Are you a hero?

     Life is hard. If you expect extended stretches of blue sky you're deluding yourself. Life is pretty much non-stop struggle, and you need a fair amount of anger to rise up and deal with it. At least I do. Sometimes life just seems stupid. Like, Why are we here? I mean, really, what's the point?
     But that's when you gotta dig in. Dig in and somehow get through the tough stretch and to something better. One of the hardest things for me is when I make mistakes. It's like I'm often saying, Where was the Divine Hand that was supposed to be guiding me when I made that mistake? And then, of course, I often think, There is no Divine Hand guiding you, dummie.
     I think living here on earth is heroic. Like it's said: 'we're born without our knowledge and we die against our will.' That's a pretty tough proposition to start with. Add all the trials and tribulations thrown in in between and you've got what often seems to be torture.
     Ah, but in not succumbing to the torture is where the heroism comes in. Anybody can get beat up by life, dragged under. But the ones who fight their way to the surface and scream: "NOT ME! I'M NOT GOING UNDER!" Those are the ones I admire. You've heard this one before but really, can you ever hear it enough. The poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


That's courage. That's heroism.