#166; We Can Be Heroes

As you can guess from the title of this blog post, David Bowie once sang that we can be heroes just for one day. sometimes I wonder what it actually takes to be a hero or at least to relate to the definition of a hero. What is a hero? Would you class a family member as a hero or a celebrity or someone in the limelight who’s done good things? How does a hero in society differentiate from a personal hero? Perhaps I’m overcomplicating the idea of a hero here but earlier today I got asked who my heroes are and I found it a bit hard to actually come to fully answer that question as my friend and I seemed to debate whether someone’s personal hero may actually be classed a hero to all. For me a hero to someone is their own personal hero but a hero to society is a much broader subject, someone who has affected the lives of many than to simply be in the mindset of one person. Of course someone can be a hero in both aspects but it’s also the case that someone I may look up to others may not. That is a personal hero.

I’m kind of going off the subject here because I have been thinking about this over the last few hours and I thought it’d be cool to just present various people that I class as heroes, as people who’ve influenced my life even though they may not know it (mostly because most of, if not all of them, don’t even know me). Again in our debate we went back to the idea that someone who hasn’t affected you directly may not be a personal hero but I find that a bit irrelevant as you can admire someone from afar from what they could have done in a public domain. Look at Stephen Hawking for example – someone I know many people admire and look up to yet I’m sure they may have never met the man. Why should this make a difference to what one may perceive as a hero? Anyways, again I digress. I’m sorry if it all sounds a bit philosophical but I found it an interesting little discussion point. Now I’m going to focus on some serious self indulgence and discuss some various individuals I very much look up to in my everyday life.

Don't look so surprised, Tim!

Tim Schafer
Who is he? – President of Double Fine Games

I can understand if you’re as confused as poor Tim is in that photo there but I can’t stress enough how much I admire this man. If you’re wondering, Tim is the brain behind the likes of the Monkey Island series (with Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman), Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Grim Fandango and various other games I’ve played and absolutely fallen in love with. His sense of humour and approach to video game design with unique ideas and just making something fresh and original is something I’ve always admired in his work whether it be at LucasArts or Double Fine or whatever he’s done He’s just an absolute mega dude and when it comes to some of my ideas with creating something original and fresh when I’m in super creative mode. Would love to meet him one day just to shake his hand and thank him for his contribution to my gaming life.

Quite British.

Davey Boy Smith (aka British Bulldog)
Who is he? – WWF wrestler

If you were a teenage boy in the 90′s there’s a pretty solid chance that at some point you were a fan of the WWF, now known as the WWE after losing a cage match with some pandas. Although I was pretty young at the time I was a big fan of the British Bulldog, often watching videos lent off my brother’s friends and other friends of him like at WWF Summerslam 1992 when he beat Bret Hart at Wembley which still sends shivers up my spine. Upon growing up I’ve learnt over the years of the personal trauma he went through with drug addictions and other paraphenalia over the years behind the scenes that led to his untimely death in 2002. Even at the age of 14 I absolutely cried my eyes out the day I heard he died, I still remember seeing it on GMTV actually. But I always looked up to the Bulldog and loved to see him wrestle and although I fell out of love with this form of sports entertainment a long time ago, looking back still brings back that excitement of seeing him in the ring and watching him wrestle just like I did when I was a small chappie.

Just the happiest chap ever.

Rubens Barrichello
Who is he? – Formula 1 driver

This is totally unexpected, right? What can I say though about Mr Barrichello that I haven’t already said and what everyone else has said too? 307 races, 19 years in Formula 1 , 12 wins and just an awesome dude. It’s hard not to look up to this fella’ and not see him as a bit of a hero. I got into F1 in about the end of 96/1997 season and it was only really in 1999 onwards I started noticing Rubens at Stewart and I’ve pretty much supported him since then. He’s just a quality part of Formula 1 and for someone to have contested in 33% of all the sports’ races ever is a frankly insane achievement. He may not have the success of Schumacher or the legacy of Senna but he’s still one of the greatest in the sport to me at least and I’ll be gutted when he retires sooner rather than later. Anyone who survives F1 for this amount of time still with their sanity intact and a beaming smile on their face deserves recognition!

Quite possibly from before my existence.

Antoni Gaudi
Who is he? – Artist/achitect

You may see this as a bit of an odd choice but there’s plenty of reasons why over the years, admittedly less in recent years, I’ve looked up to this chap with much awe and respect. If you have ever been to  Barcelona you will have almost definitely been in the presence of Gaudi’s incredible work around the city – whether it be the Casau Milia, Parc Guell or the absurdly beautiful La Sagrada la Familia Cathedral. In school I tended to be much more focused about my art than I am now, constantly working on my art projects during pretty rubbish times personally but I took a lot of my work from such artists as Gaudi as well as Salvador Dali, Claude Monet and Van Gogh but actually being in the presence of his work absolutely blew me away. Our school trip to Barcelona resulted in visits to some of the afore-mentioned creations of Gaudi and you have to see them to believe how mind blowing they are. Parc Guell is just a word of originality whilst La Sagrada is probably still the most incredible building I’ve been in. We climbed the spires and even from the top the most minute, tiniest details that Gaudi sadly never got to see finished still look incredible. His pieces of work around the city and what he did against others at the time ridiculing his work are some things that have always been in my mind and stuff I really look up to. It really sucks that since leaving school I haven’t indulged more into my artistic nature because it basically ran my life whilst in education.

Anyways, these are just a few major heroes and people I look up to. Thought it’d make for an interesting write-up to discuss some of these individuals so hopefully it wasn’t too bothersome to read through. There’s the obvious people I really look up to in my life too – people like Lou and my mum who always stand beside me when I need a bit of a helping hand and just with their presence in different ways as well as my closest friend Ashley who I’ve known for nearly 20 years now! – but it’s just people like this who I can sometimes just sit back and think of and just have a smile on my life. Their lives have inspired to make the most of mine and for that they’re my heroes.