Doesn't the word hero seem to impress on one a kind of inferiority to another's characteristics or materials? That is the thing about the phrase, "My hero," it is convoluted with a connotation of someone a person can always aim to be. "Heroes" are chosen and revered on the sheer pretense by the ones whom give their hero their status by something they can "honorably" try to be.
Yet, the term honor is like another hero all together. Society’s Superman if you will. What is defined as “honorable” is learned from one's familial background and one’s cultural environment. The individual who grows up in their particular surrounding will ultimately build a schema upon his/her immediate reality shared by those who neighbor his/her unique individual reality. In essence, the quote, “No man is an island,” explains the affect of one’s ‘nurture’. Though, the reason for aspiring and the consequence of said aspiration is lost.
Taking the assumption that one is shaped by ones environment to one degree or another one has to then follow that individual’s choice would also be shaped by one’s environment. For what is a permissible goal for one to achieve will be revered, or not, as worthy, or not, on the various levels set by the individual’s society and/or family. This serves to give the achiever the illusion that making the proverbial choice of his/her life’s direction will or will not make him happy. This conclusion comes from the idea that if one’s schema is built upon his/her direct environment then driving the same road to happiness will also serve him/her in the same way.
However, as one grows and detaches from their initial ‘reality’ and sets out on the road to become an ‘adult’ different individual schemas abound and one’s prior realizations must once again be reworked. With an ever-changing environment, it is no surprise that a single constant is desired and gives hope to individuals constantly having to readapt themselves to merely survive and attain what they need or desire (Maslow’s hierarchy may help to pinpoint more precisely what various persons need (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_needs). With a single thread one can grasp onto, they can find security in a world filled with many different realities and/or delusions. It is here where one’s hero is given genesis.
Be it Jesus, Allah, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, a celebrity, or whom-have-you, these individuals seem to be common heroes throughout the world that give various individuals a constant ‘thing’ they can always try and attain. These types of heroes seem to be used as a measure of how far the striver is from their ultimate destination or even how ‘good’ the person is to their immediate surroundings—giving the immortal a very good illusion of honor and quality (or lack thereof) through prior inserted beliefs into one’s schema and the reactions of others to them and their choices. Though, it stands to reason that if a hero is chosen based on the hero’s ability to be a forever aim, how can one ever hope to reach their dreams? That is, unless one’s dream is to please those around him/her (which in this society, is not highly revered, even though, giving or sacrifice for others is)…
Unfortunately for some and fortunately for others, the future is not a destined or designed absolution but an abysmal uncertainty. In a world of an estimated 6 billion unique individuals living out and through varied situations, one's destiny is surely directly related to the limits and freedom of one's own creativity and will in the present to shape future reality. After all, there is but one reality and any deviation from that reality is wishful thinking, delusional, or false. The world is not ‘flat,’ it is round no matter how many persons of authority or one’s society denies this reality. Their denial does not change the fact that they still live on a round earth. There are not varying realities, there are only illogical misinterpretations of reality by one’s consciousness.
So when I am asked, "Who is my hero or heroes," I have to make clear that my varied collection consist of those whom have taught me something…anything. For it is those who have been able to ‘positively’ teach me, that provide me with an opportunity to realize I can become what is commonly meant as a 'hero' unto myself. The opportunity they forward, perhaps unknowingly, is their ability to contradict my thinking so that my ego can subside, just long enough, to allow a tinny, tiny, little-bitty seed to be implanted into this very small, insignificant mind, with an abundance of stubborn and irrational beliefs so that I can be more present in the one and only reality.
Ultimately, then, those who aid in the attainment of one realizing their greatest and realistic potential as a human being are the true unnoticed heroes in this time of 'presently' wherein the fervently clung words of perfect and imperfect exist not.
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It’s late, and this may well make rather less sense than I initially thought it might do in my head, but never mind, I’ll have an initial bash...
Ah, honour...
(Or “honor”, depending on where you are; I’ll be unable to help myself sticking to the British spelling, I fear; unless I forget, of course [:-)]...)
It is invisible and yet more beautiful than diamonds; it is silent, and yet deafens thunder; it depresses no scale, yet is weightier than gold. And yet, as you so rightly say, the kinds of honour, and the particular heroes that exemplify each brand of it, are a markedly cultural thing...
However, as one grows and detaches from their initial ‘reality’ and sets out on the road to become an ‘adult’ different individual schemas abound and one’s prior realizations must once again be reworked.
Absolutely, if the culture one allows permits this, as you go on to address...I think you’ve nailed the key thing, in as much as “heroes” are often held up to be an unobtainable ideal, like Jesus, Martin Luther King, or ('god' help us) Mother Teresa...
One's destiny is surely directly related to the limits and freedom of one's own creativity and will in the present to shape future reality. After all, there is but one reality and any deviation from that reality is wishful thinking, delusional, or false.
Exactly, and the sad thing is the limits of freedom and creativity are all too often not in one’s control (this harks back to Philip’s universal Dinosaur education idea...)
So when I am asked, "Who is my hero or heroes," I have to make clear that my varied collection consist of those whom have taught me something…anything.
I think this is as marvellous a way of defining heroes as any. To follow up on your comments about the “ability to contradict my thinking”, one of the things I’m most looking forward to as a parent is the day when my daughter tells me she disagrees with me about something and then explains why...(This sounds incredibly pompous, but it’s really true – education is not about training. To quote Stephen Fry with his Donald Trefusis head on: "Training is what you do to a pear tree when you prune it to grow against a wall. [...] Education is what you give children to enable them to be free from the prejudices and moral bankruptcies of their elders. [...] The day a child of mine comes home from school and reveals that he or she has been taught something that I agree with is the day I take that child away from school"
Of course, this is doubtless as much a (probably unobtainable) ideal as the stifling imposition of various religious “heroes” and concepts of honour on the young that you allude to, but I like to think it’s a more noble and less harmful target to aim for...
Mark_W
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