Selfless Or Spineless: A Fine Line Between A Hero And A Coward

Selfless or Spineless; A Fine Line Between a Hero and a Coward

How do we define a hero? Is it someone who lacks moral weakness? Someone who has nothing to fear, including death itself? Or maybe someone who fights courageously and tirelessly until the very end? A hero may die but one death, as opposed to the coward's thousand, but one would be a fool to think that the dignity the hero falls with is worth much less than the terrifying fear with which the coward will inevitably perish.

Unlike the coward, a hero recognises that death is a part of the natural progression of life. He knows that death is imminent and charges into battle head on, unafraid of the repercussions. Despite the consequences he knows he will face, he continues on; because a hero's intentions are purely selfless. A coward however, spends his life running. He rarely fights; and when he does, it is with the most selfish rationalisations. A hero serves selflessly; always putting other's needs before his own. A coward constantly flees at any small sign of danger; if there is one thing that a coward can do

A hero is selfless, noble, dignified; a hero is a saviour; he does everything for the good of humanity and does not gain a single thing from his heroic acts whatsoever. A coward is the opposite; selfish and afraid. But when does selfless turn into selfish? When does fearful turn into fearless? Hemingway wrote, "The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them!" With every act of bravery a hero endures, with every battle he faces, death may come. Whether it be morally, or through the lives that fell on his way to victory, a hero will perish time and time again. So how can we positively say that the coward and the hero are so different? They both endure more deaths than humanely necessary and both eventually die for their own cause. One would be a fool to assume