Becoming a Hero

Not everyone is a hero. There are people who are great that aren't heroic. There are people who are good that aren't heroic. Heroism requires a certain adminxture of of attributes. They are certainty, moral direction, power, and they occur when the world has a problem.

If you are not decisive, you are not a hero. Plenty of people want good things to happen. That makes you nice. Heroism, on the other hand, requires you to act. Wanting or wishing that everything works out in the end just keeps a person from being a bastard. Heros will things into being, and the critical component is their deeds.

Heroes are more than just determined. They are also morally sensitive. Just being determined makes you more likely to succeed. Being determined without sensitivity makes you likely to be an ass, and an evil and destructive ass at that. Heroism is by its very essence an evocation of moral rightness, and must therefore be as sensitive to its moral orientation as it is determined to seek its ends.

Heroes also have power. Be it traditional influence over events or non-traditional potency in inspiration and emotional leadership, heroes stand apart from others because they effect change. Without power, a good person is a well meaning bystander. This is not to say that moral goodness requires power, but it is to say that if a person is to change the world, they must actually have the means to change it.

And finally, heroes only occur when they are needed. When there is a fracture in the world, an exigence, a calling. Heroes are those people who answer the needs of the time and the place in which they find themselves.

It is the relativly simply aim of this book to convince you that you are on the verge of heroism. If you get your heart in the right place you will have certainty. If you get your head out of your ass you can have moral direction. You already have power, though it is likely you have learned to ignore this fact. And finally, there are certainly things that need to be done here and now, problems that are asking to be solved that have yet to be faced down.

In short, this book will make you a hero.