Years of Poems and Spirits

Only through news media did I realize that I am close to sharing the same birthday as my personal hero, Nelson Mandela. It is presumptuous to say I feel honored, the news nevertheless gives me goosebumps.

How do I say this? By my account, only literary heros in myths and sagas could try to defy the fate Gods destined them to. For those who failed–that is most of them, we call them tragic heros.  In that sense, Mandela is the very few true human heros.

Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years since he was 44. Not only did he lose the best years of his life, he also lived through the harshest conditions one could imagine, including up to six month solitary confinement. His “fate” seems to destine him to a post-prison persona of bitterness and vengence. Instead, he came out of prison a Saint: a unifying figure in a country with a long history of segregation soaked with blood, a moral beacon that overshadows other legends of his time, including Popes, Presidents and other Nobel laureates. Another thing most people don’t realize that he is also a secular man whose willingness to forgive comes not from religious beliefs like that of Gandhi.

Has he no anger, no lust, no fear of motality—or any other traits we call human?