my own definition of a hero:
"DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS A MAN...
"DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS A MAN...
MUST GO WHO IS NOT HIMSELF MEAN, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero. He is everything. He must be a complete man, and yet and unusual man. A man of of honor. The best man in this world and a good enough man for any world." Raymond Chandler, author of crime stories and novels, wrote these words as his definition of a hero.
When I think of a hero, it would be someone with swaggering energy, a person to whom all things seem possible, one filled with intellectual depth, a splendid sense-of humor; who could walk down the rain-soaked avenue of some sleazy hamlet, beneath all glitter and neon and dangerous shadows with a confident strut and the heart of an artist; one who sees all citizens as human and when he spots a down-and-0uter on a corner, wonders how that person got to be who they have now become, and think that there must be a story here - because that person was once only 5 years-old; a person who at one time held the gaudiest of dreams and found life to be full of vicious betrayals. On some late night, I can picture him standing in some grainy doorway, peering out at his lurid city, and wanting to be nowhere else other than where he is. And, of course, he would also believe that in some dark way all could be redeemed by love.
He would love other things too: all forms of music, nightclub comics, cheap vaudeville jokes, a favorite baseball team; good food and Fred Astaire and air hockey and children; as well as boxing and football and hot-dogs with mustard; along with brandy and good wine and margaritas and animals. Simply put, he wants to be the best at what he does. In that romantic quest, he drives himself hard by studying and reading good literature and listening to fine jazz; and builds his confidence with both humor and reflection. He would also be horrified at the scale and stupidly brutal way that so many American men treated women and the morally corrosive realities of our current political system.
After family and friends and lovers, he would admire writers more than anyone else, and be a careful, intelligent reader. He would have read E.L. Doctrow and Peter Mass and Bud Schulberg and Ernest Hemingway; have an extraordinary good ear for listening to others, and not be lukewarm about anything that life has to offer. He would respond to amazing moments in his own life in the way an audience might, with genuine appreciation and with the gift of fine laughter.
He would also be a man who, when he met someone for the first time, he would know everything about you. He had done his research, he would know who you were, what you had accomplished, and then he would tell you that you best work lies ahead, urge you to do more, inform you that you were far more capable than you thought you were, and continue to build your confidence by making you feel that your own progress forward was his as well; that every time out of the chute, you would only need to ask, and he would be there in your corner.
But above all else, he would also be a man who took to heart a quote from the Irish statesman, Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
In other words, he would be me...
...If I only had the courage to become him...
When I think of a hero, it would be someone with swaggering energy, a person to whom all things seem possible, one filled with intellectual depth, a splendid sense-of humor; who could walk down the rain-soaked avenue of some sleazy hamlet, beneath all glitter and neon and dangerous shadows with a confident strut and the heart of an artist; one who sees all citizens as human and when he spots a down-and-0uter on a corner, wonders how that person got to be who they have now become, and think that there must be a story here - because that person was once only 5 years-old; a person who at one time held the gaudiest of dreams and found life to be full of vicious betrayals. On some late night, I can picture him standing in some grainy doorway, peering out at his lurid city, and wanting to be nowhere else other than where he is. And, of course, he would also believe that in some dark way all could be redeemed by love.
He would love other things too: all forms of music, nightclub comics, cheap vaudeville jokes, a favorite baseball team; good food and Fred Astaire and air hockey and children; as well as boxing and football and hot-dogs with mustard; along with brandy and good wine and margaritas and animals. Simply put, he wants to be the best at what he does. In that romantic quest, he drives himself hard by studying and reading good literature and listening to fine jazz; and builds his confidence with both humor and reflection. He would also be horrified at the scale and stupidly brutal way that so many American men treated women and the morally corrosive realities of our current political system.
After family and friends and lovers, he would admire writers more than anyone else, and be a careful, intelligent reader. He would have read E.L. Doctrow and Peter Mass and Bud Schulberg and Ernest Hemingway; have an extraordinary good ear for listening to others, and not be lukewarm about anything that life has to offer. He would respond to amazing moments in his own life in the way an audience might, with genuine appreciation and with the gift of fine laughter.
He would also be a man who, when he met someone for the first time, he would know everything about you. He had done his research, he would know who you were, what you had accomplished, and then he would tell you that you best work lies ahead, urge you to do more, inform you that you were far more capable than you thought you were, and continue to build your confidence by making you feel that your own progress forward was his as well; that every time out of the chute, you would only need to ask, and he would be there in your corner.
But above all else, he would also be a man who took to heart a quote from the Irish statesman, Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
In other words, he would be me...
...If I only had the courage to become him...
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