P2C

The Quest for the Elusive Inner-Hero

By Amanda Hanzl

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." –David Copperfield¹

Sitting at my computer screen, wracked with anxiety about finals, it is difficult for me to channel my inner-hero. I feel—intuitively perhaps—that my inner-hero wouldn’t be sitting at her computer screen typing endless papers about the Canterbury Tales, but instead she would be off changing the world (I fear writing about the Canterbury Tales has a limited capacity for world change). That being said, I also think that my inner-hero would want a college degree—if only because it would open further educational opportunities—so, I sit here typing, channeling my inner-hero, and mustering the energy and will-power to finish the tasks necessary to finish the term—because it’s a necessary evil to my undergraduate degree (though most assuredly I’d prefer to be doing much sexier “hero-like” tasks).  

 I must confess that there is some degree of irony in the paper’s introduction. The same hero I am having trouble channeling is actually the topic of the paper. I dream of helping others find in the hero in themselves.

I think at some level we all have the ability to channel our inner-hero to help guide us through the completion of unpleasant tasks (such as writing four term papers). Our inner-hero provides the motivation to get out of the bed every morning instead of hitting the snooze button for the fourth time. Our inner-hero also provides the motivation to stay up all night (ten days in a row) during finals week instead of dropping out of school (though sometimes that option seems more attractive). In class this semester, we’ve spent a lot of the time talking about God and about the search and replacement of God, passion, and leadership and it is my conjecture that we can find the spirituality, the capacity for leadership, and the passion within ourselves.

Of course, I also think that guidance proves to be important in focusing the aforementioned qualities that I believe we all possess. One of the trickiest subjects to harness I believe is passion. To many individuals of Generation X and Y, passion is a dying (or perhaps even dead) idea. Emotional extremes are verifiably Jurassic. We have our iPods and our Facebook and our MTV and a lot of times it’s easier to dull our emotions with outside stimuli instead of feeling anything to the fullest extent.  To use Professor Bump’s word “zombies”, I feel a lot of time that we are zombies simply going through the motions of life. We get up, brush our teeth, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to class, eat lunch, go to more class, do homework, eat dinner, do more homework, watch television, talk to friends, do more homework, and finally we go to bed. And the days start to blur together….and all of the sudden a year has gone by, or two years, or ten, and then all of a sudden—not to be completely morbid—you die. Of course other things happen, but if you get too bogged down in the “routine” of life you not only fail to see the big picture, but you can also miss out on the magical small things. Sometimes, it is easier to “zone out” or get caught on the treadmill of life in an attempt to reach emotional equilibrium as opposed to reaching some form of self-actualization. To quote Ruskin, “methodical habits in daily life are seldom characteristic of those who either quickly perceive, or richly possess, the creative powers of art.”² Depending on how you define art, this could be extremely damning.

Before I proceed, let me define the term self-actualization. The term “self-actualization” was coined by American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s and lies at the pinnacle of his now famous Hierarchy of Needs (however I’m sure the meaning of the word has been around much longer than Maslow’s turn of phrase). As Maslow uses it, it means reaching a level of human development where pursuits as morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and the acceptance of facts are the key goals. Self-actualization is defined by your passion, figuring out who you really are, and how best you fit into the world.

I want to help as many people as possible see the big (and little) picture(s) of life. I want to help minimize people’s negative emotional turbulences and prevent them from feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied. I feel like I can reach self-actualization, and find purpose by helping others reach self-actualization and find purpose.  In order to be the hero of my life I want to reach a level of self-actualization—and according its core values, the University of Texas wants me/you/Susie-the-freshman to reach self-actualization as well. The goals of the UT Austin are “to transform lives for the benefit of society through the core values of learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity and responsibility.”³ These goals are surprisingly in line with the concept of self-actualization.

Rousseau who was not a Victorian but still wise wrote, “Every man wants to be happy, but in order to be so he needs first to understand what happiness is.” I think the first step to helping people self-actualize is to cultivate the skill of being learning to happy regardless of the situation.  Matthieu Ricard, a scholar and Buddhist philosopher, writes that happiness is “a way of interpreting the world…while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.”⁴ At a University where the slogan is “what starts here changes the world,” I think the critical skill of positive world interpretation should become emphasized. Ideally, though, I would like to help younger than University-aged people, perhaps people (children) in middle and high school as I feel the most work can be done with them. Ram Dass and Paul Gorman write in their book How Can I Help? that “any model of the self, positive or negative will limit our capacity to help.”⁵ And there is no better place to start regulating selfishness than with teenagers. I feel like cultivating leadership, passion and happiness in a more selfless fashion would be remarkably beneficial. This could ultimately have a domino effect, allowing the new leaders to make more leaders—who could in turn have a significant effect on the world.

Though I must admit it seems a little paradoxical that helping others learn look to themselves for guidance ultimately serves the purpose of creating less self-involved people—I think problem can be easily resolved by the fact that people at their very core are good. Through uncovering and fostering this good I feel can all be our own heroes, in turn making the world an even more wonderful place. Because contrary to popular belief, the world is already a wonderful place, a wonderful place that has given so much to me already.

So, I feel not only a desire to help others, but also an obligation. Over the years, I acquired the tools to live a happy fulfilled life and great deals of those tools have been given to me by the public school system. I feel that I over my years in the public school system that I had been given a love of learning that will be a love affair of a lifetime (unless I get conked on the head and suffer brain damage, then it will probably be over sooner). Newman writes, “knowledge is capable of being its own end.”⁶ For me, it might be for others, perhaps no. But I whole hearted agree when Newman goes on to say that “in fine and useful arts, in trades, and in ways of business” there is “little or no effect upon the mind itself.”⁷ I think it unfair that some students are intellectually coddled from infancy and others are lucky to learn how to successfully balance their checkbooks. When I see the motto on the tower: “Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make you Free”, I agree. I think that if you learn your own personal truth, and figure out the answer to the question “who are you?” then you will be free, as I think understanding and accepting yourself is the most important goal anyone can have.

Ruskin writes that “it takes strong effort of common sense to shake ourselves quit of all that we have been taught for the last two centuries, and wake to the perception of truth just as simple and certain as it is new.”⁸ I think the quest for your own elusive inner-hero ends when you can “shake yourself quit” of anything other than the “simple and certain” truth of who you are. And embracing that truth makes you stronger than anything imaginable.

[Fig 1-1 Ruskin—an astute and Victorian individual]

URL:https://webspace.utexas.edu/arh473/The%20Quest%20for%20the%20Elusive%20Inner.htm?uniq=remxgv

Word Count: 1487

Word Count Without Quotes: 1348

Footnotes

¹ Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome

Bump.  Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007. 

² John Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic.” The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump. 

Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007. 305.

³ “The Core Purpose of University.” The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump. 

Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007. 199.

⁴ Matthieu Ricard, Happiness: A Guide to Cultivating Life’s Most Important Skill.

⁵ Ram Dass, How Can I Help? The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump.  Austin: Jenn’s

Copy and Binding, 2007.  96.

⁶ John Henry Newman, The Idea of University. The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump.

Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007.  96.

⁷ John Henry Newman, The Idea of University. The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump.

Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007.  98.

⁸ John Ruskin, “The Nature of Gothic.” The Victorian Novel, ed. Jerome Bump. 

Austin: Jenn’s Copy and Binding, 2007. 305.