What is emotionally the most painful experience - You losing your loved ones? Your trusted ones stabbing you behind your back? Your relationship breaking down? Lives of your loved ones taking a nose dive? You having a miscarriage? What else could it be? The answer would invariably depend on what one goes through at a given point of time. For some, whatever they have undergone would be the most painful. For a few, they'd just be glad that they didn't go through the hell which others are going through.
The thing with hero worshiping is that your value system and outlook on life and people, isn't defined by what you think or what you experience. It is almost irrevocably shaped by what your hero says or does and your hero's perception and value systems, if he has any. And this isn't a good thing at all.
Our admiration for our hero slowly mutates into some kind of fanatic exhibition of our loyalty, support and approval, discarding any reasonable inputs to the contrary. In fact, any negative word on our hero is not just defended by us, but responded with a vileness reserved for those condemned to gravest of hell. The verbal violence may sometime turn into physical violence as well. Our thought process is clouded, thoughts biased and vision blinded by our fanaticism, and we end up refusing any sense of reasoning or respond favourably to any meaningful criticism of our hero.
It makes you an animal, and slowly leads you down a path of destruction. Your own sense of respect for fellow humans is seriously hampered. You ridicule your opponents. You abuse them endlessly. You troll them on social media. You intend only to destroy their credentials. You take potshots. You turn bitter. You rip them apart. Your attacks turn personal. Your attacks turn violent. You are barely you. You are plain bad. And it is all in the process of not defending you or your honour or your family or its honour. But in defending your hero, and his actions.
That the leader was never the leader at all. He was just the first and biggest beneficiary of his act. The god wasn't a god at all. His benevolence was a dubious act done to perfection and for material rewards. The hero wasn't a hero at all. He wasn't the leader you thought he'd be. He is fallible. And he fears it. He loathes such failure. And in avoiding that, his efforts aren't in correcting his course of action, but in destroying others. He is deeply flawed. And that he has a sinister side. The face was just a mask, and his act of kindness towards you was just a decoy, a foreplay to the main act that was never intended.
You'd feel cheated. You realize that you have been tricked into acting favourably into somebody's greed. You'd feel shameful at your act of deifying the false god. You'd wonder what made you defend your icon, or what "great" thing that you saw in that icon that deserved your worship. You'd end up scratching your head as to how you could miss all the so obvious personality flaws in your hero. You feel confused. You'd feel sad. You would often be left only with regret. And it is too damn painful.
And then you would end up asking the most important question to yourself - "why" did you miss the personality flaws, or atleast overlook them. It would throw you a million answers. Some real. Some philosophical. Some wacky, but absolutely sensible such as this "Don't believe everything you think. It's just a thought, not a fact".
In essence you realize that you formed an image of the person based on what you perceived to be true. Your own personal biases and sense of insecurities and fear at different points of time made you create an image that never was. You are responsible for your disappointment. You were either too naive or too dumb. Or probably you are just as flawed. Your own original admiration was on ill founded sense of loyalty. Your own withdrawal is due to realisation that there is a value system mismatch.
But the real point is that you searched outside for the hero. You searched for and got an outsider to define yourself. You were searching for an hero to identify yourself with. You were looking for someone to give you "your" identity. You probably thought that you would become a complete man from somebody else's experiences.
You have forever been searching for the hero that you always were. Your inspiration lies somewhere inside you. Your experiences are your teachers and your responses to that shapes your value systems and therefore your personality. Your hero is as flawed as you. Your inspiration is as real as you. And you'll never be disappointed.
And that's my realisation. My experiences and my response to that makes me whatever I am. My value system isn't a borrowed one. It is an evolved one. And that's it. I am my inspiration. I don't need any hero. I AM MY HERO.
Comments
I believe that when your morals are founded upon your own thoughts and experiences, your values are stronger but also, you are also able to entertain thoughts that you may or may not accept. That openness is at times absent on those who borrow their value system.
Good read. Thank you, sir.
Spot on observation on the strength of our own / evolved value systems as against the borrowed ones. I just wonder why I didn't think of that. Typos are okay. My posts are always filled with bigger mistakes. I keep on editing them.
Cheers!
GSM
Character definition - personality definition can be made (or can be made faster) if its with reference to an outside object. If we focus within, from the scratch, its like reinventing a fan, AC everytime. So to some extent (atleast for basics) it makes sense to define our characters with reference to a Hero/ God belief. Its a proven fact that one would not search a lost object in his own pocket. He will search the entire house only to come to a conculsion that its with him (atleast it happens everyday with my car key!!).
Whats to be noted is that - not that "bat-man" (just an example - can be substituted for any person here) is hero for all. Not that everyone who would like to redefine himself looks batman as his real mark of identity. Batman being real / unreal becomes irrelevant here. So why then?
Ilayaraja once said people like his music because - already they have that music within them (called it as microrhythm)..
Every human craves for evolution (and that definition of evolution keeps changing) and it looks a casual human instinct that we keep searching outside to find an evolved person. It so happens that in that random search we get to meet heros/gods - who exactly match our microrhythm and if that random match becomes perfect - we have a boon! else its a bane!! Probably its like an arranged marriage i can say?!
You see sir! It really sucks to play violin - very tough to practice a little song. I dont like playing violin at all. But I want to be a violinist. People want a child for them but they dont want labor pain.
On evaluating a hero/god, as long as we shift our focus from "result orientation" to "process orientation" - we might not be able to judge our own faith.
My cousin still believes that if he watches a cricket match played by India, then India will not win that game. Believing in something unreal is not wrong as long as the mere concept of "belief" in itself would make achieve things.
If we start measuring everything in abstract reality, then we may stand still.
Batman was just an image used for representation purposes. (though it is true that the only Superhero I like is Batman). It is from an upcoming movie where Batman reportedly brands "Superman" as False God (Batman vs. Superman). Thought I'd use the pic. Thats about it.
As to character definition, all that I wanted to convey was two things (probably lost in my rant) -
a. Blind Hero Worshiping isn't good. We should be open to acknowledge flaws in our heroes, and not go about defending them. Refusal to acknowledge their flaws is plain stupidity. Likewise, blind worshiping can later result in exact opposite reaction. We tend to go farther away from the hero, because our admiration becomes a loathing and plain hatred for our heroes. All due to our own misconceptions.
b. Knowledge is different from Book. Books can be only referenced to gain knowledge. Same is the case with Hero. You can use them as a reference, to interpret your life experiences or gain some insights as to how to respond. We need to grow beyond the tools that we have. And that's all.
Cheers!
GSM
"On evaluating a hero/god, as long as we shift our focus from "result orientation" to "process orientation" - we might not be able to judge our own faith." best lines from Shriram sir's comments