The Otherness of Superheroes

Most of my BLOG ideas come in a flash, an upwelling from the unperceived depths of my subconscious perhaps, "Monsters from the ID" indeed.  And this one's no exception; one day, no, for several days my idle musings about one past train of thought merged with another, and it was good.

For months I've followed David Romano on Youtube, a 34-year-old ditzy cook holding down two jobs who has a lockpicking avocation,and loves cats with a love so far beyond as to be beautiful.  He supports many cats in his apartment, ditto a cat colony in North Hollywood LA, ditto on the streets and dim corners of the night. His love for them is boundless, and it shows every day.  That he shares his love for cats with us through frequent videos gives us a chance to vicariously help & love those same cats, and so to see the colony cats who are all around us, forgotten & ignored but perhaps given kindness now that we've seen.  "Sokath, his eyes open!" indeed.

Likewise months ago I ran across Johanna Rutkowska, globally renown computer science researcher of "blue pill", "evil maid", and "Qubes" fame.  It's that last that I want to focus on, a "reasonably secure operating system" for PCs that's best-in-world-class for security, and free to use (but with a steep learning curve -- no foolin').  Ms Rutkowska glued together the older virtualization technology of "Xen" with newer thoughts on security (minimal-to-no trust), and went on from there to create something unique.  Others joined her project / FOSS contribution, time passed, versions mounted, and then..., she Moved On, Chief Strategy / Security Officer at Golem (what they do, I'm none too sure about).  She didn't stay to milk her fame, but rather went for new challenges.  Amazing....

And then just this week I ran across Ben Sasse in the news.  He's had an amazing life, politician (I agree with some of his views and not others -- no one is my unqualified champion, nothing to see here, move along, move along), educator, & administrator (I could begin to be envious soon...), and now he's dying of stage four pancreatic cancer.  And he's speaking his mind; as the NY Times puts it, "Opinion | How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying".  More importantly, he's speaking truths that I share, that I've slowly come to understand over the years; that's one advantage of old age, the time to consider then reconsider, slowly gain what wisdom the elderly can reinterpret their lives with then share with others.  I thought about summarizing him, then about quoting him, and I just can't.  A life is so much bigger than a third of a blog, and this guy has depths of wisdom I'm just beginning to comprehend myself.  But I have time, a little time, and perhaps I can come to know The Master before I take my exit.

So these three stand in my mental pantheon of Service-to-Others, people I'm in awe of, people I can emulate in my time left on this planet.  Perhaps the important point that I'm struggling with is that we each, every one, need heroes.  They populate our stories both external and internal, they are people we look up to.  And in many ways our values define us; they give us comfortable fences in chaotic times.  And you reading this, whom are your heroes?  What can you learn from your choices, today, and how will you shape your life?  You're dying, just like the rest of us, but you still have time to make a difference.