Heroes
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
-Ernest Hemingway
Understatement of the year in whatever year he said that. I’m not old, but I’m getting older and I’m hurting for heroes. Once you leave school, learning is no longer structured. You have to figure things out for yourself. You still want to learn because learning means growing and growing is the most enjoyable way to live, but it’s gotten a lot more difficult. I’ve discovered that I learn much more from other people than I do from textbooks. I also realized that these people - my heroes - come in three flavors, one of which is in short supply.
The first group of heroes I think of as “role models.” The role model group is composed of my peers who are smarter and more talented than me in one way or another. I try to spend as much time as possible with people like this and, on that account, I’ve been very lucky. I’m surrounded by tremendous role models in my family, among my friends, at Fictive Kin & at Studiomates. Their proximity makes them incredible sources of learning. I can see their behaviors and ideas in action on a daily basis or I can go deeper with them on a walk home or a fireside scotch conversation. As such, no other group has done more to shape me into the person I am today.
The second group of heroes leaves the idea of proximity behind altogether and enters the realm of imagination. It may seem weird, but I look up to a lot of the fictional characters (Holmes, Protagonist, d’Anconia, Dantes) and historical figures (Franklin, Edison, Lincoln, Hemingway) that I find in books and movies. These heroes tend to excel at some aspect of human ability or spirit that I would like to see more of in myself or in others. Because they are essentially imaginary (even the historical figures) these heroes are aspirational in a sort of unrealistic way. Sure I’d love the observational powers of Sherlock Holmes, but that’s not very likely. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn from his character to be more observant in my day to day life. It does mean there are limits to the impact these heroes can have on my life. You never fully feel like it’s possible to accomplish what they accomplish.
The final group of heroes is a marriage of the first two. I like to think of them as the big “H” heroes. Mostly because I don’t have a better name. These Heroes are people have done astounding, almost unbelievable, things and yet they aren’t imaginary. They’re real. You can see them. You share the air with them. They’re existence makes the world seem full of possibilities because they stand as an example of just how far one person can go. My first love is products, so for a while now my only version of this Hero has been Steve Jobs. This article, which I wrote when I first heard about the SJ biography being released today, was meant to be a thank you to him for setting that kind of example. I’ve had to edit things because he is dead. Overnight, he was transformed into a historical figure. There is no next chapter. As of today, I have no living Heroes. I’m pretty bummed about that.
