Fortitude is one of those words I knew was important when I first learned it, but that took time to understand, to practice, to be made a quality. The word is defined as “courage in pain or adversity.” This is one of the most beautiful definitions of a word not beautiful. I believe adversity can breed brilliance beyond what those with safe and comfortable lives are capable of.
Tommy Orange, in “Escape Velocity,” an essay in Esquire (October 2019) on the life of 17-year old Jeffrey Martinez, a young man of the Sicangu and Oglala Lakota living in Oakland, California.