Personal Heroes?

OrnotBitwise

OrnotBitwise

Watermelon
For once, I'm not trying to be provocative. I am just genuinely curious as to whom we all admire most.

Pretty much everyone has personal heroes, I suppose. I'm not talking about family members and close friends but rather public figures. I'm also not going to accuse anyone of hero-worship: I freely admit that it's possible to admire people greatly and yet retain some objectivity about them. It's not only possible but essential, in fact.

I suspect that almost everyone's list will be heavily weighted toward people whom they learned to admire as children. Those tend to stick with you most strongly, I believe.

So, who are my personal heroes, you may well ask? I'll try to keep the list short. Many of you can guess them anyhow and predictability is so very boring.

In no particular order at all, then:

Carl Sagan*
Ben Franklin (randy old iconoclast)
Isaac Newton
Galileo Galilei
Mohandas K. Ghandi
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Charles Dickens
Richard Feynman
Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Jack London
Robert Goddard
Tenzin Gyatso ( ;) )




*It was thinking about Sagan that spurred all this maundering. I'm watching one of my favorite Cosmos episodes just now. :)
 
OrnotBitwise said:
For once, I'm not trying to be provocative. I am just genuinely curious as to whom we all admire most.

Pretty much everyone has personal heroes, I suppose. I'm not talking about family members and close friends but rather public figures. I'm also not going to accuse anyone of hero-worship: I freely admit that it's possible to admire people greatly and yet retain some objectivity about them. It's not only possible but essential, in fact.

I suspect that almost everyone's list will be heavily weighted toward people whom they learned to admire as children. Those tend to stick with you most strongly, I believe.

So, who are my personal heroes, you may well ask? I'll try to keep the list short. Many of you can guess them anyhow and predictability is so very boring.

In no particular order at all, then:

Carl Sagan*
Ben Franklin (randy old iconoclast)
Isaac Newton
Galileo Galilei
Mohandas K. Ghandi
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Charles Dickens
Richard Feynman
Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Jack London
Robert Goddard
Tenzin Gyatso ( ;) )




*It was thinking about Sagan that spurred all this maundering. I'm watching one of my favorite Cosmos episodes just now. :)
Click to expand...


Many great intellects and artistic talents to admire there.

I really look up to people who - through their dignity and strong moral values - stood up to oppression and inequality through the worst of times:


Nelson Mandela
Andrei Sakharov
Martin Luther King
Mother Theresa
 
Some of my heroes (in no particular order):

Nikola Tesla and his rival Thomas Edison
Leonardo DaVinci
Isaac Asimov
Thomas Jefferson
Ben Franklin
The Tuskegee Airmen

I'm sure I'll think of many more as soon as I post this, but heck...
 
Michelangelo
Leonardo Da vinci
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Alexander Graham Bell
Telsa and Edison
Marie Curie
The Amistad Prisoners
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Galileo
Ludwig van Beethoven
Preston Tucker
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Reagan and Goldwater

to name just a few ....
 
Dayum Pinheads... where is Norm Chomsky and Karl Marx? Are you ashamed to admit they are your heroes? I understand!

Here are mine...

George Washington
Patrick Henry
Thomas Paine
George Mason
Abe Lincoln
Teddy Roosevelt
Dr. MLK, Jr.
Ronald Reagan
Margaret Thatcher
Winston Churchill
McArthur
Patton
John Wayne

Whew... that's the "long list".

If I had to pick one personal hero, it would be Debbie K. None of you know her, but she is a friend of mine, who just completed her CPA certification. She is an economics professor at a local private college, and also travels extensively around the region, speaking for her favorite charity, MDA. She has had MD her entire life, and is confined to a wheelchair. In spite of this unimaginable handicap, she drives her own custom-equipped van, and has accomplished more in her lifetime, than most people of normal physical capacity. She is an inspiration to human spirit, and the ability of anyone to overcome adversity and achieve success in life as a human.
 
Damocles said:
Some of my heroes (in no particular order):

Nikola Tesla and his rival Thomas Edison
Leonardo DaVinci
Isaac Asimov
Thomas Jefferson
Ben Franklin
The Tuskegee Airmen

I'm sure I'll think of many more as soon as I post this, but heck...
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Oh, I've no doubt we could all come up with longer and longer lists. It's kind of like listing your favorite songs: the list will change from day to day. :)

Tesla. Good one. What a nutjob . . . and I mean that in the best possible way. He was a nutjob in the same way that Leo Szilard was a nutjob: nuts don't get much better than that.
 
Nietzsche? Really? Eeentaresting.

Don't subscribe to all his theories (eternal return for eg) but I agree that morality, and even metaphysics, is just an illusion. I believe that humans can and should overcome the nihilistic reality of existence and create their own morality/metaphysics to live by, whilst still recognising their artificial nature.

And of course I'm rather partial to his theories on god... :)
 
Many of those already listed, including L. Da Vinci, W. Churchill, T. Paine, T. Edison, A.G. Bell, et al.

I'd also add:

Rosa Parks
Geoffrey Chaucer
Phillip K. Dick
Jack Whyte
Frederick Banting and Best (insulin)
Jack Watson and Francis Crick (DNA Helix)
Alexander Fleming (penicillin)
Edward Jenner (smallpox vaccine)
Jonas Salk (polio vaccine)
 
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Damocles said:
Some of my heroes (in no particular order):

Nikola Tesla and his rival Thomas Edison
Leonardo DaVinci
Isaac Asimov
Thomas Jefferson
Ben Franklin
The Tuskegee Airmen

I'm sure I'll think of many more as soon as I post this, but heck...
Click to expand...
How could I forget?

Frederick Douglass
 
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