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It’s normal to get a lot of questions when you watch sports with somebody who isn’t knowledgeable about the rules of the game. Living with Victoria is no different except for one little thing, the questions are anything but normal.
“What do you have so many heroes?”
“Do you mean me or in general?”
“Your world seems to have a lot of heroes.”
“We really don't have a lot of heroes. We have many people we call heroes.”
“Are you a hero?”
“Hardly. A hero is someone who helps someone else.”
“You helped me. Does that not make you a hero?”
“I wasn't being heroic when I helped you. I was being kind.”
“People who are kind are not heroes?”
“Not all kind people are heroes, but heroism is a selfless act of kindness.”
“When you tried to save that little girl in Syria, were you being a hero?”
“I don’t think so. I just used a skill that I’d gained from taking part in a CPR training course. It was an automatic response to the situation. Besides, I always knew that you had my back.”
“I did not have any part of your anatomy.”
“I know that. It's a slang expression. It means that you would not let me get hurt.”
“I cannot allow you to get injured. I need you to continue with my observations of your species.”
“And is that all you need me for?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was hoping that, over time, you might think of me as a friend. After all, you are living here and sharing my day-to-day life. Remember my birthday?”
“Yes, that was an interesting experiment.”
“An experiment?” I said, my voice raising in a mixture of astonishment and slightly hurt feelings.
“You are an integral part of my observation of your species and that is all.”
She was right. However human she looked, I had to remember that she was anything but human. She did not seem capable of understanding human feelings or emotions and I seriously doubted that she ever would.
“Does proximity create friendships?”
“It can.” I was beginning to feel slightly foolish.
“Because we share the same proximity to each other, I will explore the concept of being your friend in more depth.”
I was sure that she would.
“So, getting back to this hero worship thing. What does it have to do with us watching the game?”
“Humans seem to need heroes to give meaning to whatever they do.”
“What makes you think that?”
“In this sports game, there seems to be a constant need to have players who excel in order to make the game meaningful.”
“I’ll admit that some players who are better than other players make the game more enjoyable, but I don’t think they make it more meaningful.”
“Then why are your sports players identified with so many numbers, what you call stats? These stats seem to elevate certain sports players to higher economic and social levels. Children look at them as people they should emulate, even though they may have other qualities that are not worthy of emulation. They label many of them as sports heroes even though they have done nothing heroic.”
“You got all that from watching the first quarter?”
“I have been researching and analyzing the game since it began.”
It was easy to forget that Victoria was a human-looking supercomputer that was always plugged into the Internet.
“It’s not that they’ve done anything heroic. It’s just a label we give them because they’re good at what they do. It’s true that many children look up to sports figures and some even see them as heroes. But it also gives them something to strive for in their own lives, especially those children who are poor or disadvantaged.”
“But by giving these people the label of a hero, is that not demeaning people who have actually accomplished acts of heroism? Most actual heroes never achieve the levels of economic or social strata that your sports players do. And as for the children who aspire to emulate these sports heroes, my analysis shows that most of them will never achieve that level of expertise in their own lives,”
“It’s not a matter of whether they succeed at achieving the same skill level as the people they admire. It’s more important that they keep trying.”
“But they will try to and fail. Is that not worse?”
“Not necessarily. Humans don’t always get things right straight out of the gate.
Sometimes, we need to fail in order to succeed. Does that make any sense?”
Victoria paused before answering. In a strange way, it made me feel good knowing I had just said something that she was trying to comprehend.
“I do not know this concept of failure or success.”
“Your civilization has never experienced failure?”
“That question is irrelevant because we are from all places without a past. We are just now.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I decided it would be better if I just continued with my original thought.
“Let me give you a practical example. You came here because of a message on a golden disk that you intercepted. The disk was part of a spacecraft that had been launched into space. That spacecraft made it into space after many of its predecessors did not. It took many failures to create a spacecraft that ultimately succeeded in contacting an alien lifeform, namely you. That is the all too human concept of failure leading to success.”
“And humans readily accept this concept as a part of being human?”
“We not only accept it; we embrace it as part of our inherent humanity. Take me, for example. It took decades of failure before I could ultimately get out of a wheelchair. That may seem like a bad thing, but all those years of struggle made me, in large part, the person I am today.”
“Does that make you a hero?”
“I suppose it does to some people who may see me is an example of how someone can overcome the odds. They may even see me as a role model for overcoming adversity in their own lives. But if I am a hero, it’s only reluctantly because I did it for myself and no one else. Heroism isn’t usually something that’s planned. It just happens in the moment and, much like beauty, it’s in the eye of the beholder.”
“But why does your species need heroes in the first place?”
“Now you’re getting into the philosophical aspects of humanity. I may not be the best qualified person to answer that question because my field of study is journalism which is the dissemination of facts. Philosophy deals with human beliefs and actions which aren’t necessarily based on facts.”
“But you are part of humanity. Do you not have heroes?”
I understood that Victoria was just on a quest for knowledge, but the conversation was taking a turn into the more personal aspects of my life and I wasn’t sure that I was ready to get into that conversation. On the other hand, she had already delved into the recesses of my mind. She had all the information. What she didn’t have was the context or meaning of that information. As a journalist, I’m very aware that words can influence people in good or bad ways. These conversations could influence the way Victoria viewed my species. I had to be careful in exactly how I expressed my thoughts.
“I do,” I said as I measured every word in my mind before speaking it.
“I suppose you could say that my parents were heroes to me.”
“Did they commit acts of heroism?”
“Not in the sense that they saved someone’s life. In general, parents sacrifice the desire for things they want or even things they need in order to provide food, clothes, and shelter for their children. My parents were no exception. But I had special needs as a child. That meant they had to sacrifice even more time and energy than they normally would have without depriving my sisters of the time and attention that they also needed.”
“Did that make them heroes?”
“In my mind it did. You see, personal sacrifice is a major component of heroism. Most people that the world considers to be heroes are people who have made personal sacrifices. Nelson Mandela went to prison because of his belief that apartheid was wrong. Astronauts risk their lives when they venture into the unknown of space because they believe that their efforts will enhance life on Earth.”
“But what you call space is the essence of everything known. It is not something to be feared.”
“And that brings us back to one of your original questions about heroism. You asked why some sports players are considered heroes. My answer still stands. Heroism, much like our differing perspectives of outer space, is subjective; it is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Are those the shades of grey that you have referenced in past conversations?”
“That’s part of it.”
I turned back to the game and took a sip of my coffee. It was entirely possible that I was beginning to get through to her about the intricacies of human emotion.
“In my research, I came across something called fifty shades of grey. Is that what humans see?”
The coffee sprayed out of my mouth like a comedian’s spit-take.
“Sorry,” I said as I surveyed the mess that I just made of my coffee table. “That’s something completely different. I think we’ll have to save it for another day.”
“Then I will look forward to our conversation on another day,” she replied as she stood up and walked away.
“I bet you will,” I murmured to myself.