We had this chat in an earlier posting and I am reminded of it from today’s news. The Olympics are over and those who are or were our abbreviated heroes have faded into the background. Some of us are still experiencing a mix of highs and lows, where the medals they won were also considered our medals…for some reason. Perhaps the events are fading from memory because there were also losers and to mention the winners means we mention the losers and then we feel we need to provide a well-intentioned explanation as to why we don’t have their medals to display.
To say it another way and include our own lives, notice that every project has a built-in explanation for it not going as well as we had hoped.
In general it is interesting to see who we look to as a hero. We may notice something in them, thus recognize something in ourselves that gives us a clue to remembering our deeper self. What they do, perhaps I have the same inclination? That’s a worthwhile exercise. But we cheer our sports heroes like we ourselves are on the field of play. They win = we win. Strange isn’t it? Well, not so strange when we recollect that we have been taught that we must ‘have’ or ‘possess’ something of extrinsic value to prove our self-worth. We don’t think ourselves to be intrinsically worthy, so we borrow stuff from someone else. We look good if we chose them to win.
As a writer, I am in the process of discovering my unique writing voice. Suffice it to say that this blog is one way to get me there, and I have the sense that I have a ways to go. I read from authors I wish to emulate. They are my writing heroes for now. It is clear to me that I cannot live in the shadow of my favorite authors. The parts of them I wish to emulate might lead me to something in them that I disapprove of and then what?
Placing them on a pedestal must inevitably lead to disappointment. It is not their fault. Maybe it’s not even fair to them. After all, they are trying to be infallible (in my mind) according to my standards and not their own. What matters is that we see what resonates and then let them go on with their own lives while I live a newly discovered life of my own. Here is the thing about that…things resonate because we already possess them within ourselves and have forgotten. What matters is that we remember.
Rich