Sisu · The Finnish word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone.

Two hundred days of darkness a year. Forty below in winter. Russia next door. The Finns had to invent a word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone, and they named it sisu. Sisu is not grit. Not resilience. Not courage. It is, specifically, the reserve you did not know you had, the second wind that arrives after the first wind ends. This page is its working bench, plus the wid