Heroics

Heroics
By Gary Reece

Watching the 2012 Olympics from London inundated all of us with the epic drama
of individuals performing amazing fetes of  athleticism, and countries celebrating the achievement of their athletes represented by their number of medals.  It is easy to get caught up and  identify with the “ecstasy of victory and the agony of defeat.” To strive for something with a single mindedness all of your life and then put it on the line with the whole world watching:is truly engaging.  It all comes together, supreme focus of heart, mind, body, and spirit in one performance.  We saw a plethora of gold medals, and heard national anthems; for a two week period we vicariously participated in the pageantry and theater of heroics.  It was all  heightened by the slickness of the telecasts and the production of events to fit into prime time.  There was a compelling narrative telling the stories of athletes like Oscar the double amputee competing with able bodied runners, or a lone woman from a Muslim country competing for the first time.  Or barefoot Kenyans running in the Marathon.  It appealed to our emotions and kept us tuned in to the next impossible scene.  And then it was over.  Television became kind of flat and ordinary agaln, back to real life.

This contrast got me thinking about the whole idea of heroics and how we worship the spectacular, and celebrate extraordinary individuals doing amazing, unusual things.  Things we can never do.  We raise them to levels of adulation and heap huge amounts of money upon them. The term Hero is used  so casually and we are quick to anoint someone as the hero de jur.

This is  the point  I wish to make, there is a level of heroism that is seldom seen or  acknowledged  of individuals doing things not on camera.  Oh we see a story occasionally about another soldier coming home with devastating injuries and we on the anniversary of 911 parade our heroes.  But, I wondered if perhaps we have been seduced by the glitz and glamour of high production values and TV ratings.

Is it possible, I wondered that there is a theater of heroics all around us, but we just are not aware of it, that heroism can be found in the way ordinary people face extraordinary circumstances?   That in fact, perhaps our central calling, is to raise our own  lives a level of heroism, where we make decisions, find something worth living for and elevate our lives to a level of significance which brings occasional joy.  I wondered how many of us are doing things to earn the feeling of heroism?  The kind of heroism, I envision takes place on the boundary, on the edge of life where there are no gold medals but instead what is at stake is our mortality.  The way we face up to challenges and trauma certainly calls for courage.  This, for me, has a greater resonance and ring of authenticity.  For example.

One of the most common but overlooked traumatic events which affects literally thousands of Americans everyday takes place behind closed doors and is given in muted tones.  What?  A trauma that literally affects thousands of families every day and the perpetrators are getting away with it?  And it’s legal?  What is this scourge?  Call Eye Witness News, breaking news!   It is the conversation that begins in soft and measured tones.  It happens daily, a family is told their child has Leukemia, or your child has a rare, unpronounceable heart disorder.  In my case it was a conversation I had with my doctor, “Gary, we found something, its going to have to come out.”  The pronouncement had the impact of a sledge hammer.  Stunned, too overwhelmed to even think rationally, to formulate a question, I let him talk as the whirlwind spun my mind into dark, catastrophic scenarios.  I hear words like surgery, tests, x rays, CT scans, blood tests, all the indignities of being dehumanized and processed through encounters with cool, professional medical technicians who have seen it all before.

When I got home, my mind cleared and a quote came to me, from Ernest Becker, “The prospect of death wonderfully concentrates the mind.  The fear of death haunts the human  animal.”  It certainly does!  It changes everything in a moment, we are not always aware of our having to die,  in fact most of us see it as a theoretical possibility, an abstraction, but when the realization breaks through in the boundary experiences we are thrust into, “we see the world differently.”

The psychological impact of these sorts of encounters leave people feeling stripped of their humanity, vulnerable, shocked, terrified, confused, lost and so very alone: singled out from the herd.  First protest, “its not fair! Why me?“ Then denial, then terror and feelings of helplessness  followed by despair. The dawning dread often blooms into shock  when we are given an unfavorable diagnosis by our physician.

When it sinks in, it is the realization of our not being able to preserve our lives, a sense of our helplessness and futility of our fate which exposes us to naked anxiety and despair. Alone, feeling unsafe and betrayed by my body, I stoically accepted what must be done and submitted to the procedures.

When my doctor told me I had to have surgery because I had stage one  Colon Cancer, I felt like I had been jerked out of the safety of my little boat that I had been paddling around in so sublimely unaware of the dangers lurking within, taking for granted so many of life’s pleasant offerings,  like we all do.  

These existential moments of crisis which threaten our very lives, make us acutely aware of our fragility, our mortality, vulnerability, and dependency.  Seeking to regain control and manage my terror, I engaged in a flurry of activity, got things done, got my Will in order, talked with my children, and did what the doctor ordered.  This was 5 years ago, and I  to my amazement, survived and got on with my life.

I was lucky, the surgery was successful, and I am now cancer free, but in the meantime I had another conversation two years later. This time it was about a bone infection in  my foot due to diabetes.  This conversation was a “to be or not to be talk.”  I could have my left foot amputated or die of slow blood poisoning. I put the decision off for two days.  Three years later, after months in a wheel chair, walker, and being fitted for a prosthesis, I am back to normal.  (Well, some would argue that I have never been normal.)

What have I learned?  Life is precious, I am fragile, I have good friends, and my family is there for me.  I decided I was working myself to death, and so I retired.  I made many lifestyle changes.  I exercise daily, lost 50 pounds eat well and started doing some things I’ve always wanted to do, like writing.  I stopped working myself to death and retired.  I spend my days going to the gym and last year traveled with my son to Yellowstone and took lots of pictures.  I have also gone to Sedona, and camped with my grandkids at Big Sur.  I take great joy in my hobby of Bonsai and created a Japanese meditation garden for myself.

I now see the theater of heroics differently.  I don’t give much thought to the spectacular, celebrity driven, entertainment created heroes.  I see these as contrived  and view them as failed heroics.  My hero theater is everyday life.  This is where I see the human spirit ennobled by small acts of love and nameless acts of transcendence.  There is a man at the gym who every day brings his son in a wheel chair--he has cerebral palsy.  He patiently helps him get on an exercise machine, helps him move the weights, and then goes on to the next machine.  There is a man who comes everyday in a walker and gets on and off the machines by himself.  He has ALS.  Look around, every person is a story, some may be walking right by their opportunity for heroism, they are just not aware, their lives pass before their very eyes without  them ever seeing the significance of their hero drama.

This, for me is the heroics of everyday life.  It is people saying yes to life, to their circumstances and confronting their mortality, facing it and finding a way to live in spite of it.  These people redefined heroics for me.  I would not have gotten through my ordeal without my good friend Jack carrying my wheel chair up and down the stairs, loading me into his  car, having me over for dinner on Christmas Eve and taking me to the movies.  Or my son and daughter stopping their lives to come and be with me.

And now the next conversation has already taken place.  My daughter Michele has been talking with her doctors and will be having surgery in September. She is already discovering the miracle of friends lining up to help.   This blog is for her.

Life on the edge is terrifying, we are so very mortal.  It can happen so suddenly and capriciously, to get jerked out of our comfortable boat, oblivious to the dangers all about us.  This is the theater of heroics.  Its not about gold or celebrity, these are distractions, they seek to entertain, distract and keep our eyes diverted from what is going on all around us just below the level of our consciousness.  The skull is always present at the banquet, so says William James, and I say all we can do is look it in the eye and smile.