I want to be the ultimate super villain, but I don't want to fight heroes, nope that's small potatoes. I want something much bigger, I want to remove the whole hero archetype from people's minds. Now why would I want to do that, aren't heroes a good thing? Well, let's look at the big picture...
Consider this: religions and governments, two of the most oppressive societal control structures there are, promote hero worship. Same with Hollywood and the mass media, they love to promote this idea that a hero will come to fix everything for you. It's the central theme of thousands of movies, and the basic story goes all the way back to our most ancient mythology.
All these institutions that have the most to lose from people being set free, all these institutions that are restricting people's freedoms, are the ones promoting this idea that a hero is coming to save you. Sound a little suspicious? Any day now Jesus is supposed to come back and fix all our problems, so instead of people actually focusing upon collectively fixing their problems, they wait and hope and wait and hope and wait and hope and wait... thousands of years of this behavior.
Remember when Obama was going to fix the U.S.? He was surely the hero we were waiting for, he was going to clean up the federal government and steer America in a new direction! When he was elected president, there were celebrations around the world, finally things were changing for the better! What a joke that turned out to be... the same decades-old policies continued anyway. In all but the most hopeful, Obama quickly went from being a hero to representing the very things he had promised to change. Obama did do Americans a few favors though, he helped unite the country in a mutual dislike of the federal government, and helped to prove the systematic corruption goes far beyond the left/right dualism.
Just to demonstrate exactly how screwed up our obsession with heroes can get, remember that Hitler was worshiped as a hero, at least up until World War 2. This obsession with Hitler as a heroic figure wasn't just limited to Germany either, and a few disturbed individuals still worship him as a hero. If the man widely regarded as one of history's most evil people was also one of the most popular "heroes" of the past century, what does it even mean to be a hero?
A hero has to be larger than life, and because of this, the image of the hero is never truly represents the actual person. The hero is our societal image of perfection, and often the individual's highest dream of what they could be themselves, but projected onto another person. People live vicariously through their heroes, the hero is the person they're afraid to be. The hero inspires the individual to go beyond their limits, which likely seems like a good thing to you, but it's actually part of the control structure. Where we could learn to find inspiration within, we're taught to find it outside, which creates an unhealthy dependency on role-models and heroes. It's because most people come from a place of almost totally dysfunctional behavior, that something almost functional seems like a great thing.
The current power structure loves heroes, they aren't really a threat. When change depends upon a single person, it's easy to manipulate that person, to buy them off, to chase them away, to silence them, and when those options fail, to kill that person. Let the masses believe these people are going to bring change, it keeps them hopeful and focused upon outside solutions. When people began to idolize and worship Jesus, it just made things all the more easy for a very corrupt institution to take over and control his image.
No hero is coming to save you, though you could be the hero that saves yourself. This whole idea of an outside person coming to fix you is just laziness, it's an excuse to live in fear and suffering. Someone else is supposed to come along and lift you out of that. Well, where are they? See how the whole paradigm of heroes and saviors can be incredibly disempowering? I'm not saying all of this because I think people are weak and stupid, quite the opposite, I say it because I know people have a strength within them beyond their wildest dreams.
The most blasphemous thing you can do is live a dull, dispassionate life. God, Source, The All That Is, chose you to be Alive! HOLY SHIT! If you don't celebrate your own Life, it's like saying God made a mistake. Was God stupid for choosing you, or are you stupid if you don't choose yourself? Dumb humans create dumb gods, Brilliant Humans shine with God's own Brilliance, because there's no separation between the "two". Why continue to be the damsel in distress when you could be the hero of your own story?
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Comments
Many heroes Among Us....
Although I agree with the basic premise that you presented,
I just want to add this. I have some personal heroes of sorts. Many of them.
As a lifetime seeker of truth, I, like many of Us, had to kind of hack Our way through the jungle of ignorance. It seems like every step of the way, the journey was fraught.with obstacles. So in order to get over, around or through that object (metaphorically speaking of course), I sought out "heroes" of sorts to help me. All I had was what I had been indoctrinated with from my birth, and plenty of fears that went along with it. I knew and felt that info not right and so I had to move on or shrivel into nothingness.
Fortunately heroes were there to help. They were called religions, books, records, conversations and my favorite one the Internet. I drew power from them as I listened and read. My soul evolved into knowing,that I was not what I was labeled as by my peers. They helped me change into a whole new being and I am forever grateful for meeting them.
This very article that you wrote was heroic to me for it further explained and clarified the truth I had already adopted.
I don't expect a hero to save the world. It is way to far gone. I expect a new world to rise up however, in the form of the Collective of Humanity in Unison and Understanding. This will be accomplished through many elements well in play already.
I feel like I am preaching to the choir here because I've "known" you long enough Will, to know that you are well aware of this. I just wanted to interject this little added view point from my perspective.
Peace brother,
ellion
Love Is All