I wonder sometimes if it's always been this way.
It rolls back from the shore with our receding innocence; the eroding translucence of our youthful values is tragic and tragically inevitable. Our heroes are going to fail us eventually; it’s a truth we all encounter. As the younger generation matures in this environment of bombardment and sopping media saturation, I keep seeing figures ascend to the altar of modern adoration that begin the trajectory of a glorious falling star, but hit the earth like a rusty anvil.
Are these celestial belly flops and the concurrently failing faith of the generation beholding them the fault of the heroes, or is the fall and the heroes themselves the fault of those they’re supposed to be saving?
Heroes and Idols have been poured into one mold and turned out as golden calves for as long as their stories have had audiences. We have always honored champions, fed vicariously from their victories, and sought them out to fight our battles for us. Yes, we are to blame. For every golden god, every false profit, every sainted sports hero and substance-soaked rock star, and for every flash in every pan there has been a stage provided by a willing flock.
This flock will come to deny their shepherd.
My novel, 'The Valiant Unheroic', is about a young man named Eric with a heroic purpose but no conventionally admirable qualities. As the selfless feats he performs become more undeniably spectacular, the marvel they conjure fuels a growing public allure. The fascinated people call him hero, but their fixation seeks an all too mortal conclusion, and proves that even the best fame and heroism are mutually elusive.
**Note: A spoiler alert for those currently reading 'The Valiant Unheroic'. ***
As Eric's heroic impact/novelty evolves, he finds himself asking where his own contribution began and ended. His legacy looks to be comprised of dated headlines and victims he's helped that return to their predators. The tragedies of his selfless life leave him wanting for at least the semblance of accomplishment, of a purpose fulfilled.
He asks, as I ask, much of the following.
Is his heroism found in the intention to help?
They say the road to Hell is paved with these intentions, but it is right to judge a person's attempt to help with hindsight at a perfect 20/20?
During the hostage rescue that comes to define his heroic career, Eric is forced into a situation where he must make a decision about the terrorist's life versus the potential harm of numerous innocent bystanders. In spectacular fashion he saves the day for the hostages, for the headline-buying public, and the year for the tabloid media below. He makes a decision beyond his station, that costs the troubled captor his life and the insurance companies a fortune. He calls his own heroism into a perilous question of profit and loss.
Eric's intention was purely benign but the result becomes contentious. Should his act be regarded in its seed or in its blossom? As it tends to be with the line dividing hero and terror, should it merely depend on perspective?
The idea of heroic intention excludes most subjects of modern worship; mannequins, champions, and doomed poets. A recipient of glory does not ascend to the pedestal intending to be helpful. Glory is a byproduct of competition and victory. The two motivations do not stand together.
In the end, good intention is irrelevant to heroism or a heroic legacy because it is integral to our nature to honor that which honors us. We can’t identify with something that doesn’t have a result, an event or a product logo for us to stand behind.
Why must we perceive when seeing is so readily available to us?
Is heroism found in the outcome?
We tend to celebrate great outcomes not best intentions, quantity not quality, but how often is such a correlation actually accurate?
The company that released a certain performance-enabling blue pill was designing a heart medication, but how will their rise be remembered? George W. Bush was after something righteous in the Middle East, and Christopher Columbus certainly wasn’t as he headed west… The ends rarely represent means, or what was meant, whatever that means.
As Eric’s fame soars and the city discovers a forgotten species of hero, Eric is pummeled with the sudden evolution of his purpose. He quickly learns how his contribution is metered and judged, how his place in the community is as a commodity not a guide, not an example to follow or even a source of inspiration.
It’s impossible to be heroic when an expectation grows around you. Judging results in quantities or comparing them or validating them removes the spark that starts the fire in flock. Heroism entails exceeding expectations, not maintaining a quota. There’s little if any inspiration within expectation. Where’s the fun in just matching the benchmark?
Is heroism then found in the aftermath?
Every contribution, as an article of history, is only as glorious as it is made out to be by the bard who portrays it in a play, a textbook or a tell-all biography.
How many people have been helped in a posthumous manner, through teachings or by example, by Christ, Mohammed, Mozart or Edison? As their ripples circle out over the oncoming history, how much can their helpful influence be blamed for the byproducts, for the extremism, industrial dependence, and for bad muzac. So then we are forced to ask, as Eric is, how many of those ripples brought harm? Are those ripples the fault of the hero or those acting on the hero’s behalf?
Hero is the pinnacle of a free will in action, in one of two obvious incarnations: good and bad. Balance is the foundation not only of reality itself, but also perception. Without bad there is no good, without villain there is no hero, but also without hero there is no perspective. Conversely, without our perspective there are no heroes… nothing to show between plays during the Superbowl.
Our heroes are indeed our fault…
…But a trespass we should be proud of choosing. Though the quality of those we choose to pedestal might be questionable, we are lucky to have them. We are just as responsible for the villains, and just as lucky to have them too, because a coin with only one side isn’t worth anything and yin without yang is just going in circles.
Good and bad, hero and villain, heaven and hell, are all subjective elements to our individual experiences. Whether we worship our heroes in a productive, inspirational way or merely use them as an excuse to watch too much TV or join an evil book club, choosing them and their gospel-according-to-running-shoes makes us individual from every other soul to come to the fountain. Though a hip hop emperor may look out over a crowd of bemused baseball hats and baggy jeans that appear to be swaying in mindless unison and awaiting their next order, they all arrived to that altar under a different star.
Heroes tend to become symbols when they lose the initial sheen of inspiration and the shadow of expectation falls over them. Symbols can be more dangerous than any comic book archenemy or distant extremist insurgent. Symbols unite people in two-dimensional ways, under an architecture built of cards. If we could somehow recall that the relationship drawn between you and your hero, as fleeting as it may seem, is drawn from the precious individuality building your identity on what is hopefully an impenetrable foundation.
There are no easy answers for Eric. No matter how hard he and I may try there is no definition for hero. As individual as the cells and strings that make up your bones and skin and sense of humor is the combination of gesture and achievement that you will identify as heroic. Heed that sense of wonder, don’t let it wash away completely, otherwise the voting system on American Idol will become meaningless, and when it’s your turn to stand for something the rest of us can be ready with the confetti.
The existence of heroes comes down to our creativity and collective problem with accountability. When there’s been an event we can’t explain we create a god and where there grows a situation beyond our control we await a hero. While this creation creates clutter, dissention among the factions of warring icons, and a pollutant cloud of silly-ass tabloid drivel, imagine for a moment a place with no heroes.
We need heroes.
We need to fight on and feel envy, to savor victory, and to comeback swinging after defeat. Without the idols and the glitter, the crusaders and the messiahs, without Jesus and Superman, I for one would not have dreamed when I was young. Before I figured out it’s easier to be cynical, I lived in a vivid place where my hero was going to be there for me, and I could one day fight the same evil.
I still have heroes; they’re all just little more black and white.
Patrick
