We are the heroes of our own journey through life. That’s true whether or not we are basically good. No matter what kind of actions they took, Hitler, Putin, Jack the Ripper, or the Unabomber always viewed those actions as heroic nationalist, political, or social necessities done for the glory of “their” people. Their life choices were, in their minds, necessities of the moment. Even if people died, it was for the greater good.
I think this is why public remorse is so rare. To admit wrong-doing is to abandon the “I am a hero” myth. Most prefer to justify and rationalize their actions; this allows them to keep the role of the hero throughout their lives. Learning to let go of that takes time and lots of effort. Most people don’t really change, at least not in their opinion of themselves. There are always justifications that make us heroes in our own eyes and those of our followers: “I did what I had to do. There was no other choice.”
The other night, my almost four-year-old granddaughter told me a story that she came up with herself: “Pandolina is a little girl that lives with a panda family in a jungle forest. Like Tarzan but with pandas. The jungle is different too. There was a bad mouse that tried to bite Pandolina, but she hit it in a head with a spear and killed it! And then there was a bad bear, and she pushed it off the branch! Is that a good story, grandma?” Even at an early age, we have heroes and bad guys. And heroes kill bad guys. And my little girl is the hero in her story!
I often comment that consuming stories is the greatest empathy building exercise. The more we read, or watch, or listen, the more we can vicariously experience the feelings and thoughts of others. Stories allow us to get into the minds of other people, to hear internal dialogue and rationalizations, to see the world and the choices made from another point of view. Anti-hero stories and unreliable narrators expand our capacity to understand others. Empathy is not a given — we have to develop it and it takes time. Kids are not automatically born with it. And while empathy develops in the first few years of life, the nuance of right and wrong takes a lot longer. Ask a fourteen-year-old if stealing a drug that keeps your mother alive from a pharmacy is right or wrong. The answer would predominantly be that while it was wrong, it was done for a good reason and that person was a hero. A five-year-old’s answer would be different — stealing is wrong, period. The person who stole is a thief and not a hero. These moral shades of gray are part of our social and psychological development. And while most cultures abhor murder, morality is culturally-dependent. And such cultural differences can wreak havoc on our society, as seen in the news every night.
Every country has institutions that try to instill its version of a moral code via schools and laws. But it’s more than that. TV shows and movies do the same. Stories of everyday people who experience calamities that we can relate to teach us how others react in both familiar and unfamiliar circumstances. Stories make us cheer for people who look different than we do, who eat different food, who might like to wear different clothing, and who have families that are not like our own. The power of stories is undeniable — the social shift in acceptance of gay marriage, for example, has probably more to do with the shows we consume than any legal or religious pressures in our lives.
The stories we tell ourselves as a society shape who we are, and in turn the stories are a reflection of a society. It’s a positive feedback loop.
This month, I set up the prequel, “Fresh Seed”, and the novel “Harvest” about invading aliens and human response to the end of their civilization up on Bookfunnel for free. It’s part of a little science fiction giveaway with a few other indie writers. I hope you’ll read my retelling of the hero journey. Please pick one or all of the books and share them! We need to see the world from many different perspectives.
