Save the cheerleader, save the world

Everyone wants to be a hero; we all want to save the day. You fantasize about it after every action movie you watch. Plastering your face upon the protagonist in one of the over sensationalized situations, and then mimicking the actions of the flavor-of-the-moment actor whom happens to be playing the role.

Life isn’t a movie; the fictional characters of the screen are simply that, fiction, along with their actions. They are an extreme, risking everything selflessly within outlandish circumstances. They have become the image of the hero, monopolizing the definition. But the word hero encompasses so much more.

Heroes come in all shapes and forms; they are a son, a daughter, a stranger. They are everyday people just like you and me, except when they were put in a situation they went above and beyond.

People are heroes for various different reasons, many of which are not as glorified as Hollywood would portray them, (eg: defusing a bomb underwater whilst surrounded by man eating sharks and a clown who won’t stop bouncing from side to side (its in the next Spiderman I swear :p)). And just because their actions aren’t as showy doesn’t diminish their heroic status.

Sometimes heroes are not seen for what they truly are, special, unique. Sometimes standing out of the crowd isn’t seen, at the time, as heroic simply because of society’s conformist mentality; to step away from the group, to question the unquestioned.

So this is a message to the unsung everyday heroes of the world, even if recognition or gratitude isn’t shown, thank you. Thank you for doing what we could not, for what needed to be done.

A knight does not always wear armor.

Till next we meet,
Paul