Team Writing Project or community challenge.
I have been up all night with an off the wall topical idea for an all opinion post for my Opinion blog that has been mothballed for months. Some recent family insights and revelations have ne losing sleep and I need to get something down on paper with your help to become UN muddled again.
Post topic: What do you do when Superman dies and the villains take over but look just like your old hero?
I know, I too have visions of the famous villain trying to fly from the roof of the Daily Planet and plummeting to his demise but I am sure we have all seen our share of tarnished heroes. I mean Baseball with steroids, wife beating NFL stars, NBA Players broke 3 years after retirement, and don't even start with the movie stars and politicians but sometimes these fallen heroes come from a lot closer to home.
Maybe it was a Dr. you know who was found to be philandering, a local priest who had a gambling addiction, or maybe as my case may be a father figure who was well hiding serious mental issues in life that have long-lasting impact after his death. So what doe we as a public do when our Lone Ranger and Black Bart are the same person and Tonto just kept a blind eye to his double life?
I would love to challenge each to write a paragraph or two in of opinion, either sign your name or anonymous to it and at the end I will compile the finished post and share the URL with my own thoughts included.
Happy writing and a blessed week ahead,
Andy Zeus Anderson
Recent Comments
14
In my case, I have found that my dad a law enforcement professional off and on through my early years and one of the strongest yet gentle people. Both tough as nails and warm and compassionate may have molested 3 of my 4 daughters. I mean how do you handle news like this beyond the investigation and discovery through counseling etc..
You have on one hand the world's greatest dad award winner year after year, except the one where we were too close to Disney World with too much money and time not to go and he took us to Tampa instead we had it made as kids, He was a sign painter most of my childhood. He kept us on the move following the weather for his work and he spent time as law enforcement and firefighter, was a Detective in the '60s who had been shot in the head, died 7 times on an operating table, and came out tough as nails on the other side.
Still, his own father abandoned his wife in the great depression. The kids were adopted out if boys and kept if girls because the family was too poor to survive together.
He was not adopted kindly as was a custom in the '40s and '50's he was instead basically indentured to a farm and abused and mistreated. He ran away so many times by age 17 the judge told him it was Jail or the Military so off to Germany for 3 years it was.
He traveled extensively in the Merchant Marines, was shipwrecked in PuertoRico and again in Cuba while working on seagoing tugs and barges. The stories so damned real and scars proved each tale.
He never physically abused us, and beyond a couple of slips with people working around him held true to mom for better than 38 years. Still, something was off because he would go from nice guy to pure jerk in 3.1 seconds and could get real cruel with verbal assaults. We always thought it may be brain damage but it could have been he was bipolar like I am now.
There is more as I am looking to also in this post leave a legacy for my kids to learn from having them each read this post once finished. I will now hand over the floor to the next speaker.
Post topic: What do you do when Superman dies and the villains take over but look just like your old hero?
Well first of all, I'm definitely a superhero fan. The death of one-if he/she was real would be very upsetting. But the reincarnation of the hero turned evil would be very confusing and sad. I'm sure I would be fooled at first until I saw the evil was indeed ingrained into the one I thought was a superhero. (I would also give them a chance to prove different at first). Then, if that proved he was surely evil, he/she would lose my loyalty and any good wishes. I would be praying and hoping that he/she would be stopped somehow by another "good" superhero, maybe Batman!
I think it is important that we keep in mind that where one hero was another need to be born as it helps guide our own moral compass. I am also of the mindset that is one pass one should not just wait for the outside world but should try to find the hero within themselves.
This is a very tough question. And the one hand, when this happens, it’s to a person we love. On the other hand, if the person is an adult, they’re responsible for themselves. I’ve been in this situation with a family member for a number of years. My approach is to help if I can when it’s really needed to avoid death or harm. As harsh as it sounds, beyond that I feel like I am enabling the person I love by helping them avoid the natural consequences of their actions. So, As Mundane as it sounds, I perform a balancing act with this person I love and hope that my intermittent, kind of emergency help, with his resolve will help turn things around. I hope this is helpful.
Thanks for the feedback, it applies to many possible scenarios and should fit nicely into the piece. I personally have been in a situation where my bipolar depression has put me in some really dark moods. Last night was one and so I didn't sleep which of course feeds the depression even more. So having someone with a balance to my own sporadic actions and inactions would be a great benefit, this is often my wife but could be anyone on my friends list as well.
I'll think about this while at my doc appointments today and maybe I'll come up with something this afternoon.
See more comments
Hi Andy,
My thoughts on super heroes might be a little different. Aren't all super heroes fantasy? Dads are human, as am I and all the rest of us. We learn from our dads a moral compass that would be the ideal, however, the ideal is difficult to maintain.
This doesn't mean that we must disregard the misdeeds of others. I can accept the person and not the deed. I don't have to take on the deeds of others. I can still strive for my own ideals.
It's okay to be human, to make mistakes. Just know that tomorrow is another day and keep on going on. To make amends is to turn from. This we can do.
Best wishes to you, I hope you sleep better tonight.
Julie
Thank you Julie. While super heroes are somewhat make believe they all come from an inner ideal of what a true hero is that is shared by millions and millions of people. Your post shows the split between that fanatasy portion and the reality of now, that heros are not perfect, that they often have the same flaws as any other person, but some acts may be henious and unforgivable despite the good deads in ones life. I am glad to hear the sides and stories.