Oh Captain, My Captain

The nature of admiration and hero worship are an interesting thing. When we first come to admire someone, with me anyway, the hero worship is such that it prevents you from seeing the flaws in the person you admire. You place them on a pedestal, and you think every move they make, every decision they come to, is genius. You'd support them unquestioning no matter what and damn to hell anyone that doesn't agree with you, or your idol.

And then a time comes that you grow up. Or circumstances change. Your morals or values change. Your directions change. Your passions change. And the person you so admired no longer gels with the direction you're going in.

They've stayed the same, while you've changed. Or you've stayed the same, while they've changed. It doesn't really matter how it came about, but the person on the pedestal is suddenly real and fallible, and it's kind of a shock.

And it's kind of sad.

Or is it?

Is it just normal that as you grow up, learn, start to define who you are, that the idols you had in your youth no longer make sense. You find out that the Easter bunny isn't real, Elmo has a human hand up his ass, and sometimes even the best of people make mistakes.

You don't think Hillary should have forgiven Bill, but you still love Hillary for her strength of purpose, and courage, and ability to stand strong in a room full of men and you know she's kicking ass and holding her own.

You don't agree with Michelle's fat shaming of kids that are already getting bullied for their weight, but she's a strong, intelligent, passionate woman who doesn't shy away from saying what she thinks and so you continue to admire what she does for women.

With others though, perhaps the departure of values is so extensive, that it feels impossible to find that spark that caught your eye when you were young and impressional. You wonder about what you were thinking, were you just young and stupid, or have you changed so much?

It's like that moment when you realise that there's no fixing the precious teddy that has lived on your bed since the day you were born and you finally have to be a big kid and learn to sleep alone.

A hero falling from grace (in your own mind), much like your teddy ending up in the bin, is a moment of self-realisation where you take stock of yourself. Your changes. Your strengths and weaknesses.

And you hopefully come to realisation that admiring someone is wonderful, but hero worship is a thing of youth, and you no longer need to place someone on a pedestal from which they will inevitably fall.