I first thought your image was inspired by the pointillist and impressionist painters around the late nineteenth/early twentieth century cusp! Quite pleasing regardless of what I’m reminded of...
I wonder, is there a minimum number of souls in one’s sphere of influence to qualify as a hero? Or a magnitude of effect? (During your role in the classroom, would aid rendered to the kiddos - helping with removing a backpack, tying up a shoelace or ponytail ribbon, comforting a shy child on the first day - qualify as being a hero? And in whose eyes must one qualify?)
Raised in a household with an over abundance of bon mots, one was “The best servant does his work unseen.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) Yet I believe a certain amount of visibility and concurrence among the observers is requisite for one to be labeled “hero.”
The thought crossed my mind that Mother Teresa would never have wanted to be Johnny Carson’s guest on the Tonight Show. Oops! She was. And her reply, to Johnny asking if the Nobel Peace Prize and the money may have gone to her head, was exactly what one might expect.
An unwilling hero perhaps as she likened herself to the little donkey Jesus rode astride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday!
Self promotion then doesn’t always trump a self effacing posture for being regarded as a hero...
Thanks for today’s thought provoking topic, haiku and all!
This has been a solid week of exploring language. Yesterday as part of a prompt conversation the question was asked, "Vocabulary--enabler or barrier to communication?"
Both? Yes, and? Hero means something slightly different to every ear that hears the word?
Well...you might have heard me say a time or two...”Everything can be this; everything can be that.” ~Chang Tsu
The hero concept is one I continue to go back and forth on...at this very moment I am wondering if there is difference between “hero who identifies with the label” and “human who has done a heroic thing”?
The real Captain Winters speaks to this in the Band of Brothers interviews...he told his grandchild he was not a hero, but he served with a company of heroes. Lee Thayer said a leader does not create change, he midwifes change through those who chose to follow.
When I wrote BFN this morning I had my old self in my mind’s eye...so eager to follow somebody I thought heroic—who might save me.
Turns out, the work I’ve done/am doing to save myself is what’s made my life the most meaningful. ;)
I first thought your image was inspired by the pointillist and impressionist painters around the late nineteenth/early twentieth century cusp! Quite pleasing regardless of what I’m reminded of...
I wonder, is there a minimum number of souls in one’s sphere of influence to qualify as a hero? Or a magnitude of effect? (During your role in the classroom, would aid rendered to the kiddos - helping with removing a backpack, tying up a shoelace or ponytail ribbon, comforting a shy child on the first day - qualify as being a hero? And in whose eyes must one qualify?)
Raised in a household with an over abundance of bon mots, one was “The best servant does his work unseen.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) Yet I believe a certain amount of visibility and concurrence among the observers is requisite for one to be labeled “hero.”
The thought crossed my mind that Mother Teresa would never have wanted to be Johnny Carson’s guest on the Tonight Show. Oops! She was. And her reply, to Johnny asking if the Nobel Peace Prize and the money may have gone to her head, was exactly what one might expect.
An unwilling hero perhaps as she likened herself to the little donkey Jesus rode astride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday!
Self promotion then doesn’t always trump a self effacing posture for being regarded as a hero...
Thanks for today’s thought provoking topic, haiku and all!
Hi Gary,
This has been a solid week of exploring language. Yesterday as part of a prompt conversation the question was asked, "Vocabulary--enabler or barrier to communication?"
Both? Yes, and? Hero means something slightly different to every ear that hears the word?
Well...you might have heard me say a time or two...”Everything can be this; everything can be that.” ~Chang Tsu
The hero concept is one I continue to go back and forth on...at this very moment I am wondering if there is difference between “hero who identifies with the label” and “human who has done a heroic thing”?
The real Captain Winters speaks to this in the Band of Brothers interviews...he told his grandchild he was not a hero, but he served with a company of heroes. Lee Thayer said a leader does not create change, he midwifes change through those who chose to follow.
When I wrote BFN this morning I had my old self in my mind’s eye...so eager to follow somebody I thought heroic—who might save me.
Turns out, the work I’ve done/am doing to save myself is what’s made my life the most meaningful. ;)