Echo Beach

Recently I was given two exercises. One was to describe the villains of my past, those who through casual or thoughtless comments, handicapped my personal creativity. The second was to describe my heroes and mentors, those people who helped me and encouraged me as I struggled to express my creativity.
Finding the villains was easy. I went on and on for a number of pages, describing in great detail the hurt and thoughtlessness I had experienced, whether actual or imagined. I had a great time describing those evil people who served to block my path and destroy my happiness. It was actually fun to vent my spleen all over the screen. Oddly the act of describing those people who destroyed my creative ability only proved that I had creative ability. I was very creative in my descriptions of the slights and imagined slights those "evil doers" perpetrated. I was a perfect helpless hurt victim, at least on paper.
Then came the second part of the exercise, to describe my heroes and mentors. I had a shocking revelation.
I couldn't find any heroes.
I didn't seem to have any. When it came time to describe those people who had helped me along, I drew a blank. My creativity left me. I found more creativity with my villains then I did with my heroes.
I searched my memory of those teachers that I respected and those relatives in whom creativity abounds, and in each one I found a flaw. I found their "feet of clay", an indication that told me my creative ability was limited in some way. I found patronization, condescension, I even found disinterest. Whether it was there or just my imagination, I found in each one, some indication that they felt I couldn't cut it creatively.
I looked to my friends for some indication of "hero" or "mentor" and found both immediately. For the sake of the exercise I tried to call them my heroes. It just didn't feel right. Sure, I've had a great deal of encouragement from my friends, but they are my peers. That image in the back of my head, that Obi-wan Kenobi mentor that was there for me, I just couldn't find it. That felt just plain wrong. I wasn't comfortable putting the burden of "Hero" onto my friends.
Where were the heroes of my youth? Why could I call my friends heroes and not call my teachers or relatives heroes? My friends all have "feet of clay", they have their flaws just as much as my elders do. Why couldn't I look at my educators and call them heroes? I didn't seem to have a single one that I could look up to and say, this person did the most for my creative ability.
Finally after three days it hit me; I was actively looking for flaws in those people that would by my mentors. I was looking for some indication that these oracles of knowledge didn't think much of my creative ability, or that if they did then their opinion wasn't worth much. And I was finding what I was looking for whether it was there or not. I was finding that indication because I believed it was there. I was finding it because I set the bar so high they couldn't possibly measure up. I did that to prove that I had no heroes, no mentors. I sabotaged their chances because I wanted them all to fail me in some way.
I did that only so that I could prove my own negative self worth was true. Ouch! That's some startling revelation. As soon as I realised what I had been doing I brought that bar down a little. I used my friends as a measure of where the bar should be. After all, I found it easy to call my friends heroes. I decided to see my educators and relatives in the same light as I see my friends. As soon as I brought that bar down, the heroes and mentors came out of the woodwork. My choir teacher Olmstead, my drama coach McAllister, My substitute drama coach Cheetle, my math teacher See, My artistic Uncle Dale, My civics teacher who was the most difficult teacher I ever had
And most of all my parents. I can't list all of the heroes I'm finding. The best part is there appear to be more heroes then there are villains.

Or perhaps the very best part is that some of my villains are actually heroes in disguise.