on the futility of firm beliefs

I believe in nothing, and everything. I believe in all gods and creeds and think they are all so much baloney. For many years, indeed for most of my life have I lived, although mostly secretly so as not to offend my late father the Lutheran pastor, outside of the umbrella of true and diehard belief.
For decades I have been confused and scared by this condition of non-belief, for with everyone around me praying to some unseen and unfelt god I was afraid that my lack of faith would somehow damn me to eternal hellfire and also send me down a spiraling hole of woe and discontentment. While the argument could be made that this has in fact happened, that I have descended into the rabbit hole of rationalistic pantheism and emerged a crippled and worthless soul, I argue that my path has left me with the ability to embrace and pursue avenues to Happiness that I might otherwise have missed (by ruling out avenues to Happiness that I have tried and abandoned). It allows me to question all aspects of my understanding of myself and the world and has kept me away from the shackles of belief when faced with trying times.
Were I a true believer in some sort of omnipotent god, I would not have been able to weather the Night at Elysium in which I suffered hallucinations from food poisoning that allowed me to change fundamental aspects of my personality (i.e. to ease the pain of losing my mother and thus bridle my need to wantonly abuse substances). Instead I would likely have quaked in fear and prayed for guidance for weeks thereafter and would not have had the self-control to wrest from the situation a positive ending.
One major downside to this lack of firm beliefs is the fact that, after every confidence-shattering event such as a major relationship breakup or death in the family, I must rebuild my self-esteem and work hard to right the balance of positive and negative thoughts in my head, without the help of a religious support group, without a shoulder to cry on, without assistance from the outside. (Believe me: no one really cares, and if they say they care, they are either flat out lying or otherwise trying to sell you something.)
You are born alone, you live beholden to none but those whom you choose, and you die alone. I understand that while my refusal to seek outside help retards the healing process to a large degree, each subsequent existential crisis, although unique and painful in its own fashion, becomes easier for me to recover from and the process of  restructuring my psyche happens more quickly and with fewer longterm errors.
I firmly believe that everyone I know and love will abandon and betray me at their earliest convenience. I also believe that those I know and love will support me fully until the end of my days, although I have withdrawn nearly all attempts to gain said support, which is an inhuman and unnatural state of being because people expect you to rely on them and if you don't they cut you out of their lives in subtle but profound ways.
To sum this up a bit, I have tried to stop complaining about my hardships, and try to deal with them quietly and privately, without a strict reliance on some form of scripture, with only the Tao Te Ching to get me through the hardest parts, the best book for those seeking to mold their psyche and quell internal unrest I have ever read. Most people, however, like it when people complain, because they then have an excuse to complain themselves and get all the pent up tension off their chest.
Well, this went from firm beliefs to interpersonal relationships, but as almost no one but I (and you X0) reads this blog, continuity is paramount to rambling expression.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." W. Goldman, The Princess Bride

numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
JPR

for heroes a palpable need

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.