24 June 2007, ST
Heroes are all the more endearing to us when they show publicly that, like us, they are human, too
By Cheong Suk-Wai
WALKING to work the other day, I saw ahead of me a rag-and-bone man trying to steady a trolley loaded with what looked like a good 30kg of old newspapers.
His scrawny but sinewy arms were trembling something fierce from the effort, and I wondered why he was in that curious position and not getting on with the task of loading his truck.
Then, as I came up to him, I saw one of my neighbours talking to him - well, if you could call the wretched contortions of her stroke-skewed mouth talking.
She looked as if she was screaming in slow motion, even as her gnarled hands clawed the air, trying to get her point across.
I ambled to a halt, transfixed. So far as I could make out, what she was trying so hard to convey to him consisted of little more than how her mother was, and how she herself was doing these days.
But the man stood there, arms shaking and nodding his head now and then, with a desultory 'hmm' here and an 'ah' there for good measure, waiting for her to finish sentences that seemed to take her an eternity to form with her cruelly wrenched face.
A hero if ever I saw one, I thought, my heart full of joy as I watched my stroke-stricken neighbour beam beatifically before she dragged her twisted limbs towards the lift.
THAT rag-and-bone man got me thinking about the nature of heroism and whether our idea of what a hero is has changed these days.
The classic hero, as we well know, is strong-willed, passionate, egotistical, ruthless even in his single-mindedness to do the done thing.
He neither falters or falls back when obstructed, nor crumbles when faced with hopeless odds.
There are also the classic heroes of our imagination, often superhumans with names like Superman and Wonder Woman and who, for some reason, like sporting their underpants on the outside.
They, too, are fearless and fearsome in the face of evil - and, well, it does take some courage to bare your undies to all and sundry.
But these days, it seems that people's perceptions of what a hero should be have changed such that the heroes of today must show themselves to be all too human too, warts etc.
I take my cue on that from the cult hit series Heroes, which is currently airing on cable TV here.
It charts the journeys of 10 people who discover, in the prime of their life, that they are able to develop superpowers, including the ability to freeze and bend time, glide through walls and be utterly indestructible.
The catch is, they are soon framed for nuking New York City, and are thereafter outlawed because everyone else sees them as dangerous freaks.
There are scant special effects used in this show as its creators prefer to concentrate on a stirring idea: What if the ultra-strong people we admire are as flawed, and in some cases, mentally weaker than we are?
This fresh twist in the history of heroes is as empowering to the average Joe as it is telling of his mores today.
And the classic heroes of yore just don't cut it anymore with their reputation for perfection, which has become a rather one-note virtue in this age of multifacets, multitasks, multimodal, multinational and a myriad other 'multi's'.
Wanting to know that the strong people we admire can be weak beyond their control stems, I think, from this thing called the personal computer in the 1980s.
Gaining access to widespread sources of knowledge has since stoked a ravenous appetite among most people to expose life's many mysteries, the most compelling of which is arguably learning what makes people tick.
Take, for example, someone as perennially puzzling as the late Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales.
This Aug 31 marks 10 years since her life was snuffed out in a Paris road tunnel and, in the past seven days, she made the cover of Newsweek, which christened this season the 'summer of Diana', thanks largely to a slew of new literature and tributes to the woman who outgoing British Premier Tony Blair dubbed 'the people's princess'.
Now, I am not and never have been a fan of Diana, but I have to marvel at how someone who, by turns, has been characterised as a liar, bed-hopper and media whore is still being lionised as a 'saint'.
Why is that? I wondered, flipping through the issue of Newsweek a few days ago. Was it her sheer sex appeal? I rather doubt it, although she did have that in spades.
Rather, for all her flaws and foibles - and goodness knows she had a few - people remember most images of her lending an ear to an Aids patient, hugging an orphan cheerily, whooping it up on the dance floor or just seizing life with her two sons.
She simply wasn't anyone other than herself, and that, I believe, is a big reason she still lingers in our collective consciousness. Don't we all wish we could have embraced life as giddily and been ourselves as totally as she had?
And so the summer of Diana rages on.
Last Wednesday, I watched her eldest son, Prince William, tell NBC presenter Matt Lauer why he and his brother Harry had decided to hold a concert on July 1 in honour of her on what would have been her 46th birthday.
Prince William said: 'We want it to be a celebration of her life, instead of her death, as it usually is.'
A man after his mother's heart, if I ever saw one.
I FIND myself looking out for the rag-and-bone man again these days. But then I should not have to focus on only him, really.
If indeed today's heroes are loved as much for their weaknesses as they are for their strengths, then there are scores of quiet men and women around us who justly deserve to be hailed as heroes, seeing as they do what they need to do every day, consistently and constantly, just so the ambitious, passionate and ruthless among us can get ahead.
Have a kind word or pat on the back for them, won't you?
