Location Taken: Powder River Pass, Wyoming
Time Taken: June 2010
I think I’ve figured out part of why I have such trouble figuring out which path in life I want to take: I have no heroes.
Now, I have had various people who I’ve looked up to and modeled parts of myself off of, but none of them have had that key “I want to BE them!” quality. They’ve all had various flaws and quirks here and there that make me say “no, their path is not the one for me.” Which doesn’t mean those paths are wrong for them, mind you, just that I can’t follow in their footsteps.
I don’t even have any historical figures I want to imitate. If I like someone enough to do so, I like them enough to research (not that that’s tough to trigger for me). And before long I find out about their flaws and quirks that change them from Awesome Heroes of the Past into, well, normal humans.
…That was what triggered this realization, by the way. I ran into the question “What’s your favorite historical figure?” and realized I couldn’t answer it. A few names did pop into my brain (Abraham Lincoln, Marie Curie, and Ada Lovelace, in case you’re wondering), but none of them I like enough to be a true favorite. Not even quite enough to be a shared victory.
On the positive side, this does mean I’ve never been betrayed by a hero being different than I imagined. And I’ve never, as the saying goes, had my childhood ruined. I’m rarely disappointed by people around me, for I saw their negatives as well as their positives (which, oddly enough, has left me with a generally good opinion of humanity).
But since I never saw someone walking a path I wanted to take, I’m having to forge my own. And well, if you’ve ever had to go through thick snow, you know how much more difficult shoveling your own path is as compared to going on a cleared route. And I don’t know what’s beneath that snow, or even what’s on the other side of that hill I’m climbing. But I do know that if I make it there, I’ll be the first to see where my path leads.
And perhaps one day, someone will follow it after me.
