An Inconvenient Life
The word "hero" is so overused in our society that it has lost any real sense of meaning. Football players, basketball players, actors, whatever . . . they're called "heroes" for doing what they're paid big money to do--catch a pass, make a tackle, make a movie.
But being a real hero is, I have decided, inconvenient. It isn't convenient to get involved. We all go through our lives in our insular little bubbles. It's the person who, rather than driving by an accident, peering at the mangled bumpers and mangled bodies, jumps out and sees if they can help. It's the person--like the unwed teen mother I mentored for two years--who studies so hard, gets a 4.0 in college, and then comes home to the bullet-scarred projects, with prostitutes on the corner, drugs being sold in plain sight, and broken windows and crack vials in the parking lot, and locks the doors, studies like crazy, feeds her baby, tucks her in, studies more, and then wakes up the next day and does it all over again. It's HARD to do the right thing. It's inconvenient.
In my latest work in progress, which I just turned in, the hero really IS a hero by the end. He has a life, a psychology practice, and a painkiller addiction. But when a truly desperate woman shows up on his doorstep, bringing a lot of bad mojo and gunfire, and he BELIEVES her story, he gives up everything to help her. To leave his flawed but familiar life and go into the unknown. To do that which is inconvenient.
And when I think back to every single book I've written, though not every character was a "hero" in the sense of acting heroically, they all made inconvenient choices. Starting with Cassie Hayes in Spanish Disco, my first book. She uprooted herself to try to save her mentor's publishing house, and then, when she could have left the island she traveled to, she decided to instead stay and help Roland Riggs woo the woman of his dreams.
A life well-lived is messy and inconvenient, I've decided. And the characters I am most interested in nearly always choose the inconvenient path.
Thoughts? Do you live an inconvenient life? Do your characters?
Peace,
E
But being a real hero is, I have decided, inconvenient. It isn't convenient to get involved. We all go through our lives in our insular little bubbles. It's the person who, rather than driving by an accident, peering at the mangled bumpers and mangled bodies, jumps out and sees if they can help. It's the person--like the unwed teen mother I mentored for two years--who studies so hard, gets a 4.0 in college, and then comes home to the bullet-scarred projects, with prostitutes on the corner, drugs being sold in plain sight, and broken windows and crack vials in the parking lot, and locks the doors, studies like crazy, feeds her baby, tucks her in, studies more, and then wakes up the next day and does it all over again. It's HARD to do the right thing. It's inconvenient.
In my latest work in progress, which I just turned in, the hero really IS a hero by the end. He has a life, a psychology practice, and a painkiller addiction. But when a truly desperate woman shows up on his doorstep, bringing a lot of bad mojo and gunfire, and he BELIEVES her story, he gives up everything to help her. To leave his flawed but familiar life and go into the unknown. To do that which is inconvenient.
And when I think back to every single book I've written, though not every character was a "hero" in the sense of acting heroically, they all made inconvenient choices. Starting with Cassie Hayes in Spanish Disco, my first book. She uprooted herself to try to save her mentor's publishing house, and then, when she could have left the island she traveled to, she decided to instead stay and help Roland Riggs woo the woman of his dreams.
A life well-lived is messy and inconvenient, I've decided. And the characters I am most interested in nearly always choose the inconvenient path.
Thoughts? Do you live an inconvenient life? Do your characters?
Peace,
E
posted by Erica Orloff at 12:25 PM
10 Comments:
That is so true. You don't have to save the world to be a hero. Sometimes its doing the right thing, when the right thing is difficult that makes you a hero. It can be something as simple as making time to help a hurting friend or volunteering your time for an important cause. In this age of instant gratification and glorified Hollywood excesses, it's so easy to lose sight of those who really make a difference and how we can make a difference as well. Great post!
j.t.:
Thanks . . . that is the type of person I aspire to be. And those are the characters I write about--they make those inconvenient choices. Might not be flashy, but they do the "right" thing--even when the right thing treads into gray territory.
E
I completely agree. Grand gestures are over sung, while small gestures are under sung.
I also aspire to be the type of person willing to make my life 'less convenient'. Will that make me a 'hero' though, or just a better human?
lainey:
I'm no hero at all. I like to think I am a human being living an inconvenient life . . . a life well-lived. And when I die, I'd like to think in some small way I made a difference to people I have met.
E
You have.
Awww, Lainbey--you are too nice.
:-)
E
I also really hate it when someone is doing something completely self-serving, like being on a reality TV show, and then something happens, like their grandma dies. Then, instead of doing the sensitive thing and going to the funeral, they choose to continue starring in the reality show and they then say they're "doing it for grandma." Or doing it for their newborn baby whose birth they had to miss because they're busy auditioning for American Idol.
Whatever. They're not doing it for grandma or newborn baby. That's just something they say to assuage their guilty conscience and to make themselves look good. Because dudes? Even if grandma hadn't died, or if baby hadn't been born yet, you'd still be starring in that reality show. Who are you really doing it for?
That's right? Yourself.
"Doing it for my newborn baby" my ass.
[/rant]
PS: Speaking of reality shows, you and I are *so* rooting for Romber again in The Amazing Race, right? Right?
TEAM ROMBER RULES!
karm:
The older I get, the more I feel led to do for others. I think that's the natural course of life . . . you eventually learn altruism. Except that in our society with its me-first mentality, it's becoming rarer, I think.
And YES, girlfriend . . . Romber all the way. My youngest daughter was saying, "Mom . . . what are going to DO? There are TWO sets of gays to root for [our usual team choice] AND Romber." But she decided to go with Rob because, after all, he taught her how to catch her first fish--live and in person on the CBS Morning Show. LOL!
E
The younger gay couple was FUN-NEE! The title of that episode should have been, "Less martinis, more cardio." Hehe.
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