Heroes who Inspire Greatness

As I've grown as a reader, I've learned there are quite a few different types of heroes. I've written about this before, but I think it bears repeating. Audiences deserve great heroes. There is a current fad where heroes are terribly flawed and brooding shadows who only sometimes do great things. I don't think there's anything wrong with that (I absolutely love the Frank Miller Batman), though I long to see a modern Ajax or Prometheus. Heroes with principles and the courage to stand up for them.

The question is what happens when audiences are challenged and inspired by great heroes? I believe that people rise to the standards set around them. If every hero is moody, gloomy, flawed, and crummy then why would anyone want to be near them? What I personally want is to see is a tragic hero become a glorious hero! What's so wrong with putting someone on a pedestal and saying, "I want to be like them."

Heroes are role models who are bigger than life. They do impossible things, over and over and over again. I think that's why sports stars and movie stars are so popular as heroes. They are hugely advertised, do incredible things physically, and radiate star power. But, heroes don't need to be such icons of culture. What about firemen who rescue people from burning houses? Or teachers who encourage young minds to higher and better ideals? Not every hero is on the cover of Time magazine. Look around you, I'll bet you know some already.

- M

Martial arts, fighting styles, and basic military actions

I love martial arts. When I was a teenager, I learned Taekwondo and achieved my black belt in it. I've studied many different styles of combat. I've also studied military tactics, famous battles, and so on. I've come to the conclusion that I much prefer story battles to real ones. The reason is simple: real war is messy, gory, and hopeless. In stories, heroes get to be invulnerable, invincible, and mighty. Real life just isn't that way.

But, having learned so much about fighting, it's hard not to notice just how often movies, books, and other stories, get it fantastically wrong. People can't take a 2x4 to the forehead and jump up to fight like nothing happened, or get stomped in the chest without injury. I suppose that a bit of realism doesn't hurt things, and it helps put the hero into actual danger (especially since we all know the heroes are not actually in danger, since without them there's no story).

When it comes down to the final analysis, though, what matters is that the action is entertaining enough for the audience to forget about what's true or not and get involved in the scenes. When the audience gets invested there can be no wrong. Look at Bruce Lee. He was fast, amazingly precise, and everyone points to him as the greatest martial artist ever. Why? Because the guy was a phenomenal presence on screen. Whatever skills he had in combat paled to nothing in comparison to his ability to make people want to see him fight. That's amazing.

- M

Holidays, vacations, and general getting away from it all

We just celebrated Labor Day (a national holiday here in the good 'ole USA) and it got me thinking about times we spend getting away from it all. In Britain they call vacations "holidays" and I'm sure there are many other phrases we use to basically say we are taking time off from our normal lives. Sometimes we travel, other times we simply stay home and do nothing.

I tend toward staying home, but I long for a time when I can take our family to Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Sydney, and so many other places. I'd love to provide those experiences to my children. Getting a sense of the world is part of life, and we miss out by not taking advantage of the opportunities we find. Taking time away grants that chance.

I think the best piece of advice I've ever heard is this: Work hard, and play hard. Whatever you do, do it with gusto. Don't hold back. Even if you are playing, do it with every fiber of your being! When you live that way, you find quickly that there are some things just not worth doing and others that you didn't care about before that you suddenly are passionate about. We humans are weird like that--we never know what we truly want.

So, enjoy whatever holiday or vacations you have coming!

- M

Petting bumblebees and other cases of facing your fears

Years ago my son had a fear of bees. We tried all sorts of ways to help him past it, but nothing worked. One day I was leaving the house and noticed a pair of bumblebees enjoying the flowers around our mailbox. I knew bumblebees were pretty calm critters, so I reached out and gently stroked the back of one of them. The bumblebee didn't mind at all. So, I went and got my son and showed him how to carefully pet a bumblebee.

The amazing thing was, he did. It was a lightning stroke moment. And, completely successful! My son hasn't feared bees since. And, it demonstrated the principle of facing your fears head on. We all need that lesson, and I'm sure we need it more than just once. I never expected a bumblebee to provide that point.

Fears are universal throughout the human race, and tons of stories take advantage of that fact. We fear what we don't understand, or what we don't see, or anything stronger than we are. And when there isn't anything to fear, we make something up and fear that.

As Bob Newhart said in a terrifically funny skit, "Stop it!"

- M

Epicness, what is it really? And, why do words change meaning?

We are living through a trend of epic stuff lately. Epic movies, epic music, epic stories, epic lives. But, what is it really? The dictionary puts it down as: heroic, majestic, impressive, spectacular, or unusual size or extent. Not much help for the modern trend. I'd say that the way it's used these days is to describe anything with bombast, aplomb, or just hyped up. Epic has turned into slang for anything that people really like.

Our English language adapts, changes, and evolves with use. I've shed many tears over words that have terrific meanings but have either fallen from common use, or changed far beyond their original meanings. It's a shame, but I do understand why it happens. Still, a word like "epic" loosing its focus and becoming a synonym for "like" makes me sad. Words have more than meaning, they have flavor and subtlety that makes them special. Imagine the word "tender" becoming another word for "good"? However, the language continues growing and words come about to fill the gaps.

One thing that will help in this area is for people to improve their vocabularies. The average adult has a woefully small vocabulary. It's sad, truly sad, that adults don't pick up dictionaries every now and again and look up a better word. We teach our children to read, use the language properly, and tell them to use proper grammar. When was the last time we did the same? Does learning stop at adulthood? It shouldn't.

So, get out there and learn a new word!

- M

Your One Final Meal

 

If, for whatever reason, you were forced to pick your final meal... what would it be? I have no idea how someone could decide. Would you pick a ham and cheese sandwich? Or McDonalds? I really doubt it. Probably the finer things may pop to mind, like a nice t-bone steak, or some caviar, or sparkling grape juice. Things you haven't tried before, were too poor to try, or simply never gave in to the temptation to try.

The other tactic would be to order whatever your favorite meal actually is, like steak and potatoes, or a nice charbroiled chicken, and maybe a nice pie. I like pie. Chocolate silk pie. Yummy. I think I'd choose Spaghetti Pie. Yup, that really is a meal, check it out.

I find it really interesting that despite our human need for food, and so many recipes created and passed on, that our stories have very little to say about what the characters within them eat. I think it's probably mainly because unless you're the one eating, it doesn't really have much of interest. I've read plenty of books that describe all sorts of meals, and I've generally found it boring. At times it's neat, such as when people are surviving on grubs and worms (ick) because I have no idea how to actually live that way and so it's interesting.

So, if you were forced to pick, what would it be? Maybe the better question is why?

- M

Travelling to Other Worlds

Exploration is part of our DNA. When we look through our telescopes, we can only imagine the worlds spinning around other stars. What are they like? What would it be like to be there? Could we even get there? And how different would we be if we lived there?

Science fiction has tackled this issue for a long time, and there isn't any shortage of such stories. In fact, many of my best hours of reading has been striding through the sands of another world (John Carter of Mars springs immediately to mind). Having a story set on another world lends an air of credibility to the whole thing, in a different way than fantasy because fantasy is entirely made up while science fiction at least tries to come up with reasons and wherefores and whyfores--though that does tend to make the story about the setting and not the characters.

I'm especially fascinated by the recent mission to a comet shaped like a barbell. It's incredible to see the pictures sent back, and wonder how such an object came to be. There is so much we don't understand about our universe, and it seems that the more we learn the more questions we have. I hope it never ends, because I like to learn and want to continue learning forever.

Our desire to visit other worlds sparked one of the most famous lines in recent storytelling, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

- M