We Can Be Heroes
Not all heroes wear capes. Some live in trash cans and collect garbage.
Every morning I wake up with two big things on my to-do list. I need to work on this website, the Travolta/Cage podcast and the expanded edition of the Weird Accordion to Al book, which I am hoping to finish by the end of June. Secondly, I need to take the steps necessary to keep my two sons, and my wife and myself from dying from the Coronavirus.
This is far and away the most terrifying crisis I have ever lived through. It’s not even close. It’s fucking scary, is what it is, in so many ways. But I wake up every morning with an incredible sense of purpose because nothing in the world is more important to me than the health and happiness of my family and at this terrible, uncertain time their lives have never been in greater peril.
This horrible crisis affords us all an unprecedented opportunity to be heroes, to be our best selves, to take steps to ensure a future for ourselves, our families, our communities, our country, and ultimately for humanity as a whole.
This heroism does not have to be dramatic. We don’t need to be ER doctors facing down possible death every time they go to work, although some of us are, and I sincerely thank them for their service. Heroism in the age of the coronavirus can take many forms. It can be something as seemingly simple as reaching out to somebody who is feeling scared and defeated and alone and letting them know that they’re not alone, and that everyone in the whole damn world is scared right now, and that is okay.
You don’t even necessarily have to do anything legitimately heroic to be one of this crisis’ everyday heroes. Hell, just by staying home, smoking weed and watching Seinfeld reruns and old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 instead of going outside and putting not only your own life in danger but others as well you’re doing your part to flatten the curve and end this awful thing. You can feel sad and defeated and absolutely destroyed by the world, like you have nothing left to give, but you do. You don’t have to be strong right now but you do have to be responsible and in that responsibility lies no small amount of heroism.
For parents, the stakes are higher. We’re all Robert Benigni in Life is Beautiful now, faced with the daunting, all-important challenge of making our children feel safe and secure and protected in a world spinning out of control. We need to make our children feel safe even if the world feels more dangerous than ever before because it is more dangerous than ever before.
We need to provide a sense of safety, continuity and security for our children even as our entire world has been disrupted dramatically and tragically by a threat almost beyond our imagination.
In order to survive this unprecedented crisis we are going to have to be self-disciplined. We will need to exercise extraordinary self-control. We will need to put the needs of others and the greater good above our own needs. We will have to put public safety and the very future of civilization above our economic self-interest.
In other words, we will have to behave in very unAmerican ways. We will have to abandon the cult of rugged individualism that has been at the core of our identity for centuries because the only thing that will defeat this crisis is collective action, in tackling this awful thing as a community, not as individuals.
Like everyone, I am scared but I cannot give into that fear for my own sake and the sake of my family, myself and my readers.
As parents, neighbors and Americans we can all be heroes, not just for one day but for as long as this nightmare lasts and well into the scary aftermath.
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