Zaikesman,
A startling post, one that at 4:30am just woke me up with a zest more potent than the coffee I was longing for only a moment ago.
You spoke thoughtfully of the human condition. Perhaps you were even referring parenthetically to the themes described in the book of the same name (in French), "La Condition Humaine," authored by a man who lived three lives in the space of one, Andre Malraux. The book suggests, as I think you might be doing so here, that inherent in our human condition is the incessant drive to be more than human, to give exaggerated meaning to our actions such that we might one day be able to consider ourselves as having overcome the limitations of our own humanity. In other words, to live as though the story we leave in our wake might actually be larger than the life it is meant to encapsulate. This, in my view, is how we so often make heroes out of people whose lives were anything but. Perhaps it gives us hope that we too will be remembered for being more than the person we believe ourselves to be. We celebrate the actions of others out of our own need to see them as heroic. For whatever reason, it makes us feel good to use that word. We share anecdotes of brave firefighters, daring journalists, actors who have overcome the odds, volunteer soldiers, wealthy real estate magnates, and even the occasional life-saving Rottweiler, just to remind ourselves that anyone has the ability to triumph over his own nature. To be more than human, as it were.
Pat, you are no more human than any of us. And at the same time, you are inarguably a hero. No, not in the sense that you have managed to become a character that supercedes the reality of your life. Rather, you are a hero to so many here because you have allowed us the privilege of watching you embrace the very reality that IS your life. And in doing so, you have sparked the rather unnatural and uncommon desire for us to become intimate with ourselves at a level that most of us never even knew existed. Zaikesman speaks of it so lovingly. And as much love as you have spread here, it is only just that you take some back, in whatever form of namecalling that represents. So there. You are the third hero in my life, the first being my father. The second, Muhammad Ali. And now you. Accept it. Heroism is for the living, and I've never seen anyone more alive than you are now.
A startling post, one that at 4:30am just woke me up with a zest more potent than the coffee I was longing for only a moment ago.
You spoke thoughtfully of the human condition. Perhaps you were even referring parenthetically to the themes described in the book of the same name (in French), "La Condition Humaine," authored by a man who lived three lives in the space of one, Andre Malraux. The book suggests, as I think you might be doing so here, that inherent in our human condition is the incessant drive to be more than human, to give exaggerated meaning to our actions such that we might one day be able to consider ourselves as having overcome the limitations of our own humanity. In other words, to live as though the story we leave in our wake might actually be larger than the life it is meant to encapsulate. This, in my view, is how we so often make heroes out of people whose lives were anything but. Perhaps it gives us hope that we too will be remembered for being more than the person we believe ourselves to be. We celebrate the actions of others out of our own need to see them as heroic. For whatever reason, it makes us feel good to use that word. We share anecdotes of brave firefighters, daring journalists, actors who have overcome the odds, volunteer soldiers, wealthy real estate magnates, and even the occasional life-saving Rottweiler, just to remind ourselves that anyone has the ability to triumph over his own nature. To be more than human, as it were.
Pat, you are no more human than any of us. And at the same time, you are inarguably a hero. No, not in the sense that you have managed to become a character that supercedes the reality of your life. Rather, you are a hero to so many here because you have allowed us the privilege of watching you embrace the very reality that IS your life. And in doing so, you have sparked the rather unnatural and uncommon desire for us to become intimate with ourselves at a level that most of us never even knew existed. Zaikesman speaks of it so lovingly. And as much love as you have spread here, it is only just that you take some back, in whatever form of namecalling that represents. So there. You are the third hero in my life, the first being my father. The second, Muhammad Ali. And now you. Accept it. Heroism is for the living, and I've never seen anyone more alive than you are now.