So courage would be facing the fear whilst knowing the consequences.

Doing something scary whilst being ignorant of the consequences is not courage, its just ignorance.

So real courage ("fearless" in your questioning) would be being aware of consequences, but moving forward anyway.

Reckless would be being unaware of the consequences and doing what you were gonna do anyway.

Being fearless is stupid and being reckless is worse. Be brave instead.

Do your due diligence to analyze the risks (likelihood and severity of bad outcomes), and then do a risk/reward calculation. If the reward is worth the risk, taking the risk is not fearless (you know things can go awry because you did the risk analysis). Neither is it reckless (because you went into it with your eyes open after "doing the math" and applying mitigation measures).

What's left is bravery: a healthy fear of disaster is useful and keeps us alive, so we're not fear-LESS when we take risks, but bravery keeps us from being paralyzed by it.

hmm,

Ok let me give it a shot.

Fearless: Approaching a pretty girl, normal color hair, nicely dressed, no tats, smiled at you earlier

Reckless: Approaching a girl with purple hair, lots of tats and a ring nose.

Whatyathink?

Life has enough unanticipated danger that you should spend your action time mitigating risk and your down time preparing for risk.

Think like a general and mitigate risk while preparing for danger. Mitigate risk by leaving on time so you do not feel stressed and need to speed. You can even deal with some slow asshole much more calmly when you are on time and early. Prepare for the worst by practicing e-brake spinouts in a car parking lot when it snows deeply. Now when you do leave early and you are not speeding, you hydroplane through unanticipated flash flood standing water and recover the car due to your "dangerous" practice in the snow. It looks brave compared to how many people slam on their brakes and counter steer to recover from a hydroplane when they panic. You would be recovering through your practiced skills but appear very brave and cool to handle the situation.

I was once stranded on the jomo kenyata highway after being involved in a fatal 4 vehicle crash (1 boda boda, our rangerover, one mercedes, one truck). boda boda died, we were immobilized, and everybody else drove off immediately. Two white guys and two white women and a dead mangled body on a highway between two villages in rural africa. from the start the women were wailing and the other guy was screaming that we're going to die. Lots of white people get mobbed and pulled from their vehicles even in the cities like Nairobi. Out here was a lot tougher. A crowd was growing around us. I felt all the fear and couldn't believe I was in a life or death but situation suddenly. My faith was stronger than my fear and I kept praying nonstop which kept bad thoughts away. I also kept planning long term, like I saw a cell tower in the distance and had a plan to hike there if we have to boogey from the road/car. I slapped the guy into his senses and got him to start teaching me how to change a tire on his car. It was so hard to keep him focused on the step-by-step process because after each step he'd abandon logic and start rambling about our deaths and his agony again. I couldn't get the tire changed because the steel frame was bent into the wheel well and I just could not bend the steel back out with the tire iron. the women came out to check progress and were panicking upon realizing that we weren't getting a new tire on yet. the crowd of vehicles stopping and villagers nearby walking out to the highway kept getting larger and closer. The guy joined the women in wailing and I STFU'd them all and told them they're going to get raped and their only job is to try to get a signal on the sat phone. So they went back into the car on a mission and called nonstop and stopped distracting me with wailing and panic. Eventually the Kenya military came and ignored us, and the crowd. They just wanted to scrape up the dead guy. And they left us to the crowd again. Then the most local militia came up. An old guy in a general suit and a young guy with an AK 47. They let me approach with the tire iron and the young guy kept his AK47 down. I couldn't believe it and felt that I was either in safe hands or had the advantage. I lied and told them that the embassy is on the way and we need help moving the car. This set them into a mode to extort us as fast as possible (before the embassy got there). They tried to rendezvous us with another more advanced militia, forcing us to drive slowly on 3 tires while one shredded more. We got a signal during this drive and the embassy told us NOT to go with the White or Black uniforms (this was White taking us to meet Black). We stopped and told him that the embassy wants us to stay here. The embassy also called the local police, who the embassy bribes on payroll. The local police quickly arrived and shoed the militia away and we were eventually in police custody until the embassy came.

moral of that long story: i am a safe guy who took a calculated tourism risk going out there and had the worst outcome happen. due to practicing my faith, contemplating death for years, and facing lots of adversity, i handled it bravely without trying to. Because the fear was strong but never stronger than my faith and my knowledge that I've come out of the shit before so why not again? edit: forgot to say the guy who was having an existential crisis was the driver and was very aggro especially to the boda boda (mini moto) traffic. lots of "this guys gonna get run over if he xxx again," tailgating, aggressive moves, etc. then it really happened. i was meditating at impact so i dont know what happened but it happened while i was meditating for a reason i dont know why.

Fearless = taking risks knowing there are likely consequences, where the benefits reasonably outweigh the risks (yet don't gaurantee success or freedom from consequence)

Reckless = taking actions with known and predictable risks in a knowingly negligent manner that is highly likely or even expected to result in consequences