Sunday, April 13, 2008

Idols

No, not THAT kind of idols - the ones that you grew up with, the people that you loved reading about, hearing about. The people you aspired to be when you grew up. (Mine was Gandalf.)

Eventually, though, we either become too cynical to have our idols around in our minds anymore, or - which may arguably be worse - we pick up a new book and realize that our favorite authors are killing them off, or changing them. The character is doing something you know in your heart s/he wouldn't do! How dare they!

For your idol has taken on a life of his or her own in your heart, in your mind. Grown into something that is more than the character, something that inspires you to be and become. When that dream dies it takes part of us with it - when we realizes that even our idols can fall, we realize that we can, too, and maybe the world isn't a place filled with opportunities.

Why is it that we can't hang on to that optimism? Why can't we retain the hopes and dreams that our heroes instilled in us? What is it about humanity that makes it so easy to fall, and so difficult to keep going? We need to keep our heroes within us, to always have that image of them prevailing and winning - but we also need to remember that they can fall. And it's okay. They make mistakes - so do we.

We are none of us infallible - all we can do is try to make our heroes proud.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My Idols or Heros are really a compound person. I grew up with out a real father so, mine was always some super high standard, with charismatic war hero characteristics. Like James bond or... Capitan America?

Mine was never real but just a set of ideals.

You have an interesting blog here indeed. Quite a nice read.
~Rogue