Someone liked my use of the term “current self” a couple of weeks ago. I meant that sometimes our inner lives have such sea changes (another favorite phrase) that our feelings and actions would hardly be recognizable by the 2002 or 2010 versions of ourselves. I like “current” in the sense of “up-to-date,” but “current” is not static. It is running, shifting. It is a current event, an ocean current, related to “courier” and “courant,” always moving and chasing and striving. Au courant= trendy. Hartford Courant= a newspaper with a beautiful name in a city I know nothing about.
My gut feeling is that “courage” and “courant” are not etymologically related, that the former is related to the cord- and card- words having to do with the heart, but I’m not sure.