Heroes...

[scheherazade_79]

Everybody has one, even if they aren't always prepared to admit to it. I think that more often than not, a person's hero has something to do with their desired self image. In other words, you admire that person because they're all the things you secretly dream of being.

So who's yours, and why do you consider them to be your hero?

It doesn't have to be a real life person. It can be a character from a movie, or a book, or a play or a song. Even a painting if you're in an abstract mood...

My hero / heroine is Trinity from The Matrix. I love her smartness, her toughness and the way she always keeps her composure, even when the world's crashing down around her ears.

 

[LadyJeanne]

I have lots of heroes. One of them is a friend who handles living in a way I admire and wish I could emulate. I'd have to spend a long time writing something that would even come close to adequately describing the grace and kindness and charm with which she loves and lives.

Great topic and thanks for making me think of her - I think she'll be hearing from me today!

 

[scheherazade_79]

I have lots of heroes. One of them is a friend who handles living in a way I admire and wish I could emulate. I'd have to spend a long time writing something that would even come close to adequately describing the grace and kindness and charm with which she loves and lives.

Great topic and thanks for making me think of her - I think she'll be hearing from me today!

Damn! I wish I could call Trinity tonight!

 

[sxylilslut]

bah wrong thread. Apologies. While I'm here I might as well mention Dali.

 

[impressive]

MLK, Jr.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Short list?

Jonathan Swift
Jonathan O'Leary
Mercutio
Sacagewea
Virginia Woolf
John Stuart Mill
the Vicomte de Valmonte
Achilles
Cyrano de Bergerac
Alexander Pope
James Connolly

and, of course ...

Oscar Wilde

 

[rcfstl]

Sir Richard Francis Burton
and Ernest Shackleton

 

[cloudy]

MLK, Jr.

I'm with you there, and I'll add:

Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse.

 

[oggbashan]

Nameless

I won't name my hero, now dead.

His name alone produces strong emotions in the UK and prejudiced reactions.

I met him several times on formal occasions and a couple of times informally.

He was intelligent, educated, erudite and a patriot who put love of people and the future of his country above his personal ambition and his reputation. He sacrificed his reputation deliberately to produce a reaction that was in the country's interests, knowing that he would be damned for it and his name would be shamed.

It is not easy to be a hero in the daylight and to accept praise for your actions.

It is even harder to be a hero in the dark and know you will be blamed because people could not understand what you did and why.

I honour him for what he did. I cannot change posterity's verdict on him nor would he want me to. He knew what he would achieve. His own approval was enough for him.

Og

 

[matriarch]

Short list?

Virginia Woolf
John Stuart Mill
Cyrano de Bergerac
Oscar Wilde

Wonderful choices, plus.......off the top of my head,

Kathleen Ferrier
Jacqueline Du Pre

Still thinking about it.

 

[rgraham666]

Socrates.

 

[entitled]

Grandpa

 

[rgraham666]

Changed my mind.

Did some searching on the Web, and I think I'm going to have to do some more digging.

For the person who was here, I was obviously going by word of mouth, and not any real data.

Shrugs. Wouldn't be the first time.

 

[SeaCat]

My heroes? My list of heroes starts with my father, who has paid multiple times for our freedoms. He is followed by my mother, who along with my father was always there while I was growing up and who showed me how to survive. She is followed by my wife, who has been by my side for thirteen hard years.

Following these three the list is endless. My heores are the people who refuse to go quietly regardless of what society thinks. They are the jews, the homosexuals, the Romanes who refused to go wuietly to the camps. They are the Amerinds who refused to go wuietly to the worthless lands of the reservations. They are the people who fight against the churchs rulings. They are the little man who just barely makes it, and sometimes doesn't make it but is willing to give others the shirt off his back because he has more than they do. My heroes are the people who go out on a limb to help other people, risking their own lives to save others lives for no gain. My heroes are the people who just plain give a shit.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

They are the Amerinds who refused to go wuietly to the worthless lands of the reservations.

 

[Halo_n_horns]

Frank Frazetta with Jesse James (West Coast Choppers) in a not too distant 2nd place. Both are men among men and artists that every artist should know and respect.

 

[TheEarl]

Jarrod Cunningham. A good club rugby player who was diagnosed with ALS (a variant of Motor Neurone Disease). This is a wasting disease, where muscles just disappear. You can work bloody hard and stay at a plateau, but once you've gone down a level, you're never getting back up again. It's just impossible.

At least, this was what Jarrod Cunningham was told by every doctor. It's true in theory; it's impossible to build new muscle and improve your condition when you have MND. Cunningham was given about 3 months to live. Most people just take their 3 months and do as the doctor says, but Cunningham fought. Two years later, he's still alive.

He's explored lots of alternative medicines as well as the docotr prescribed ones, he's worked with therapy gurus to get his mental state right and he's moved from being able to leg press 80kg at his worst to being able to press 140kg*. He's done the impossible, regaining the musculature that he was told would never ever come back, no matter how hard he tried.

All because he refused to be told that he was dead.

