

4. Shamelessly shocking and offensive; audacious; impudent; barefaced; immodest, unblushing. [from 1570s.]  [quotations ▼]

   She was brazen enough to deny stealing the handbag even though she was caught on closed-circuit television doing so.

(Thanks again, Wiki!)

Both words, and their Spanish equivalent, could accurately describe me, in the best and in the worst possible ways.  I have always been on the bold side, not blushing about telling others what's on my mind, what I think of them and their attitudes, behaviours and personalities, not shying from expressing like and dislike.  I have channelled my chutzpah and brazenness into social and political activism, telling politicians, to their faces if I have to, what their mean-spirited, selfish and short-sighted policies are doing to impact the vulnerable.  I have openly rebuked public smokers for endangering public health and sidewalk cyclists for endangering pedestrians.  I have openly shamed fit (or dubiously fit) young bus riders into giving up their seats for the elderly and disabled.

I suppose I've mellowed a bit.  I like to think of it as picking my battles.  Especially if I'm on my way to work, I don't have time or energy for getting sworn at by idiots who desperately need to be re-parented.  It isn't that I'm afraid of this.  I'm just sick and tired of it, and besides, my clients need me in more or less good, sound and healthy form if I'm to deliver good care and support to them.

I still openly defy crappy motorists.  This is a skill I have had to hone on the mean streets of Mexico City and Bogota, Colombia, where negotiating traffic is a blood sport.  I have had to wade through slowly, and sometimes not-so-slowly moving cars, often responding to the drivers' verbal abuse in Spanish in equally eloquent Spanish profanity.  "Pendejo!"  "Callete, puta ramera!

(No, Gentle Reader, I am not going to translate for you!)

It isn't that difficult really, dealing with drivers in Vancouver, as they still have a sense of human decency and courtesy towards other sentient beings.  However, sometimes I have to be a little bit bold if I want to get across that street.  One day I was approaching West King Edward Drive from Angus Drive where two cyclists were so pathetically waiting for some kind driver to stop for them.  I waded right in, looked right in the eye of the first motorist, waved for them to stop, which they did.  The other cars did the same.  I waved to the two cyclists, who happily road across the street.  I felt like Moses, parting the waters of the Red Sea.  They both thanked me and I said that I learned my traffic skills on the streets of Mexico City.

I used to think that my chutzpah, brazenness and osado came out of courage and bravery.  I now have my doubts about this.  It probably really means that I'm scared shitless, that I already know the consequences if I just let things go without confronting them.  My courage, if that's what you want to call it, was forged in the wildfires of fear.