Hero
"
My father.
I don't remember ever seeing his face-- But because of my uncle Ben, I will always remember his words. That with great power-- there must also come great responsibility.
Heroes.
The way I see it--
--when most people think of heroes, they think of larger-than-life patriots. Men and women who have dedicated both their personal and professional lives to represent a symbol of hope to those whose life might seem hopeless.
A colourful embodiment of selflessness.
But, of course. that's not the only form a hero's life can take.
...and there are so many places that our heroes can come from. So many worlds within our world.
Worlds of magic. Worlds of Technology. Worlds of intrigue. A world where a family of adventurers can bond together in the fight for the underdog.
And when speaking of the underdogs of our society, one can't help but think of mutants.
People whose entire existence is defined by their unique genetic birthright.
And like every civil rights embattled minority before them, some mutants have come together using their celebrity and powers to fight for their cause...
...while others wade through life's persecutions and misunderstandings by attempting to live their everyday lives with nobility and grace.
But a noble soul can, whether they want to or not, find himself on a warrior's path.
Sometimes I wonder if being persecuted and embattled because of who they are makes the choice of becoming a warrior predestined. Predetermined.
And that it's the choices made there-- when faced with the unthinkable-- that defines them...
...because we do not live in a black-and-white world. Cliche but true. We live in a world where around any corner is an act of violence waiting that can change your life forever.
And whether we want to admit it or not, it is at those times when we need someone who is willing to cross the line of what is technically, or morally, right and wrong.
But with that comes the risk that the world can become dark... and so compromised.
... that there can be no escape-- no chance for happiness.
So in my search for the hero I most admire... In my search for the definition of what a hero is...
the one thing I realised is that I will eventually have to make certain, choices that will define me and my life.
Or maybe I already have and don't even recognise them yet. But I guess I don't have to worry about it too much because of all the people in our everyday lives--in the news--in sports--in law enforcement--teachers--musicians--and yes, larger-than-life superheroes--
--all the people who stand for something bigger than ourselves.
For me, only one man... a man I never met...
has given me words to live by that I know I have to hold my life up to. I know they are the words that define a hero...
...That with great power, there must also come great responsibility. And the man who told them to my departed uncle who told them to me...
my father."
-- Peter Parker's take on a class assignment on 'Heroes', Ultimate Marvel Team-Up Vol 3.
Yes, I was inspired by these two men.
And I think, instead of having the last word like some self-righteous psycho-analyst - I'll let them speak for themselves.
Labels: muse
_____________Zoneseekers..::
by a perspective that relies on the author of Truth...
6:07 PM
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Man
"If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automation of reflexes, as a mind machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drive and reactions, as mere product of heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted with the last stage of corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazis liked to say, "of blood and soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
- Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: Introduction to Logotherapy
Not because of security, not because of comfort, not because of a need to escape.
Perhaps we have tried to escape - perhaps we have sought ways to escape, but thats in every path.
I believe in Christ - because man is something more than mere matter. Our transcendence for an ulimate meaning and value beyond the limited order, I refuse to believe that it is a conincedience.
And, not only do I have Reality - The atheists, nihilists, agnostics and skeptics - They're all on my side.
Or at least, the sentiments that led them there are.
Labels: Life
_____________Zoneseekers..::
by a perspective that relies on the author of Truth...
11:27 PM
New World, braved
"
Much of the restlessness and uncertainty so charateristic of our time is probaly due to the chronic source of unappeased desires from which men, naturally religious, but condemned by circumstances to have no religion, are bound to suffer." - Aldous Huxley
That was Huxley's time perhaps. Not that I'm saying our time is in anyway different... but.
I guess there is by no means an accurate measure of what one's 'time' is like, and philosophers are perhaps the last people to ever have credentials to critique on it since they never do grasp the naunces behind that the psychologists, scientists and politicians are capable of wielding to some extent. Still, this guy's Brave New World drew circumstances of the 'future' - prophetic in essence - of how man has discovered the way out of this suffering. By themselves of course.
Huxely does indicate disapproval of it... through the 3 levels of 'loneliness' that I attempted to describe during a literature class - Bernard the miserable. Helmoltz the distant. John the alien. Implictly, he agrees - as strongly as he has shown his view to be in this statement, that mere distractions are pointlessly painful. They remove the drive towards transcendence and the search of the ultimate reality and ultimate value - plunging man into the depths of his own arrogant constructions, folding him into a simple mechanism that thrives for the society it seeks so much from.
Our time - Its not the soma, the conditioning, the simple gratifications, the reduction of the individuality
so much so that it doesn't matter.
Its the achieving, the learning, the desires, the elevation of the self
so much so that it doesn't matter.But you know. It does.
And it would probaly take a Savage to understand that.
Labels: muse
_____________Zoneseekers..::
by a perspective that relies on the author of Truth...
12:08 AM
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