Not as much a Hero
It had been a while since I had caught up with this friend. Discussions with him always went beyond worldly and usually concerned ideas, persuits and meaning. During our last discussion he casually remarked, ‘we may die without making something as historic as iPhone like Steve Jobs. But we must atleast leave some mark on the world. Else what shall be meaning of this life?’. It reminded me of the stacks of biographies I had read in earlier years, looking for inspiration and that magical ingredient for ‘success’. I remembered posters of inspiring personalities I had hung in my room: Jobs, Lincoln, Branson, Ford and the one below, right in front of my desk:
Fast forwarding to the present day, I do not read biographies any more and do not believe much in heroism. In this article I shall try to argue that extreme persuit of glory can lead to disappointments and that atleast part of heroism is a result of randomness present in the Nature.
Disclaimer: This article is by no means an attempt to undermine contributions of any or all of the great personalities this world has seen. I agree that world is a better place today because of them. The point I am trying to argue is that fitting causal heroic stories around them may not be totally correct and believing in them may lead to rise of discontent in this world.
The first heroes
Our first heroes were probably tribal heads. Animal kingdom has ample examples of ‘Alpha-Male’ behaviour where the head of the tribe has exclusive privileges. We see this even in Gorillas from whose evolutionary path we diverged only a few millions of years ago. In our ancestral environment, with hardly any laws and regulations, the ‘hero(es)’ of the tribe had more access to resources including sexual resources than the rest.
So it always helped to be the hero of the clan. Songs and tales were written about these heroic men, which culture carried forward to next generations. Though it may not have been possible for most to become the head, most desired it. The same desire fuelled many individuals to train towards becoming the head.
Today ‘reputation’ and ‘achievement’ are the currencies representing heroism and our heroes look like this.
However the same desire mechanism drives individuals to look up to heroes, though access to resources are far more democratised today. This is just one among many examples which show
people’s minds are designed to maximize survival in the environment in which those minds evolved.
The problem
With rampant flow of information in today’s world, we hear a lot more of heroic stories including the favourite rags-to-riches types. Thousands of books are written on lives of heroes (and successful enterprises on similar lines) which sound like recipes for ‘success’.
The problem is not with heroes themselves. The world needs them. The problem is with basing one’s purpose of life and meaning with such material achievements or popularity. By very definition not everyone can become successful/heroes. Talent/Success has to follow natural normative curve.
Only very few achieve enormous ‘success’ and will be remembered. Most people will fall in the middle. Having heroic expectations can lead to disappointments. If so how does stories of heroes evolve in first place?
Stories of the Heroes
By very nature humans crave for causal stories even when none exist. We try to weave a pattern even to a set of random events. The stories of heroes make us believe they knew everything all along — skillfully maneuvering life and circumstances that came their way. That they could see larger trends before anyone else and made best use of them.
However in reality these stories are written looking backwards, intentionally or unintentionally connecting dots or deriving a framework, which either did not exist or was invisible to the hero as he lived his life looking forward. I was late to recognise this despite having read Captain Gopinath’s Autobiography, Simply Fly where he says
If you are young, with dreams of making a difference ….. don’t emulate everything that is here — try to beat your own path, your own trial.
Now let me attempt to take away the ‘wow’ from heroism.
Randomness in Nature
Do you know that Behavioural Genetics studies reveal that you and the person below have 99.9% same genes?
If so why is he (Zuckerberg) a billionaire, successful and a Hero (for many) and you are what you are? Let us look closely at factors which created the difference.
- Genes which ARE different: Genetics reveals that one’s genes (which control production of proteins and thus control nature and behaviour) are result of meiotic division and random combinations (of chromosomes) of his parents gene’s(which are in turn from their parents) which are doled into one during conception(It is also known that acquired characteristics are not genetically transmitted). This part of hero’s traits was not in anyone’s control, let alone Hero himself.
- Turn of events in Hero’s life: If we assume turn of events in the Universe is random, situational factors that contributed to hero’s success can at best be called as luck if not random. Being at the right place at right time is one such example(being in Silicon Valley during rise of internet).
- Handling circumstances: How did hero handle the turn of events in his life? Here some credit has to go to the Hero especially in cases of athletes who train heavily for years. Also there would still be lot many people who under similar circumstances and equal genetic capability did not make it big. However we must look closely:
- It is known that Evolution works by building mechanisms that learn to adapt and thrive under given circumstances. Thus part of the credit goes to Evolution as a designer, which built coping mechanisms for his environment well in advance.
- There may still be enough people who had come close to success as the Hero but not as much. The world is not great at eulogising the second winner. Your hero is still not as much a hero compared to them.
If Darwin was correct and random splits and/or copying mistakes of replicator molecules over millions of years could build something as magnanimous as life on earth, the quote below cannot be regarded as total farce.
A million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare!
I hope I have been atleast partly succesful in conveying that it is not just action-> result that makes stories of heroes and that randomness in universe has a considerable role to play(call it luck if you wish). So aiming for legacy and believing that everything is within our capability can end in disappointments. Next time you see a ‘hero’ you can sing…
There goes my hero; Watch him as he goes;
There goes my hero; He’s ordinary ;
— Foo Fighters
