Are you born a HERO or is one made to be HEROIC?

Great Debates
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Over this Holliday weekend Mrs.Phlosphr and I were discussing Heroism and its formation in a human being. One can surmise that certain professions require a certain degree of heroism (Firefighter, police officer, some parts of the Armed forces etc…etc…) These individuals are almost required to be heroic if a situation arises where they must exhibit heroic properties…

However, what about the everyday Joe who rescues a person from certain death? Or the one who puts themselves in danger to save another, or the extra adrenalin that presents itself when someone needs extra strength.
We started thinking on this topic when we were riding a ferry and a teenage girl (Developed mentally delayed) fell over board and was thrashing about a bit in the white water of the ferry we were on. A man almost instantaniously jumped over board, grabbed her and swam away from the wake of the ship…

We are talking about 5 seconds after the girl hit the water the man jumped from the second level down and into the cold water and pulled the girl out of the ferries way. After the Ferry Stopped and the rescue boat picked them up, the man turned out to be a tourist riding the ferry to see his family. He was not a fire fighter or anything like that, he also didn’t know the girl who fell in…Just a normal guy…now deemed a hero…

So, would it be a sequence of events in this mans life that gave him the courage to do this, or was he born with excess amounts of courage just unleashed at this time.
Does ‘want’ play a role in the whole situation. Someone who is sitting idly by waiting for something to happen so they can be a hero. Or is it some kind of human instinct that enables people to become hero’s when needed??? Does everyone have latent heroism just sitting inside of them? Or is it a normal reaction to an abnormal situation…?

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And what if no one wants to cross your bridge, Horatius? If the Persians had not tried to pass Thermopyle would we still remember the Spartans? Was the man who vainly tried to use his own body to shelter his wife and children against the firestorm at Herculaneum a hero, before we dug them up and found out what he tried to do?

I believe that heroes wait in quiet places, sometimes all their lives, and no one ever notices. Cowards too, stay hidden, in most cases. And when the fire has given its heat, and the tool is quenched, then you know if the steel is sound, or if it has some hidden flaw. And if no one saw, then only the hero, or the coward ever knows. And the temper makes the tool brittle, or strong, brittle, or hard, although the man looks the same, to you or I.

You or I will never know, with that quiet certainty, the measure of our own courage, unless we too are forged by the fire, and hammered by fate to test our metal. Until that time, we can comfort ourselves with tales of the heroism of some common man, beset by uncommon events. “Yes, I think I would . . . “ Yes, I hope I would.”

Tris

“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.” ~ Hypatia of Alexandria ~