Writing Life

In the book, ‘If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him’ by Sheldon Kopp, there is a wonderful little laundry list of aphorisms for living at the back of the book. Number 18 states, “If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way”. I've contemplated this little tidbit of wisdom at various moments of the last 20 years of my life, wavering between agreement and rejection, understanding and indifference. The stereotypical superheroes we are served up in film and television, in literature and folklore, while some are tolerable and noble, most aren’t very relatable or accessible. Nor overly heroic, to my mind. For something to be heroic, or superheroic even, one ought to have transformed — and I mean truly transform, through suffering and fear of the unknown — and have confronted real or supposed danger. And yes, superheroes do that, but they are generally fully equipped and supported by some magical or powerful medium. I more want to hear from the