We Can Be Heroes

It's been a while.

Things are a bit weird and frustrating. The baseline for living is a constant drone of fear, frustration and  uncertainty.

Normally loathe inspiration porn, but some times call for some St. Crispin's Day or "We cancel the apocalypse" moment. I loathe the need to "brand" things to reach people, but in my better moments, I realize that if the other side isn't making effort to understand and bridge, you still do it, despite their history of crapping on goodwill while demanding you show it to them.

So this is my rallying speech.

We Are the Heroes Now

People like stories. And we really like heroes. You hear it all around us every day, especially when there’s a crisis. “They are heroes.” “We salute our heroes!” and so on. We also often hear people say ‘People are the heroes in their own story.”

We a show of appreciating sacrifice. Military service people are praised and thanked for their service. When they don’t return home, it is said they made The Ultimate Sacrifice. We marvel at what predecessors went through with sacrifices made during the Great Depression or World War II.

We have a global crisis going on right now with Covid-19. We are all being asked to make sacrifices, not even The Ultimate Sacrifice. We are simply being asked to sacrifice our lifestyles for a while. We sacrificing comfort, control, and whatever sense we thought we had of what was coming next.

We don’t know for how long, but then again, neither did our predecessors. We speak of the people who lived through those times with reverence and awe. We wonder how they got through it. We doubt that we could. They could. They did. And we can, too. We’re doing it right now, but when we’re living in it, it’s more difficult to see.

Protecting others - acting on behalf of others - is one thing heroes do. We can’t see a virus with the naked eye. We cannot predict who will contract it. We cannot see who is carrying it. We cannot predict who will die from it. We can predict who is more susceptible to it. By distancing ourselves, by keeping public places unsaturated, we can help protect those less able to fight the virus. Yet, even the strong and less susceptible among us can be laid low or killed by it.

In freely roaming we can be a means to bring its harm to others. That’s how diseases work. And this one hides for up to two weeks before symptoms show - if they do at all. We may know or are inspired by cancer survivors and transplant recipients, but their immune systems cannot handle the load. We are a line of defense for those who have already survived something we may never experience. If we fail, we fail them - people who have things to do and lives to live, just like you do.

Once this passes - and it will pass, will we and the people yet to come see how we stuck with it - as with the Great Depression and WWII? Will they see how we all stuck together, how we held one another up even when we stumbled? Will they see how we set aside our individual wants or habits for the benefit of everyone? Will they see how we sacrificed a bit of comfort for a future of survival for as many as possible? Or will they see people who failed to hold the line and prized few over many? Will they see how we prized money and profit over life? Will they see how we prized prejudice over equity?

We love having heroes. And now we get to be heroes. No one said it was going to be easy. We know being a hero doesn’t pay in material goods. But pride, stories, inspiration, honor, gratitude - these are what comes from being a hero. We will be the ones asked about this time and we will have stories to tell. What stories do we want to have that we can tell? Fear is inevitable. Courage is continuing even though we are afraid.

This is a big story - The Human Story  - and we all can be heroes in this latest chapter. 

But not if we back out. It’s time to step up. Be persistent. Help each other. Hold the line.

We’re all being called now.

Be heroes.