Neanderpundit

Kim has a great post about the lack of visible heroism in our society.

He’s dead nuts on, too. We have no Lindbergs, we have no DiMaggios, no Sultan of Swat.

Publicly, anyway.

I believe those people are there- because I know a lot of them. I carried my uncle Calvin to a hole in the ground a mere few years ago. Calvin did the same thing a hundred thousand other soldiers did, so he wasn’t unusual, but he was damned sure a hero.

Heroism isn’t always about grand gestures and huge accomplisments. Heroism isn’t always writ large.
Sometimes heroism is just about doing the million little things that need to be done. Public attention is focused on the flashy and grand, the obvious acts of heroism.

More heroic, in my mind, are the steadfast. The people who do what they do, no matter how much drudgery is involved, every day. The people who keep on fighting the good fight in simple ways that nobody notices.

It’s not unusual to be brave and courageous when your adrenaline is pumping. If you volunteer at a hospital, and your gig involves cleaning bedpans all day, every day, tell me it isn’t more heroic to get up in the morning, every day for thirty years, knowing what you have to do, and doing it anyway.

That strength, the strength to keep on when keeping on is almost impossible, getting up and doing the same thing every day, is the strength I find to be most heroic, impresses me the most.

THere is another hero, that is equally overlooked, and most often maligned. The hero of ideas. The man who stands for morality and decency and freedom, and does everything he can to let other people hear his message, even if the tallest platform he can find is an upturned bucket.

You, Kim, are a hero. We need more like you.

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