Fearless

"I can't control their fear. Only my own."

And, with that one sentence, I found a new favorite superheroine.

Just recently, someone told me she had never gotten into the superhero thing and didn't understand it. I've heard that before, of course, usually accompanied by a speech about being grounded in reality. It's that whole speech thing that I don't get.

How can you live without heroes? How can there be life without dreaming of more?

"Oh, but, of course, people who don't like superheroes still have their heroes," you say. "They just have realistic heroes, like George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Mother Theresa.

Right. Because those people are totally realistic!

No, seriously, they aren't. Not the way you hear about them in history text books, anyway. Those histories don't deal with real people, they deal with personas. Reputations. Projections caused by the subject's own messaging mixed with the audience's own projected desires.

They're not real and never were.

I'm old enough to remember when Mother Theresa died and her journals became public knowledge. The realization that Mother Theresa had moments of darkness and despair came as a shock to the world. Some people felt let down, like they'd been told there were cookies and they turned out to be burnt and stale. Some people felt scornful, like the darkness proved that Mother Theresa never truly believed the things she preached. These days, the journals seem forgotten entirely. When she's discussed, her deeds, not her private thoughts, are what people remember. Even those are just the highlights. It's made tidy and it doesn't shock anyone anymore.

But back then, to this angry, suicidal teen with a deep desire to hide and destroy her thoughts, it meant something to know that Mother Theresa had been hurt and afraid, allowed herself to express the pain and confusion, and then chose to act in a way that brought healing to others.

"I can't control their fear. Only my own."

You don't often get the chance to see past the persona of a living person, especially not a celebrity or great doer of deeds. Status quo shaking revelations, when they happen, are generally scandals. You don't get to see the eyes of a real life Tony Stark confronted at the elevator. You don't get to hear the quaver in a Scarlet Witch's voice as she choses action over self-protection. Those little, humanizing moments don't occur in front of the world's eyes. But fiction allows us, regularly, to pull back the mask and see the humanity that the narrative conceals.

No matter how great a person is, fiction reassures us, they're still just human. We all have those moments of vulnerability.

But fiction is no substitute for real life heroes, the ones who impact and shape you. The ones you, personally, know past the projections and the public face. The ones you've seen at their weakest.

I once told a friend of mine that he was one of my heroes. I knew it would scare him. People aren't kind when a hero doesn't measure up to expectations. He knew it, I knew it, but, because it was true and because the truth matters, I needed to tell him he was a hero to me.

He still is a hero to me. No doubt that still scares him. Doesn't scare me as much as it once did.

"I can't control their fear; only my own."