modern life 1. Heroes: Part 1

We all have dreams.
Indeed, it is one of the fundemental things that makes us human. We all have desires and ambitions, things to aspire and things that inspire us. It is this want/need to have more, do more and be more that has lead us to where we are at this point in time. Is it good? Sometimes yes, sometimes no but there is no doubt that it is this ambition that has given us so much. In a time when everything comes and goes so quickly, it is all too easy to forget that as little as 50 years ago, nay, 20 years ago, you would not be able to read what I type so easily, let alone read what someone halfway across the world is typing at the same time.

20 years ago, could you have imagined that you'd be able to converse with multiple people in multiple countries all at the same time from your home?

Think about what your parents had when they were your age.
Think about what your grandparents had at that age.

This might be because I come from a family where as recently as in my grandparent's time and even my own parents' time that they were very basic and simple farmers but I am very aware of the "magical" things in life. I am, as you might know, a compulsive horder of trivial things and I cannot look at those "trinkets" without thinking of how lucky I am. The thing I am most grateful for though, isn't my horde of bits and pieces but rather the fact that I am free to be able to horde. I am thankful for being in a position where I can decide what I want to do. Certainly, I do have a path I should be taking but I am more free than most to walk that path at my own pace (although I know I should go a bit faster....). I am very aware of my freedom.

But what of my parents' freedom?
How free were they do really do what they wanted to do?
I don't really know my parents.
My father died when I was doing my A-Levels so I never had the chance but even before that, I never really the chance. The one thing that I will always remember is that my parents were always working. This might've been because they made a few not so good choices earlier but I also know that it was because were for lack of a better term, poor. Remember this, my mum and dad came to this country with not a lot in their pockets and not much English to help them get by. Subsequently, they worked asmuch as they could to buy a house, a partnership in a restuarant, then the place outright, then a smaller place where they worked even more hours just to put me and my sister through school.

I can't but help wonder now, whether or not they, during those working years, stopped to ask themselves if that was what they wanted to do in life? I know that at times, circumstances decides what you have to do but to give up so much of your life doing something that ultimately isn't for yourself is something I am finding hard to understand.

But that is just it, isn't it?
To be a parent is to sacrifce.
To sacrifice is the noblest deed of all, is it not?

And that is one of the constants throughout history.
Parent figures are always heroes.
They are the archetypal hero model. They raise a child and care for a child and give all for the child. In those stories especially, the parents are often shifted to the sidelines as a backstory for the main Hero of the tale but still, they sacrifice all for the child-hero. In some cases, even their lives are forfeit for the child-hero. As far back as recorded history goes, when-ever we have a hero figure, the parents of that hero figure are also heroes.
In the ancient tribes, we have chiefs, the strongest, wisest, bravest man in the tribe leading them to prosperity. Tradition has it that his son will take his place. In nature, the biggest baddest son of the alpha male takes over the harem. Again and again, it is as if it is in nature that heroes beget heroes.

Is that why we hero-worship?
Is that why we have a need to admire and to imitate others, in particular those we see as being better than ourselves? Let's be honest here, you might not admit to wanting to be like someone else but we all know you do. And again, let's be honest here about who those people are; I mean, how many aspire to be like that guy who sells the Big Issue on Charing Cross Road by the Oscar Wilde statue?

Are we forgetting what heroes really are?
The obvious answer is that in a modern society and culture where celebrity is the thing most celebrated, it is true that we have lost all meaning of what a hero is. Perhaps more importantly, we have forgotten what things are admirable in a person. In classical tales, heroes are people, often simple people who are faced with fearsome tasks against insurmountable odds. They are people who come a background of having nothing or perhaps even worse, of tragedy. They are people who learn to rise above it all, to overcome all dangers and to regain all that was lost. They are people who fight against all foes to reach the pinacle of their existance and achieve all they set out to achieve.

Heroes were examples of how to be a good person.
They were not gods with powers beyond mortals nor were they demons bound by their evil to do evil things. They were normal people, hindered from birth by the acts of an evil being/enemy who overcomes and realises dreams and that is why they are heroes.