Is fortitude taught, or is it remembered?

Every child has known a moment of unreasonable courage — a moment before the world trained them to be small. Is fortitude a thing we build, or a thing we return to?

If it is built, then the work is construction: stone by stone, year by year, one hard choice at a time. If it is remembered, then the work is excavation: the removal of the layers of fear the world packed on top of something that was already there.

Perhaps it is both. Perhaps the building and the remembering are the same motion, seen from two sides. I leave the question open because it is the kind of question that closes badly when forced.