The Earl

* For reference, I've got fairly strong legs and I can only do 110kg.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I've mentioned my hero too many times already on this board and I have long ago got the hint that my carrying of the torch is unwelcome, annoying, and overdone and that I should "get over it."

Still. Yeah. Hero.

 

[matriarch]

My heroes? My list of heroes starts with my father, who has paid multiple times for our freedoms. He is followed by my mother, who along with my father was always there while I was growing up and who showed me how to survive. She is followed by my wife, who has been by my side for thirteen hard years.

Following these three the list is endless. My heores are the people who refuse to go quietly regardless of what society thinks. They are the jews, the homosexuals, the Romanes who refused to go wuietly to the camps. They are the Amerinds who refused to go wuietly to the worthless lands of the reservations. They are the people who fight against the churchs rulings. They are the little man who just barely makes it, and sometimes doesn't make it but is willing to give others the shirt off his back because he has more than they do. My heroes are the people who go out on a limb to help other people, risking their own lives to save others lives for no gain. My heroes are the people who just plain give a shit.

Cat

*applauding, blowing Cat a kiss*

 

[AppleBiter]

My hero is Christopher Reeve because he never, ever gave up. He didn't listen to what everyone else said, only to what his heart wanted. His skull was literally separated from his spine, yet he defied medical science when he walked again in a swimming pool -- because he wouldn't take "no" for an answer. He did walk with assistance . . . but he walked. Amazing. Just amazing. I wish I had the spirit in my whole body that that man possessed in his little finger. God rest his soul.

My other hero is David Peltzer. His was the worst child abuse case in the state of California. But, instead of turning his horrific experiences into something negative, he has chosen to be positively shaped by them. He has written three books about his experiences and he tours the country talking to kids about child abuse and offering help to kids who might be in a similar situation. His outlook on life is surprisingly optomistic which amazes me after all he has been through. No matter what I go through in this life, if David Peltzer could endure what he did and come out whole on the other side, so can I. That's why he is my hero, as well.

 

[oggbashan]

Two more

Two more, conventional heroes.

My daughter's friend's father who was a US tank commander on D-Day. His tank and crew sank under him. He swam ashore, grabbed a fallen GI's rifle and started to avenge his crew. He left that beach on a stretcher. He returned to combat when his injuries were barely healed and fought his way through Europe to the German surrender. He still misses his crew.

My neighbour, now deceased, who was an officer in the Royal Engineers. He too was wounded on D-Day while breaching the sea defences. He returned to his regiment in time for the Rhine crossing. He built a bridge across the Rhine under enemy fire. He was seriously injured just as his bridge was completed. He had ignored the minor injuries while the bridge was still incomplete. He used to say that he only fought two days of World War Two. Perhaps he did but he did much more in both days than he was expected to do.

I owe them my freedom.

Og

 

[Guest]

MOM. she is the reason for who i am. her strength was a palpable force. her humor in the face of adversity still has the ability to drive me onward. a wonderful person who made mistakes and was willing to admit it and move on.

margret mitchell (for no other reason then that she was incredibly staunch in her beliefs)
helen keller (over coming great odds)
ben franklin (who else could be some openly sexual and brilliant?)
plato (for the dreamer in me)
sandra bullock (for the personality i would most like to emmulate)
lucky (she saved me from dispair)
oh and a squillion others.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I should actually add the SO to my list. I'm just not sure what the SO would make of it. Of course I adore the SO for many fine reasons related to my own personal happiness and joy, but those seem selfish reasons to elevate someone to the status of hero. It's this, then, that stands in my mind as the SO's finest hour - to date.

The SO's company announced a company-wide meeting on a payday. That's never good news in a company that's struggling; they were, as we guessed, announcing lay-offs. We had a week of hell that involved making lists of things we could sell in order to pay the mortgage long enough to sell the house at not too much of a loss. Finally, on the day, we learned that the SO was not amongst the jobless. The SO's friend and esteemed co-worker, however, was. I could see that this really ate into my loved one, and that the SO wanted very much to do something about it. We discussed it that evening, and in the morning the SO offered to take a 50% salary cut if they would use the money to hire back the co-worker.

As it happened, they didn't. Such is the nature of a bureaucracy; at times they seem to value decisiveness more than final outcome. But that moment confirmed all hope and faith I'd ever had in the SO. No less than I, the SO was depressed and miserable at the thought of losing the house - which still would have happened at half salary. But there was a joy and release in doing the right thing. It's moments like that when you know you're with the right person.

Shanglan

 

[minsue]

I've mentioned my hero too many times already on this board and I have long ago got the hint that my carrying of the torch is unwelcome, annoying, and overdone and that I should "get over it."

Still. Yeah. Hero.

Not for some of us, Luc

 

[tolyk]

I've mentioned my hero too many times already on this board and I have long ago got the hint that my carrying of the torch is unwelcome, annoying, and overdone and that I should "get over it."

Still. Yeah. Hero.

I admire you for it, quite a bit..


I must say, the only person I have ever considered a personal hero would have to be my eldest brother.. He was always there for me.. helped raise me and is, for the most part, responsible for the person I have become.