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Here are some of mine, in no particular order.
The Buddha Socrates Jesus of Nazareth Epictetus (obviously) My parents and siblings Michelangelo Buonarroti Jonathan Swift Oscar Wilde Garrison Keilor
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I just wrote an essay about this for my Honors English class, I got a 94% and tied for the highest grade in the class. I had to name three qualities-bravery, self-sacrifice, and spirit- and list three people who exemplified the qualities. I listed George Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Kurt Cobain. I realize that Kurt Cobain probably shouldn't have been on the list because of some of the mistakes he made, but I put him there anyway.
Kurt Cobain, for those who don't know, was the lead singer of a band called Nirvana. He was also addicted to Heroin, married, and had a child. And, on another note, shot himself in the head. But he wrote what he felt and expressed it in one of the best ways, through rock music. He was a wonderful lyricist, and he could sing. Despite some of his mistakes, him and his band mates have inspired a friend of mine and I to seriously start a band, we'd acted like we had one for awhile. We've got it all figured out. All we need now is song writing talent, a knowledge of how to play our instruments, and someplace to practice. But we're getting there because Kurt Cobain taught us that your music can be awesome, and it can have a moral.
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Jesus Gandhi The Dalai Lama The Buddha Socrates John Stuart Mill Kofi Annan Dosteovsky Dr. Seuss Hayao Miyazaki Walt Disney J.K. Rowling Cal Ripken Papa Moose CT Two of the pastors of my church Three of my high school teachers One of my college philosophy professors The dude who swiped cards at the dining hall at college A guy I knew from high school A surfer kid I met only briefly at the beach And, of course, Ender Wiggin
The list could go on forever...
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: That wasn't very nice, Tante. So what if he, maybe, looks up to a lot of people.
I didn't intend to be mean. I just thought the list seemed, well, unselective. It included people whose names he didn't know. Wonderful to have a wealth of role models, but perhaps the list may benefit from some editing.
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Some people think that the key to happiness is to be admired by many and be hated by few. That is wrong. It is much more important to admire many and hate few.
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It's not that I don't believe people can be heroic, I just believe that "hero" is a label we apply to the good and admirable qualities of a person, usually discounting the negative.
If you look back at the lists people have submitted, most of the names listed are simply labels used to designate reputations, not the reality of who those people were.
Even if someone who listed "Dad" explained to me why they did so I might agree that their dad was heroic. However, I'd still be applying "hero" to a very limited perception of the reality of who that person was.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I don't understand the fascination with Atticus Finch. Honestly. I read the book, I saw the movie, and I wasn't all that impressed. Atticus Finch is somewhere near the bottom of fictional people with admirable qualities for me.
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Actually, it isn't an urban legend. Last time I checked I mean. He may not have failed math specifically, but he did not do well in school.
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Depending on how much you trust wikipedia, Einstein did not fail math. Wikipedia
quote: There is a recurring rumor that he failed mathematics later in his education, but this is untrue; a change in the way grades were assigned caused confusion years later.
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I just that I don't think he failed math. But I'm almost 99% sure that he failed some of his other classes.
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You could be right SteveRogers. I've only done a little googling, and that pointed to it being a myth. Do you have a link?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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No, but I watched an educational video awhile back. It said that he recieved mostly D's, when converted to our grading system, during his earlier school years.
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No, I believe that's because the schoolsystem he was in used a grading system that later got inverted to conform with German standards.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Just got word that John Pelton (one of my heroes previously listed) has died at the age of 89.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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My heroes tend to be fictional because for me a hero embodies an ideal. You can also know what goes on in the mind of a fictional character; they can be laid out with clarity and intent is important. Humans aren't perfect and I respect the many people who have done great things but humans are made from shades of grey. For an ideal I go to fiction/myth. I imagine it sounds like a sycophant, but Bean is one of my heroes. Even when I read the first book before the others had been written. He was not treated well and could have easily turned his abilities to negative things, but despite everything that was done to him, he did positive things. The strengths of his character are close to ideal for me. What he did wasn’t about personal glory but about an underlying moral view of humanity as a whole. Even as he saved people he was still left out for the very thing that enabled him to save them. My real life heroes would never make the news or likely be famous, but they are the people who make the choice to do right even in the face of temptation or difficulty for no other reason than it is the right thing. They are the people who don’t join in the excuse mantra “No one else does the right thing, why should I.”
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