This year has been slammed with tragedy across the world. We've seen various types of people commit atrocities for various reasons. Really one of the biggest unifiers in the world is that virtually every group has been attacked in some way. Whether it is the huge attack killing over a hundred people in Paris. In the US have the San Bernardino attack, the Charleston Church shooting, the Planned Parenthood shooting, the Roseburg shooting, and various others. Worldwide we've seen the mass killings in Beirut, Turkey, Yemen, Nigeria, and many more. It is easy to start thinking the world is devolving into some horrible, deadly place filled with evil people.
One thing that always stands out to me is while there are these few evil people harming so many, one thing that gets lost in the shuffle is the many people responding to the situations so heroically. When the modern world talks about heroes, so much of our attention gets sidetracked to famous people doing relatively mediocre things. Not saying that the things they do are unimportant. But I will always put people who risk their lives in real, serious danger above anyone else.
Examples of this are easy to come by. In San Bernardino we have Shannon Johnson who used his body as a shield to defend the lives of his coworker. He died in that shooting to give her the chance to live. In Beirut we have Adel Termos who tackled a suicide bomber, sacrificing his life to save untold amounts of people. In Paris a man going only by Sébastien risked his life to run out of hiding into gunfire to stop a pregnant woman from falling off a balcony during the chaos. Lassana Bathily is credited with saving 15 lives when he hid people to protect them from the gunman who came in shortly afterwards.
These are just the credited acts of heroism. Many people reported seeing people risking their lives in various ways for complete strangers during virtually every one of these attacks. A lot of these people were never identified. This story played out again, and again, and again. A few people doing horrific things, while many more people doing heroic things in these times of chaos.
So back to my point at the beginning. Samuel L Jackson's character in Unbreakable was creating catastrophes trying to find a hero. I contest that he would have found them every time if he was actually looking. A hero isn't Superman who is invincible, or Bruce Willis who is unbreakable. A hero is someone who is put in a deadly situation, and still follows their morals and beliefs and does the right thing while at ridiculous risk. That is why the majority of Medal of Honor recipients did not survive the situation where they won the medal. Being a real hero, you just might not make it. But you will live on in other people's minds forever.
One thing that always stands out to me is while there are these few evil people harming so many, one thing that gets lost in the shuffle is the many people responding to the situations so heroically. When the modern world talks about heroes, so much of our attention gets sidetracked to famous people doing relatively mediocre things. Not saying that the things they do are unimportant. But I will always put people who risk their lives in real, serious danger above anyone else.
Examples of this are easy to come by. In San Bernardino we have Shannon Johnson who used his body as a shield to defend the lives of his coworker. He died in that shooting to give her the chance to live. In Beirut we have Adel Termos who tackled a suicide bomber, sacrificing his life to save untold amounts of people. In Paris a man going only by Sébastien risked his life to run out of hiding into gunfire to stop a pregnant woman from falling off a balcony during the chaos. Lassana Bathily is credited with saving 15 lives when he hid people to protect them from the gunman who came in shortly afterwards.
These are just the credited acts of heroism. Many people reported seeing people risking their lives in various ways for complete strangers during virtually every one of these attacks. A lot of these people were never identified. This story played out again, and again, and again. A few people doing horrific things, while many more people doing heroic things in these times of chaos.
So back to my point at the beginning. Samuel L Jackson's character in Unbreakable was creating catastrophes trying to find a hero. I contest that he would have found them every time if he was actually looking. A hero isn't Superman who is invincible, or Bruce Willis who is unbreakable. A hero is someone who is put in a deadly situation, and still follows their morals and beliefs and does the right thing while at ridiculous risk. That is why the majority of Medal of Honor recipients did not survive the situation where they won the medal. Being a real hero, you just might not make it. But you will live on in other people's minds forever.
