Where are our heroes?

My Indiegogo campaign and the search for modern day inspiration…

Can one ever find his true hero?

Whom do you consider as your personal hero today?

There are more than 7 Billion people on earth but none whom I can identify with or consider as my true hero with a potential to remain so for my whole life and I suspect that this may be true for each one of us. Was it the same way when people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Winston Churchill were alive?

May be one of the reasons is that I have myself become immune to the heroic and self less deeds of people around me, or may be the world has settled down to mere skirmishes and there are no wars as there used to be like the ones against imperialism, racism or fascism. As they say great adversities bring out great leaders!

But I do feel that this is odd! The only hero I ever had was my humanities teacher in high school about 15 years back! Her impact on me was so profound that I believe it was because of her that I could thrive through high school. I am without a hero ever since. Everyone needs a guiding light in life! For some is comes from within but for some its the other way around.

Then one day, I stumbled across a name called Aaron Swartz. One thing led to another and I spent the whole night reading about him and the actions he had taken. I found him a nerd whose work struck a chord with me. I could somehow identify with his pain and idealism simultaneously. And for me it was a rare feeling of empathy and inspiration. Although what may be a very shallow review of the life and work of Aaron Swartz, I nevertheless decided to do something to remember Aaron Swartz and carry forward his legacy.

Aaron loved books and so do I. One of the stories I read about his childhood was how he won a debate within his family on how to catalog the books in the house. Later he went on to create a project ‘Open Library’ on internet archive giving easy, free and legal access to millions of e-books whose copyrights were no more in effect. He was a voracious reader and a deep critic. Not only he has reviewed many books on his blog but there is an article listing 40 of his favorite books based on his blog reviews. So it felt that it could be books around which I can make an attempt to help recognize his legacy in a way which is of my own interpretation.

The inspiration was to create better access to knowledge but involve more and more people and empower them to contribute in their individual capacity. There was an idea around a ‘couch-surfing of books’ which I thought fit in perfectly well with this purpose. Create a community which shares books within themselves and thus contribute to the free flow of knowledge, improve literacy and the love of reading.

So I decided to start an Indiegogo campaign to fund a free book exchange for physical books and have millions of little libraries in every nook and corner. It will add to the many hyper-local communities we can now see building up around us. And will enables many people to become heroes of their small communities. Books are said to have life changing impact on people’s lives. I have taken inspiration from Aaron for this campaign of mine and hopefully I will have the conviction to see this project to its logical end.

Be curious, Read widely, Try new things — Aaron Swartz

So here I am on a quest to find inspiration and experimenting along this journey of mine. I hope everyone who is looking out there to find inspiration find something which creates a spark in him. I have Aaron to thank for a spark within me but alas he is no more with us. I wonder if in his last days did he see himself as a hero or did he see himself as a victim who was labelled a villain. I can never support his last decision but it does pose a deep question to all of us.

I don’t know if it matters but his last blog entry was about a movie which had a famous quote:

Either you die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

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You have a limited time! Limited time to act and be a part of this small revolution. Our offer for you to be part of this project (literally! your name can be embedded inside the code of our product) goes off the air on Valentine’s day on Indiegogo (Contribute here). Next time around when you are looking for a book and feel like talking to someone who appreciates that book — you can look for it on barter.li

Go live a book!

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