The hero and the chain

Nobody wants a supporting role in their own life story. We're all after the lead role, the hero. Unless you posit that we've all got supporting roles in God's story, or the story of the Universe. But my consciousness isn't that big, I'm still centered on my own life and my family's lives around it.

If you've ever watched a movie or read a book, you've probably pictured yourself in the hero's shoes. Further, maybe you've been out for a run, bike ride, walk down the street, drive or walk to work--there are times when you picture your life as it happens like it's a movie. Maybe you've got some theme music going for your big scene coming up. I've been devouring graphic novels lately, so I've had heaps of that perspective lately.

It's a frame of reference thing. We live our lives as ourselves. That's our reference point. But reading Matt Fraction's "Immortal Iron Fist," I was reminded of a train of thought I've ridden on before. Iron Fist, or Danny Rand is training and meditating and realizes:

I'm a link in a chain extending backwards through time and forwards, simultaneously.

Time and my life as a chain is interesting. If we're the heroes in/of our lives/life stories, we're a link in a chain. The previous link is our father and a different one is our mother. Their life stories are individual chains, which then link into the future through us. But like my story, my father's goes back to his parents, etc. There are a lot of chains that link together in me. I am a link connected to a lot of folks in my family's chains. It's more like a web than a chain, but I like the chain image better.

Each of the other links are/were their own heroes. A zoom in on a different part of the larger chain and the chain tells a story.

I'm not fully sure where I'm going with this, but that's the beautiful thing about having a blog: I don't have to go anywhere with it ;-) If we're all the heroes in our life stories, and their are a lot of us, a lot of stories, and even in the story of our families, it isn't as simple as our own story, because our story is connected to the ones before and after us. You could look at the chain links as chapters and the chain as a book.

Maybe we are heroes, but at best we are heroes for a chapter. Then it's on to the next.