The Hero in Us All

If a baseball player wins game seven of the world series by hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth, is he a hero? If a woman runs into a burning home to save her neighbor's children, is she? If they are her children, is it heroism or duty?  If I grab a child when he is about to step in front of a passing car am I acting heroically? Carefully crafting a precise definition is less useful than understanding the purposes of our quest to identify and deify the heroes among us.

Why do we need to find heroes, and why do some wish to be one? The process is essentially identification. We call up the best parts of ourselves when we identify a heroic deed, thereby exercising what some psychologists say are innate parts of us humans: empathy and altruism. When we call someone a hero, we are seeing ourselves. How common it is to imagine how we might respond in that same circumstance, how we too might save that little child, how we could endure terrible times and odds to prevail against them. We fantasize about such things because we need to remind ourselves of our truest potentials. Or is it something else?

If I was a hero, would I know it? Probably not. I am reminded of how often someone who gets called a hero says, "I really don't think what I did was anything special," or, "I was doing what anybody would do." There is something to this. Is selflessness required for heroism to be displayed? Must we be risking our own safety to help another? Maybe when acting heroically we are blinded forever to its specialness, as if we enter a world of hyper-connection to humanity: accepting such a label disconnects us from the collective unconscious.

Would I want such a designation? No, never. Because that would mean that I have, at the very least, assigned self-importance to my behavior; at worst become narcissistic. I have been told by more than one person that because I have fought and mostly prevailed in my "struggle" with Type 1 diabetes for 47 years, I am a hero. No I'm not, and not even close to that. There is no selflessness in my behaviors; quite the contrary. After all, what is the alternative to my self-care, death? In any activities to ensure one's own survival, heroic deeds cannot be done.

What happens to someone when they are ascribed that mythical label? I think there's a book in this question, or at least a study or two. There's already a movie, not surprisingly called "Hero." Dustin Hoffman was the "real" hero, and someone else takes credit for his deeds. It depicts the dynamic of selflessness and narcissism at work in both characters.

I think we need to identify heroic acts, but not over idealize the individuals who perform them. I tend to get disappointed when I do that.