Throughout history, heroes have emerged from the ranks of average men to change the situation of all for the better. They are often unwittingly thrust into their elevated positions, intitially reluctant to bear the responsibility at hand. The hero sees the change that is needed in the world, and although it might yet be an evil that is bearable, she rebels against the status quo and puts herself at the ultimate risk, the loss of liberty, in order to become the change she seeks to make in the lives of others. After living and working among these simple minded people, and observing their ways, I find them too deeply entrenched in their petty, predictable, utterly mundane routines to even entertain the hope that they might one day live better or more fulfilling lives, let alone take upon themselves the responsibility for making that better life a reality.
Shall I, as they apparently have, abandon all hope that the way things are is not how they must by default be? Far better to insulate myself from their ignorance and small-mindedness, and to keep within my breat the fire burning that will light my way along this dark and torturous path to a future of bright and shining toil, that place where the full breadth of my faculties find expression, not in service to another, but to the benefit of mankind.
The greatest challenge I see is how to stir up these masses of working poor, these people who likely fill the forgotten pockets of America's exurban landscape from one coast to the other, and to convince them that the future lies not in service to others, but in the decisions they themselves make daily, and in their hidden and untapped abilities, whose expression could lift them from the daily useless toil in pursuit of cheap and simple goals and redirect their efforts to the discovery and propagation of Happiness.
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