Philosophy Friday

There's a line it's easy to fall either side of, a line the casual observer nearly never sees. 
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I've been off kilter today, part of me elsewhere, old and future conversations mostly with myself before I can have them with others. It's been the sort of day to stare into the embers and try and make a peace. 
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Messaging with the editor (S) today he wanted to know why I shy away from my seeming accomplishments, don't name-drop the mountains, the climbs, mention the grades, the difficulty. How do you explain that so many of them you're not proud of? So many done for the wrong reasons, done simply for the risk in the hope of a temporary empty, done with no respect for any of the people I owe so much, even less for myself. Much of the next few months will be spent telling those who'd understand the risks I took, the selfish stupidity, that I never wanted to disappear, I was just ready to welcome it hurting if it went wrong, that for a while the emptiness of fear was better than the other noise in my head. For so long I thought I deserved to hurt.
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Things seldom remembered:

In 1985 I was awarded one of Scouting's highest honours; the Chief Scouts Medal for Gallantry (bravery).
I don't often think about it, it's (physically) just another thing that didn't survive my childhood.

We were at camp, Isle of Man, for me just an excuse to escape my increasingly violent homelife.
I think I was a Venture by then, had some responsibility. But still, living in the consequences of abuse, I know I was tiny for my age.
But there was a younger Scout, an Iranian refugee, even smaller than me. Shamefully I don't remember his name. But I remember he was bullied a lot, horrible pranks and I, understandably given my upbringing, hated that. Even at 15 I'd have been a formidable fighter, not someone to get on the wrong side of, and I'd suspect most of the other scouts knew that; I remember trying to look out for him, protect him from harm in a way that no one protected me. 

And then one evening we're all cooking, messing about around a huge 6ft+ across campfire, baked potatoes in foil, everything. And I remember his screams. My young self-appointed charge suddenly in the fire, on fire, awful, people laughing.

That thin thin line. Bravery. Stupidity.

Apparently I ran into the fire, over the fire, I took him from the fire, just picked him up at speed and carried us, threw us, both in to the river that thankfully was right next to camp. The only real memory I have of it is holding him under, trying to make him understand I wasn't a threat, this wasn't more of what he was used to, I wasn't the same as them, I wasn't the same as my stepfather. 
We stayed there the longest time. It probably saved him from so much worse. 
I don't remember being hurt at all, I do remember, in a very 80's way, that he needed skin grafts on his legs and knees where his plastic Farrah trousers melted. Otherwise he escaped relatively unharmed. 
I wasn't brave. I made no conscious decision. Yes I was fast to act, hyper-vigilante we'd say nowadays, but the truth is I simply reacted quicker than any thought process. That's all.
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I've met brave. Real brave. The knowing what's coming, knowing it's awful, knowing you might not, knowing you're scared. And then going anyway because.  Because maybe you have to know. Maybe you'd rather be that person. Maybe it's simply the right thing to do regardless.

Bravery lies in the choices we make when we know the most likely outcomes.

P. S. - it's not lost on me that talking things through with S, time spent in review, is dredging some things up, stirring previously settled waters. Maybe there's a bravery in that.