Your heroes aren't gods
Three Point Essay | Becoming less sad & less goofy
You know the Marvel Universe nerds? The ones who cried when Iron Man died? The chubby people who walk around Six Flags wearing a spiderman shirt (with Cheeto dust on it)? Ridiculous hero worship right?
But that’s you, too.
“No,” you say “and at-least my heroes are real people.”
Well yeah. But you seem to have forgotten that!
It’s natural to put your heroes on a pedestal. Whether it’s an athlete, author, musician, whoever. I do it all the time. Think—Three Point Summaries and Three Point Thursdays are filled with the words of my heroes every week. But it becomes problematic when you idolize someone so much that you stop recognizing that they are a flawed human.
By failing to account that they too have to brush their teeth, take showers, and excrete waste; that they too experience anxiety, pain, doubt, fear, and are wrong sometimes, and that they too will eventually die, your perception becomes twisted. Especially if it’s a hero you see on social media every day, you interpret them as this mythical figure of pure goodness. As an infallible intellect, happy, strong, and fulfilled at all moments.
Nope.
You also might compare yourself to them. The desire to become like your heroes provides powerful inspiration. But comparing yourself to anyone besides your past self (never mind to people who are older and more experienced and quite lucky) is impractical and unnecessary self-sabotage.
To summarize the point here: As Jason Pargin said “Your heroes aren’t gods, they’re just regular people who probably got good at one thing by neglecting literally everything else.” They’re excellent and admirable people. But they’re not divine beings. They’re human beings.
On another level, there's a dangerous social aspect to this type of thinking. It's a more subtle issue. It's what Matthew McConaughey calls being “too impressed.”
I call it being goofy.
There’s this girl I hung out with a few times who was drop-dead gorgeous. She was so painfully attractive, that when she would speak to me, I wouldn’t even hear what she was saying. A typical conversation would be her asking “So what have you been up to?” And I would reply “what?” She would repeat the question, and I would be like “you know, you’re the most fantastic looking human I’ve ever seen.”
Too impressed.
Even if you are impressed by someone, or something, or some place, you’re doing yourself a disservice by excessively showing it in a blatant way.
Take playing pick-up basketball. If someone dunks, and you react like you just saw Jesus Christ himself walking on water, I’ll become suspicious. I’ll begin to think you’ve never played with good athletes, if one dunk was so impressive to you.
It’s like walking into a prominent hotel and fawning over everything, with gaping wide eyes, while your mouth is hanging open. You’re sending the signal that you’re out of your league. Imagine if you walked in like you owned the place instead. Even if your insides are screaming “oh my goodness I can’t believe this is happening” there’s nothing to be gained by showing it in an exorbitant manner. You don’t have to be dishonest to do this—a simple change in how you view and carry yourself will do the trick.
To summarize the point here: act like you’ve been there.
The nuance here is to not be too cool for everything. Being too cool for everything—never expressing amazement or gratitude at anyone or anything—is, for lack of a better term, whack.
Of course, this is all easier written than done.
But the more important matter, anyways, is who are your heroes, and why? What type of people and places impress you, and why? These basic questions send you down a rabbit hole that’s deeper and more significant than you think.