Heroes

The recent scandal involving a famous Olympian runner in South Africa raises the specter of O.J. Simpson's fall from grace in the 1990s. Heroes are a creation of the mind of the hero-worshipper.

 

Lance Armstrong made a very lucrative business out of being a hero. He duped cancer survivors into worshipping him as a superhuman victor over testicular cancer. The press colluded. Medical professionals colluded. Little was said about the common occurrence of testicular cancer and its high cure rate. In other words, Armstrong was special only in the sense that he became a poster boy and parlayed his cycling career into a brand with the help of illegal drugs and ad agencies.

 

President Obama is seen by many as a hero. While I admire him for his educational achievements, his articulate manner and his patience with those who test him unrelentingly, I do not see him as superhuman. I don't even see him as a particularly exceptional politician in light of his inability to accomplish much in his first administration, despite an early Democrat majority in Congress.

 

We are in an age when a Pope has admitted his fallibility by resigning what was once thought to be a divine ordination by the Catholic God as Christ's representative on Earth. Hallelujah! Let this be a cautionary tale for future generations who may turn to one human being for infallible opinions.

 

As a secular humanist, I see heroism in the weakest and weakness in the strongest. This is the skepticism of my humanism. It comes from my decades as a registered nurse. I have bathed the bodies of the rich, the famous and the indigent. I am here to attest to the equality of all those people as human beings in a mortal life with chance, aging, sickness and eventual death.

 

My advice is this: If you need a hero, be one to yourself in your own life based on your own good deeds for yourself, for humanity and for the planet.