To Bring A Positive Outlook Out Of A Tragedy

This came while discussing about Nickelback's song Leader of Men, which I have used recently as a recurring theme for Ioh in this recent Flickr pic:



The recurring theme was done in a bluegrass arrangement by Cornbread Red:



When I first used the song back in the summer of 2009, it was the Nickleback acoustic version.  This was the summer things were starting to go sour with Ioh's ex kitten Bails.  Even so, I still like the tune, regardless.

For me, I think it's more the lyrics than anything. They're on the youtube link, but  you can see them here without having the song come up on autoplay:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nickelback/leaderofmen.html

My friend that I was discussing things with said he liked the lyrics, with positive message behind it. I agreed that it is, in a melancholy sort of way, which kinda the point to bluesy, or blue grass song.

You see, when I first used this song as a theme, a depression was forming for me between RL job searching and SL drama with gossip and rank jockeying starting up in the CWs. Added on to that was a low period in my relationship with Bails. Added all together, it's pretty easy to see now how the first verse sang to me:

Tell your friends not to think aloud
Until they swallow
Whisper things into my brain
Your voice sounds so hollow

Yet, despite all that, and the tragedy that hit and all that culminated in my being banned from Midian, I still find myself searching for the way to 'get higher'- or to go past and break through the stuff in a hero's journey that can either pull one down to make things a tragedy, instead of the final triumph and happy ending that is strove for, like the saving the girl at the end of the song.

My friend noted that he prefers a happy ending. I think everyone looks for that final resolution, even in a tragedy, to find something redemptive, if not a retribution for what caused the tragedy. Though I'd prefer the redemption, like the story in the song, as if to say, "Here's what everyone was thinking and saying, now see how the final action has proven them wrong."

Tragedies, as my friend pointed out, generally involves some sort of mistake on the hero's part.  That I have made mistakes, I cannot deny. But even so, a lot of movies and stories in general are filled with flawed heroes.  They're not envisioned perfect, whether they are the demigod super hero or the average joe type who just happens to step in and heed the call to action. That the listened to the call to action is what made them heroes.  It's what they do that gets talked about, and that talk is often a voice sounding hollow, about the past, and a fruit gone rotten.  A hero does not live in the past.  He sets out to press on further, to go higher, to persevere and continue to listen to the call to action.