So, You Wanna Meet Your Hero?

We all have heros. Some are tangible, right there intimately involved with our every day lives. And some are those bigger-than-life folks who we nearly idolize!

So, if the opprotunity presented itself, would you want to spend time with your hero? What if it meant you walked away from the meeting no longer respecting that person?

A few days ago, I was listening to a conversation by some old DJs who’ve seen the ins and outs of rock-n-roll over the last, oh, 50 years. One is a giant Rolling Stones fan, another is a giant Eric Clapton fan. Neither has had the opprotunity to meet their musical hero. Then the question arose…so, if you had the chance, would you take it?

Bob Dylan once had the opprotunity to meet his childhood musical idol, Elvis Presley. But Dylan turned down the offer. Why? Because he knew the reality could not match up with the image Bob carried of The King.

As I listened to these two DJs talk, neither was quite sure what they’d do. Meet Mick Jagger, only to have him turn out to be a complete jerk? Or spend a few minutes talking with Clapton, only to discover he’s more interested in a newspaper than you? It’s a tough call…but I know exactly where I’d land.

See, I dig reality. Even if something is less impressive in person, I want to know that. Everyone says the Grand Canyon is so impossibily beautiful and no words can describe it. But I’m sure there are people who’ve also gone to the Grand Canyon and said, “What’s the big whoop?”

I choose to live in a world called “reality.” Good or bad, right or wrong, I always want to know the reality. Not the delusion, not the hallucination, nothing through rose-colored glasses. I want reality.

Having spent years in denial of reality, once you’ve tasted the sweetness of what life really is, it makes me never want to miss an opprotunity to know reality-even if that reality doesn’t match up with my pre-conceived notion. What’s your take?