idols and heroes

I was about ten when we did a school activity, something like choosing a “beacon,” an “example” to follow. Everyone else seemed to have a name instantly; their parents, a football player, a teacher. I remember sitting there, with nothing in mind. Thinking hard about why I didn't have my decision made and what I was missing.

That moment pushed me to go looking. I started searching for people I could become like, people I could chase. And I point that out because it's easy to lose that feeling as you grow up. You become more "mature", more "realistic", and you slowly start to keep your admiration at a safe distance, paying more attention to what's wrong with them than what's right with them.

That's why you need idols.

Not someone you're merely "interested in". Idols. Heroes. People who make you feel genuinely excited, truly inspired. Most people never feel that way about anyone. They'll follow someone, read them, watch them, listen to them, but from far away. Just for consumption. They keep it comfortable. They keep it safe.

But the whole point is proximity. You need to live closer to it. You need to feel it enough that become an obsession. And usually, that will make you start comparing yourself to them.

Comparison is the most powerful discomfort you can inflict on your own mediocrity. It stings, and that sting is productive. It pushes you to move, to change, to do something different with your finite life. The crowd will never create that feeling for you, because the crowd, by definition, is average. It's a careful "not too much" of everything; safe opinions, soft edges. You can't feel challenged by something that isn't meaningfully different.

Idols matter because we need innovation, we need changes, we need to be different. That is something that the best individuals empower to be possible, not a group of people that have no path than just follow each other. Collective consciousness is nothing if you get rid of the few individuals who actually stretched reality first.

An idol is a statistical anomaly, someone who bent the curve, who falls outside it. Someone who's life doesn't fit neatly into the normal distribution of human behavior. Find one you can admire. Find one who makes you think, "I want to be that person".

Having idols means doing whatever you can to beat them. Even thought is hard and you'll see that it seems you're not going to make it, you must continue and not fall into the "mature" exit of that fight. Excuses will arise; "Nobody is that great", "But they did this or that wrong". You'll try to find a balance but balance is average and middle. Nobody want to be that.

Admiring someone gives you a rare kind of fascination and euphoria, that you can't get from polite consensus. It happens when you see a person break what you tought that was possible to do in this the world. Not when you hear an already repeated idea or agreement between people.

That's why I don't learn from "the market", "the community", "the ecosystem". That's completely flat. It doesn't generate the energy you need. And for sure it's not great. Will be average. If you don't have heroes, your standard of greatness is probably too easy to hit.

You need idols.