Heroes represent proof of opportunities that can be seized and forged through deeds into stories that have meaning. They inspire us to want better from ourselves. Perhaps they remind us that we could try harder, or be more giving, or that our perspective is too narrow for the people we would like to become– but their existence itself is evidence for our own ability to achieve our goals, whatever they are, provided we push ourselves when given opportunity.

This is how I think of these things; that if someone in decent health with no particular talent toward something can do it through determination and opportunity, it is something I also could achieve through similar means. If another person is able to keep their temper, or to give of their time to a cause, if these are things I truly want, all other things being relatively equal, I can do these things, too, and I hold no excuses for not doing them, but that I value something else more– which is not necessarily bad.

I want to thank you for making me not feel so alone. I feel a stubborn, ceaseless desire to do and make and be more, for life and humanity, for a creative aesthetic. It’s never one cause, or for one person. It’s especially hard for me to find something that appeals to me as a nonreligious person. I struggle to find purpose in my life, and can’t fathom that it could be something– related to money, or pleasing other people. None of these seem as important as doing good, or creating something beautiful and functional.

Hearing someone address the things that I think are important and undervalued is a kind of comfort I need right now, and I expect there are others who need to hear it, too. It’s just critical sometimes that, unbidden, we witness someone else expressing and echoing our own thoughts and sentiments, not necessarily to validate them, but to prove that they are not so unique so as to make us we are alone in what we feel.