I don't know, it seems like... everyone has a [few] role model. Except... I didn't for the longest time. Only until recently have I actually sat myself down to reevaluate my human inspirations in life and all that good stuff.
So... I was thinking, like, people's role models... who do they tend to be? Like... celebrities? Natalie Portman? She's smart and pretty, right? And stuff.
Do people look up to the people famous for their brains or their looks or what? It depends on personality, right?
Well, I've been asking around, and so far, I've received answers like:
"Parents."
"Marie Curie."
"Rachel Carson."
"Christiano Ronaldo."
And I'm just like, WTF?
My role models must be kind of obscure, then, 'cause I'm thinking:
Nikola Tesla
Alexander McQueen
Raita Honjou
And more, probably. I can't imagine, though, 'cause... how..?
Why..?
WHY?
Is it because they are the socially acceptable role models? Because Nikola Tesla had depression and failed on quite a few things, right ('cause he almost blew Manhattan up or something)?
And Alexander McQueen committed suicide?
And I know barely anything about Raita Honjou (just that his art is amazing).
You know who else I look up to?
Mozilla. On Pixiv. ( http://www.pixiv.com/users/14896 )
John Kenn Mortensen.
Shinkiro. Of Capcom.
William Goldman.
Italo Calvino.
Haruki Murakami.
Socrates.
Zeno.
Elliot Chang.
I don't know, is that weird?
Is there a status quo for role models? Are mine not 'good' role models? Should I not look up to someone who curses on an hourly basis? Should I not look up to someone who defied their ethnic culture?
Should I only look up to intellectuals?
I feel like the people I look up to are either recondite or frowned upon.
That's why I'm usually afraid to tell people these things about myself, such as my role models. I'm afraid to talk about my inspirations, my hobbies, my ambitions, because they're different and sometimes frowned upon.
But since no one here knows me, I see no problem with it.
Thank you, Internet. For saving me from folding in upon myself.
“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they’re able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they’re treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids’ hearts are malleable, but once they gel it’s hard to get them back the way they were.”
-Haruki Murakami
I'm not saying I'm a smart child, I just got straight A's, was part of the Gifted and Talented group, skipped a year of foreign language and a year of math, got all Honors/AP classes in high school, and knew some college-level vocabulary before hitting teenage years (10-12). And I'm not bragging about that, either, those are humble mentions compared to the other people at the time. But that quote directly and completely describes my childhood. That's how a grew up-- although I was also forbidden to use the words 'death', 'die', 'kill', 'murder', 'hate', or anything along those lines, nor was I ever allowed to curse (which is reasonable, I suppose).
I was crawling into a shell.
The Internet saved me from that. The Internet is still saving me from that. The Internet saved me.
I know I went pretty off-topic, but... I guess one of my role models would also be the inventors of the Internet (which, according to freebase, is Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn), although they're more like... heroes (to me and probably to the world, as well).
