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Ambrose Redmoon was the pen name of James Neil Hollingworth, an American beatnik writer and manager of the rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service. He lived a life marked by both creative energy and profound hardship — he was paralyzed in an accident and spent years navigating the world from a wheelchair. The quote is often misattributed to more famous figures, but it originated with Hollingworth, who knew what it meant to face fear not by eliminating it but by deciding what mattered more.

June 6 marks the anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, one of the largest and most consequential military operations in history. It also falls during National Trails Day, celebrating America's network of hiking and walking trails. On June 6, 1944, thousands of young men waded into gunfire on the beaches of Normandy. None of them were without fear. What they had — what got them out of the landing craft and up the beach — was exactly what Redmoon describes: a judgment that something else was more important. The freedom of Europe. The end of a regime. The person next to them. National Trails Day, sharing the date, reminds us that courage is also what gets us outside, onto a difficult path, into weather we didn't plan for. The scale is different. The principle is the same.