Thursday, September 04, 2008 Tacio: In search of today's heroes By Henrylito D. Tacio Regarding Henry
WHEN I was still a kid, my heroes were my favorite comics and TV characters like Spiderman (before Toby Macguire made him popular), Superman (battling against Lex Luthor), Batman and Robin (fighting nemesis here and there), Lastikman (our very own elastic person), Captain Barbel (from being thin to super hero), and Six Million Dollar Man (who came back to life thanks to science) -- to name a few.
When I started attending church, my heroes became Moses (whom I cannot forget bringing the Ten Commandments), Abraham (who tried to offer his only son Isaac), Jacob (and that ladder dream), Joseph (who interpreted dreams), Joshua (who spied out the land of Canaan), Gideon (who conquered a huge army with only three hundred men), Daniel (in the lion's den), David (the boy who defeated Goliath), Solomon (the wisest man who ever lived), Samson (whose love for Delilah led to his death), and Jesus Christ (the Saviour of mankind).
Recently, an American magazine featured an article decrying the fact that there are no real heroes for today. The story mentioned a survey of young people who were asked who their heroes were. Their answers primarily included rock stars, sport heroes, and movie personalities. A few political activists were named. But no scientists or educators were included in the list. Neither did the name of Billy Graham nor Mother Teresa make the roster.
"If youth is the period of hero-worship, so also is it true that hero-worship, more than anything else, perhaps, gives one the sense of youth," commented American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley. "To admire, to expand one's self, to forget the rut, to have a sense of newness and life and hope, is to feel young at any time of life."
"Pure hero-worship is healthy," reminds Donn Platt. "It stimulates the young to deeds of heroism, stirs the old to unselfish efforts, and gives the masses models of mankind that tend to lift humanity above the commonplace meanness of ordinary life." Benjamin Disraeli advised, "Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes."
Whether you are a man, a woman, or a little kid, you can be a hero. "A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician," says American feminist critic Andrea Dworkin.
"A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is 'sensitive;' or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture-in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers."
"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom," says singer Bob Dylan. "A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer," noted Ralph Waldo Emerson. But definitely, to quote the words of John Barth, "Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story."
Are there no heroes in our midst today? There are many of them but they have not been recognized. They are ordinary people and so no one pays attention to them. This must be the reason why the internationally circulated 'Reader's Digest' has been featuring these people in its 'Everyday Heroes' section.
One such person is Peter Zhuo, who could barely hold a pencil properly while growing up in Singapore. Although he has cerebral palsy, it didn't deter him from drawing using pencil with one stroke at a time. Last year, he took on the challenge of drawing caricatures for 24 hours non-stop in order to raise money for Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that builds homes for the less fortunate.
Peter completed 952 sketches during the time. The event reportedly raised $6000 through donations and his accomplishment earned him a mention in the Singapore Book of Records.
"I want children to know that you can achieve anything you put your heart into," says Peter who earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for drawing the world's largest caricature.
