Wednesday, December 26, 2007

LIFE: Searching for a New Hero

Look! Up in the sky! It's a superhero! Superman was always my favorite comic book hero. Who could resist his ability to fly at supersonic speeds, or his super-human strength, or his vow to stand for "truth, justice, and the American Way?"

But real heroes don't fly and don't have super-human strength, and are often flawed and unsure of what they stand for. But they are heroic in their own way and in a way that is totally human. There aren't enough of them in this world today--even though the term hero is thrown around far too often.

One of the TV shows that my son, Mikey, watches sometimes is called "Higglytown Heroes." It's a cute show but it drives me nuts the way it uses the term hero. My wife and I joke about it all the time. I mean, the pizza delivery guy is a hero, a grocery store worker is a hero, all because they can help solve the challenge of that particular show. Now, I know it's a children's show and they aren't taking themselves very seriously, but it just makes me realize how few heroes we have and how difficult it is to see who they are.

When I was in college I used to say that the student who stood up to and blocked the tanks in China during the Tiananmen Square protests was my hero. He was risking his life for something he believed in. Did I know him personally? No. Did I know if he was really student? No. Could he have been a bad guy or unworthy of hero status? Sure. I didn't know anything else about him other than the fact that he was willing to stand in front of a death-machine that could end his life in a second all because he believed in freedom. That was a hero to me.

It's dangerous to go looking for heroes. Most athletes have proven themselves over and over as unworthy of the term (although the 1980 U.S. olympic hockey team came really close for me). Most politicians are far from heroes (but I have a soft spot for JFK, RFK, and FDR). And don't even get me started on most religious "leaders."

You could say that most of us are heroes just for waking up every day and facing our various challenges on a daily basis. Gotta pay that mortgage. Take care of those children. Face an illness. Help a loved one. It can be difficult to be a human on a day-to-day basis. Especially when you have great challenges in your life. But I'm not sure yet if it's heroic.

Why am I writing about heroes today? Honestly, not really sure. I'm just feeling like I need a hero. Like we need a hero. I feel so cheated that my parents' generation and their parents' generation seemed to have more heroic types in their lives. I wrote an editorial for one of my college newspapers back in 1988 about how disappointed and jealous I was that my parents and grandparents had politicians like FDR and JFK and my generation had to choose from George H.W. Bush and Dukakis. Now, it's a thousand times worse and I'm feeling even more jaded.

But it's not just political leaders that are lacking. Where are the Martin Luther King, Jr.'s and the great social leaders? Where is a leader for our times who can come forth and bring us all together to achieve great things? Where is that person who can step forth and utter words like "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" and actually have people moved to action?

Why are our TV screens filled with images of the worst among us. Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, etc...I DON'T CARE!!! The TV news is filled with bad news and loud-mouth jerks who are poisoning our society. Why should you listen to Bill O'Reilly or Glen Beck? They are not worth your time and will not inspire any positive change for our society. And why should we look to the TV for any kind of inspiration or positivity anyway?

Nobody reads anymore. And I just don't mean blogs or magazines or newspapers. How about reading a book people?!? At least if you read fiction you might find some heroes there. But I prefer non-fiction and I prefer to read to gain knowledge so that maybe I can learn enough to see even more ideas of heroism.

Perhaps I'm ranting too much about this. Or perhaps there's not enough said or thought in this regard. All I know is that the world is in tragic shape right now and I don't see too many heroes on the horizon.

I've written about how Mikey is my personal hero for always being happy and facing his challenges every day. In my own tiny part of this world I am awed and honored to know someone as heroic as him. That got me thinking that maybe heroism is a collective and we have to combine millions of Mikeys all over the world to find our hero. If this is the case, I hope you have found YOUR Mikey and I'd love to hear about him.

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