Heroes (part 2)

I've taken a closer look at who I hold in high esteem, who the heroes are at this present point of my rather turbulent life. There was a time when it was men and women of power and authority. However, I think I've seen through the lie that power equates to safety; it does not and in some circumstances, radically increases the risk of harm. So these days, I seek simpler things, happiness being one of them. Preserving what's left of my integrity being another.

In that regard, I'm also coming to the realization that our heroes are far too human. Anyone we regard as a hero will fall eventually due to something they did. It's inevitable - we carry the seeds of our own fall within us as we are not perfect. So, do I have heroes? Yes...but they're not real ones. I'm discovering that as dangerous as it may be, the people I look up to simply don't exist in real life. They do exist in fiction and often in the most unlikeliest of places.

As an amateur astronomer, I'm quite aware that a lot of the constellations of the night sky have stories attached to them for they are often figures from mythology. I'm beginning to understand why we have myths - it provides us the fiction of what heroes should be so we have a model to emulate. It's here that things get dicey. If we're not careful about our attachment to heroes (if we chose to have heroes in the first place) then we are certain to come to harm or failure. After all, if we seek to emulate Icarus, I'd worry less about the risk of flying too close to the Sun but be more concerned about proving that gravity works yet again.

I have my own private heroes but I keep them behind a metaphorical pane of glass. I'm not perfect, they're not real and emulating them will just be plain stupid. Instead, I choose to draw strength and hope from the illusion that there are good people out there, that it is possible to go through life without compromising your integrity and that true love is out there, somewhere.

Yes, folks - I'm willingly deceiving myself...but from where I stand, falling into the pit of despair from the grind of daily life is far, far worse than this.