Mom and dad were heroes

coberst

Mom and dad were heroes

I was born in 1934 during the Great Depression. Dad drove a city bus in Amarillo Texas. My family moved to a very small town in Oklahoma before my first birthday; I had four siblings at the time we moved from Texas to Oklahoma to manage a small café and hotel that was then being managed by my uncle who wished to return to farming.

During the next 15 years my family managed that café and hotel. The building and the business was owned by an absentee landlord, Mr. Ruttzel. The operation was a 24/7 job that took the total energies of all members of the family as each of us became old enough to work.

This operation allowed my parents to raise a large family in reasonably comfortable conditions throughout the depression and war years of World War II.

What is the meaning of ‘hero’? I have taken one definition from the dictionary and have modified it to represent my comprehension of this concept of ‘heroic’. Heroic is a concept meaning a “determined effort [directed to achieve good or deter evil] in the face of difficulty”. In this definition I define ‘good’ as being that which promotes human life and ‘evil’ as that which promotes human death.

I think that there are degrees of heroic action. Some heroes are greater than others depending upon the circumstances of their action. To be a hero often requires courage and often causes personal hardship.

On a scale of one to ten I would classify the following people as heroes in most people’s judgment:
Mother Theresa (10)
Police and firemen entering the burning buildings in 9/11 attack (8 to 10)
My mom and dad (7)
Men and women fighting in Iraq: our side (5 to 10) their side (?)
Youngster really trying to make good grades in school (7)

The psychologist Alfred Adler said: “The supreme law [of life] is this: the sense of worth of the self shall not be allowed to be diminished.”

Heroic actions are our means for maintaining our self esteem. Without heroic action we cannot maintain our own self-esteem. Self-esteem is self-respect. We judge our self as to the degree of worthiness for respect. We rely partially upon the judgment of others but that respect from others is filtered by our own judgments to how heroic our actions are.

It appears that we must feel self-esteem or we suffer mental illness of one degree or another. I gain self-esteem by reading lots of stuff, writing about that stuff, and posting that stuff on this forum, i.e. I am a self-actualizing self-learner (6).

What do you do for self-esteem?

coberst

One reason that I posted this was because I wanted to introduce a word that is so very important to the sciences of psychology and psychoanalysis.

All that I have read about these two sciences indicate that what are called heroic acts are those acts that reinforce our self-esteem and with out self-esteem we are pitiful creatures.

We have many words in the language that have both a common usage and also have a technical usage. The word ‘hero' is one such word. I have been studying psychology and psychoanalysis for the last many months and these domains of knowledge use the word 'hero' in a technical manner.

One of the difficulties we always have when we try to learn a domain of knowledge that is new to us is learning the vocabulary. The OP reflects how this word is used in these sciences.

My act is heroic if I think it is and it is also heroic if others think that it is. If my act is heroic then my self-esteem grows. We are not talking about absolutes here. In some cultures if I stone to death my sister for dishonoring my family then my act is heroic.

Lack of self-esteem is one of the major causes of mental illness. This lack of self-esteem can also lead to obesity when the individual tries to find solace in food when self-esteem is not up to par.

coberst

McMansions equals heroic action for American citizens.


"We're not selling shelter," says the president of Toll Brothers, a builder of upscale homes. "We're selling extreme-ego, look-at-me types of homes." In 2000, Toll Brothers' most popular home was 3,200 square feet; by 2005, it had grown 50 percent, to 4,800 square feet. These "McMansions" often feature marble floors, sweeping staircases, vaulted ceilings, family rooms, studies, home entertainment centers and more bedrooms than people.
'House Lust' Hits Home Article from Washington Post Jan 2, 2008

coberst

Quotation from “The Birth and Death of Meaning” by Ernest Becker.

“Anthony Quinn in his great role in “Requiem for a Heavyweight” earned his inner sense of self-value by constantly reminding himself and others that he was “fifth-ranking contender for the heavyweight crown”. This made him really somebody, gave him continual nourishment, allowed him to hold his head high in the shabbiest circumstances. Academic intellectuals have their own fine gradations of worth: a six-hour teaching load, with no under-graduate teaching, in an ivy-league school; a three hour teaching load, with only one undergraduate course, in an almost ivy-league school. How these balance in the scale of self-worth can cause agonizing life decisions.”

simu

Moved to Psychology forum - simu

eth0_

wtf *is* this?

the_syco

OP, interesting. Instead of using mythic people of legends, you use everyday people as hero's, but people who strove against all odds to do, in your mind, "above and beyond".

An interesting concept.

p.pete

eth0_ wrote: »

wtf *is* this?

don't know, not quite a blog. Seems to be a storage of thoughts or something...