What it must have been like in our first days to encounter the gods above and all around us that delivered every possible comfort and nurturing. By breast and bottle we were fed; by blanket warmed and by lullaby entranced into sleep. As time went by, we did not notice the imperfections, the lapses. And later, even as we noticed, it was hard to accept that Mom and Dad were not quite the perfect deities we had imagined. There is disappointment. All parents fall from the supernatural grace bestowed on them by sensorimotor and preoperational intelligence and our wish for heaven on earth.
Some parents fall harder than others. And they are not the only ones.
Complications arise with this fall from pedestals, yet we seem to be hard wired to never give up on the search for the perfect friend, lover, teacher, and coach. And in this Age of Influence, screens manifest an almost infinite array of gods and goddesses we so want to believe in! Who does not want a perfect hero to emulate; to explain things; to guide us through troubled waters? Like those perfect parents…we never had.
Perhaps our problem comes in what we are looking for in our heroes. After all, there is within us something bigger and much deeper than a parent to be projected (more on that later).
Let’s start with this: All of us are flawed and some of us tragically so; hamartánein; flawed and downfallen. Think of the famed Buffalo Bills running back accused of uxoricide; the revered Labor Leader implicated in serial sex abuses; the alleged child rape perpetrators: a Prince; a Governor; a Movie Director. Even the persona, Miranda Sings, was alleged to have groomed and formed inappropriate relationships with underage fans. We seem to imbue some heroes with an imagined (Perfect Parent) greatness that obscures a deeply defective nature. All of these were heroes to some and ultimately grave and bitter disappointments.
So what about that something within us, bigger and much deeper than a Parental Projection? Almost there…
Seeking Superstars, we have lost track of what heroism is, of the everyday hero’s journey: our own lives of challenge, of triumph, of pain and unsatisfactoriness. We all brave it all, our very imperfect quest. And when you think about it that way, heroes abound!
We could be inspired and learn so much from the imperfect but heroic friend, lover, teacher, and coach. So we must not fall into a trap of our own making by projecting a Perfect Parent/Perfect Person across a very human figure. An impulsive firing of such an exemplar could be an unfortunate, unforced error. As inevitable shortcomings appear, our disappointment would lead to termination, and a serious job opening for the next would-be Superstar in our lives. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Yikes!
Our delusion resides in the very wish for the Perfect Parent- a test all parents fail, as do all subsequent potential occupants of that nonpareil-sized hole in our hearts. It takes courage to accept that there are no Perfect Parents and no Perfect Superstars to fill their shoes. There is just us. A little over eight billion of us (heroes abound), who can never ever fill that heart hole for the Perfect Parent…and should just stop trying.
Now let’s get to what is bigger and deeper, even than Mom and Dad!
There is an old Zen saying, “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”. The wise Buddhist Psychotherapist from Washington, DC, authored a book with that title and submitted that “if you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.” Beyond parents, we ought not project the inner hero, the Buddha nature within, onto anyone either. After all we are, each of us, the hero we have been searching for!
This is our remedy and what might fill our ailing heart. We could reclaim our own inner (imperfect) hero and begin to see the inner hero that resides in all human beings.
We are in good company.
Dr. Bob's Blog 