My heroes have always been a little tarnished. I published a past post about Marion Jones and the opportunity for her to become a hero now that she is making herself even with the world – or at least with herself, which is more important. I still believe what I wrote, and I think Marion Jones has started the process of rising above her current self. If Marion Jones continues there is no reason she will not be a hero to young people, and older people alike.
It is my belief our future is never written in stone. We each have our own obstacles to overcome and conquer. I believe there is a potential hero hiding in Marion Jones, and it will shine sooner than later. Unlike other current athletes who prefer to lie and hide, Marion Jones has nothing left to hide. Only opportunity for better things can enter her life, the worst will soon be behind her. Soon she will have paid her debt, and she will be able to wipe her slate clean. Then the real Marion Jones will step out, and start doing great things she may not even have dreamt of. Things we may never know about, and perhaps have no need to know about, but great things all the same.
There is an opinion that heroes do not come from tarnished lives. Some folks may rightly believe that to be a true hero, one has to be heroic in all aspects of their lives. What this does I think, is separate a few heroes from someone doing a heroic act. It is easy to be on the throne and do a great thing, it is much harder when one is struggling to be, and finding themselves in a position of contemplating a heroic act, and following through with it. It is even harder, yet greater when that act goes unseen and unnoticed.
If there are such people in the world who are heroes in the second sense, where their whole life is shiny and polished without a mark against it, and doing great things, I am all for them getting the recognition they deserve, and I applaud them. In my more mundane world, I have yet to meet any people who could pass this type of hero test. The everyday heroes I see in my world are more like the desperate thief Dustin Hoffman played some years ago where he was not a person anyone would look up to, but did something above and beyond him, quite by accident, and for selfish reasons. He became a hero all the same for a short time.
Most of the heroes I have seen are people who are in the right place at the right time, and do something above themselves and the people around them, when they did not have to. They were not looking for the chance to do something special. They did what they did without thinking. One heroic person I have seen had been drinking, another was trying to escape his life, and a third person was coasting along through life trying to be invisible.
What these three had people done with their lives up until that point was nothing special, and after the notoriety wore off they went back to what they were before, ordinary people getting through the day. In the space of those seconds when they acted heroically, they were above and beyond themselves. They saw something wrong that needed righting in an instant, and before they even thought about what they were doing, the heroic action had took place. I am sure when they realized what they had done, they were as shocked as everyone around them.
It may be thought of as less than stellar, but those heroes I have seen in action were ordinary people who had a moment of heroism, and then faded back into the ordinary life they were living before the act. I do think these are the best types of heroes though. These are the heroes that you, I and anyone else can be, if we happen to find ourselves in the right place at the right time.
