I want to be like my heroes

I feel like venting. (nothing ruins a perfectly fine day like clearing up someone else's mess) But no, I'm not going to talk about clearing up someone else's mess, because that is just not worth my time.

It's funny, somehow whenever my mood sours, I don't usually get upset about the matter at hand, but rather something entirely different (though usually something suppressed). Just now my general bad mood led back to something my dad said to me a while ago.

I remember that day rather clearly. I read a free advertisement booklet my mom picked up at a shopping mall, and expressed my surprise at all the businesses I never knew existed in my hometown of Johor Baru. (Did you know that there are tons of interior design/home deco materials specialty stores in JB? Is the market that big?)

My dad, with all good intentions, told me that I should have made more effort to read these kinds of materials, or travel around my own hometown instead of 'reading those useless fantasy books' back when I was in high school.

I admit I don't know much about my own town. But really, 'useless' fantasy books? How dare you call them useless?

Those useless fantasy books taught me so much about life and how to be a better human being, and perhaps more than you did in some ways, I felt like saying to him then.

I didn't, of course. Because it's not fair to him, and he didn't mean anything bad. Because he's an engineer who grew up reading sci-fi and mysteries and probably thinks all fiction are about solving mysteries and exploring scientific possibilities. Perhaps he thinks fantasy has no use because it has no foundations in science, so what can you possibly learn?

What, indeed. I don't even know where to begin.

Let's take the beginning. Harry Potter. It was more about fun and wonder than anything else, but I learned that you don't need your friends to be perfect (yes, I was that snobbish as a kid).   Then it was the fanfiction, most notably the long-running Power Rangers in Space fic 'The First Saga' by starandrea that accompanied me on countless sleepless nights. It taught me about friendship, love, courage and so much more.

Of course, as a Chinese-educated student, it did wonders for my command of English as not just a 'second language' that I must have working knowledge of, but as a beautiful language that I can love and use to express my deepest feelings and build wondrous worlds.

Then there were Alanna, Diane and Kel, from Tamora Pierce's wonderful fantasy world of Tortall. I started reading their stories in my late high school years, and saying that it changed my life would not be an exaggeration. And their stories are also why I felt so damn indignant when my dad said reading them is useless - it's not just that I love them, they are my heroes.

In that world, Alanna was like the English, middle-ages version of Mulan. She disguised herself as a boy to train for knighthood. What made this story different was that she was no chosen one heralded by prophecy, nor was she a genius with a sword or anything. In fact, she sucked with a sword in the beginning, and was the worst swordsman(woman) in her batch. But she made up for it by practicing super hard, going through countless drills with a much heavier sword every morning. By the time she did achieve knighthood, she had earned the title of the best swordsman in her country.

The stories of the other two have this common theme of hard work, with slight variations. My favorite is actually Kel (short for Keladry), who is also a knight and who trained hard. But she was also a leader and commander in a war. Her story taught me that leadership is not about glamorous things like the authority or making rousing speeches, but more of building a rapport with and really caring about your people.

Why are they so special to me, when there are countless others in the market? Why do I feel obligated to make them proud, as if they are somehow real?

Well, their stories came at a time when I needed them. When I first read Alanna's story, I wasn't sure of who I would be. I was a nobody at school - good grades aside - and I didn't think I have a talent in anything other than books. My mom and dad always told me to work 'smart', not 'hard', and I suppose they have their reasons for doing so (I got the impression that they were on the losing ends of office politics, and they didn't want their children to grow up working hard but end up with someone else taking the credit). But valuing hard work puts you in reach of so many other things.

Anyway, I was more or less convinced that I must somehow be stuck with the only thing I'm good at - studying. However, I knew with depressing certainty that the system is broken, and when I grow up and out of the system, having only good grades won't cut it in this world.

Alanna's story convinced me that it doesn't matter if I'm not good at something. Hard work will make up for it.

I had also wanted to know what it means to be a leader, and why does everyone value those 'leadership skills' (I had once wondered, if you hire all the leader types, who would be the followers?). Kel's story - which also emphasized the importance and usefulness of hard work - gave me some ideas of how to be a good one.

They really changed my life. I became braver, enough to take up challenges outside my comfort zone, because I want to be like them; I became more emphatic about other people, and less judgmental (though for this I seem to need constant reminders). I firmly believe that they are a huge part of my drive to succeed back in college. And of course, I have written about that part of my life frequent enough.

They are my heroes. I want to make them proud, even if they're not real. Should we meet some day in my dreams, I want to be able to look them in the eye and thank them for changing my life for the better, beyond my imagination, even (one day I will do that to the author, hopefully in person).

It might seem rather silly, sure. I don't really care what you think about them. But I refuse to let anyone dismiss reading them as 'useless'.

I don't know how to say this to my dad without hurting his feelings, as it implies that he didn't teach me these things. Well, both he and my mom had to work very hard when my brother and I were kids, and we didn't see much of them most of the time. There wasn't much chance. But that's okay, we understand. And we took care of ourselves. We learned what we had to somehow.

But I just can't let you dismiss my teachers as 'useless'. Yet how should I tell you this?

I'm planning to wait, though. I'll give my best to do what I want, and I'll wait for the day when I go further than you thought I would, and you finally ask out loud, 'How did you do it?'

Then I'll sit you down, and tell you all about my 'useless' fantasy books.

*

In the mean time, I needed to vent.

That was like a weight off my chest. I love writing.