Heroes are all the more endearing to us when they show publicly that, like us, they are human, too
By Cheong Suk-Wai
WALKING to work the other day, I saw ahead of me a rag-and-bone man trying to steady a trolley loaded with what looked like a good 30kg of old newspapers.
His scrawny but sinewy arms were trembling something fierce from the effort, and I wondered why he was in that curious position and not getting on with the task of loading his truck.
Then, as I came up to him, I saw one of my neighbours talking to him - well, if you could call the wretched contortions of her stroke-skewed mouth talking.
She looked as if she was screaming in slow motion, even as her gnarled hands clawed the air, trying to get her point across.
I ambled to a halt, transfixed. So far as I could make out, what she was trying so hard to convey to him consisted of little more than how her mother was, and how she herself was doing these days.
But the man stood there, arms shaking and nodding his head now and then, with a desultory 'hmm' here and an 'ah' there for good measure, waiting for her to finish sentences that seemed to take her an eternity to form with her cruelly wrenched face.
A hero if ever I saw one, I thought, my heart full of joy as I watched my stroke-stricken neighbour beam beatifically before she dragged her twisted limbs towards the lift.
THAT rag-and-bone man got me thinking about the nature of heroism and whether our idea of what a hero is has changed these days.
The classic hero, as we well know, is strong-willed, passionate, egotistical, ruthless even in his single-mindedness to do the done thing.
He neither falters or falls back when obstructed, nor crumbles when faced with hopeless odds.
There are also the classic heroes of our imagination, often superhumans with names like Superman and Wonder Woman and who, for some reason, like sporting their underpants on the outside.
They, too, are fearless and fearsome in the face of evil - and, well, it does take some courage to bare your undies to all and sundry.
But these days, it seems that people's perceptions of what a hero should be have changed such that the heroes of today must show themselves to be all too human too, warts etc.
I take my cue on that from the cult hit series Heroes, which is currently airing on cable TV here.
It charts the journeys of 10 people who discover, in the prime of their life, that they are able to develop superpowers, including the ability to freeze and bend time, glide through walls and be utterly indestructible.
The catch is, they are soon framed for nuking New York City, and are thereafter outlawed because everyone else sees them as dangerous freaks.
There are scant special effects used in this show as its creators prefer to concentrate on a stirring idea: What if the ultra-strong people we admire are as flawed, and in some cases, mentally weaker than we are?
This fresh twist in the history of heroes is as empowering to the average Joe as it is telling of his mores today.
And the classic heroes of yore just don't cut it anymore with their reputation for perfection, which has become a rather one-note virtue in this age of multifacets, multitasks, multimodal, multinational and a myriad other 'multi's'.
Wanting to know that the strong people we admire can be weak beyond their control stems, I think, from this thing called the personal computer in the 1980s.
Gaining access to widespread sources of knowledge has since stoked a ravenous appetite among most people to expose life's many mysteries, the most compelling of which is arguably learning what makes people tick.
Take, for example, someone as perennially puzzling as the late Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales.
This Aug 31 marks 10 years since her life was snuffed out in a Paris road tunnel and, in the past seven days, she made the cover of Newsweek, which christened this season the 'summer of Diana', thanks largely to a slew of new literature and tributes to the woman who outgoing British Premier Tony Blair dubbed 'the people's princess'.
Now, I am not and never have been a fan of Diana, but I have to marvel at how someone who, by turns, has been characterised as a liar, bed-hopper and media whore is still being lionised as a 'saint'.
Why is that? I wondered, flipping through the issue of Newsweek a few days ago. Was it her sheer sex appeal? I rather doubt it, although she did have that in spades.
Rather, for all her flaws and foibles - and goodness knows she had a few - people remember most images of her lending an ear to an Aids patient, hugging an orphan cheerily, whooping it up on the dance floor or just seizing life with her two sons.
She simply wasn't anyone other than herself, and that, I believe, is a big reason she still lingers in our collective consciousness. Don't we all wish we could have embraced life as giddily and been ourselves as totally as she had?
And so the summer of Diana rages on.
Last Wednesday, I watched her eldest son, Prince William, tell NBC presenter Matt Lauer why he and his brother Harry had decided to hold a concert on July 1 in honour of her on what would have been her 46th birthday.
Prince William said: 'We want it to be a celebration of her life, instead of her death, as it usually is.'
A man after his mother's heart, if I ever saw one.
I FIND myself looking out for the rag-and-bone man again these days. But then I should not have to focus on only him, really.
If indeed today's heroes are loved as much for their weaknesses as they are for their strengths, then there are scores of quiet men and women around us who justly deserve to be hailed as heroes, seeing as they do what they need to do every day, consistently and constantly, just so the ambitious, passionate and ruthless among us can get ahead.
Have a kind word or pat on the back for them, won't you?
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