A Heroes Feast

By Paul Roberts

“Every artist has heroes.”

That sentence begins a chapter in the Rick Rubin book (The Creative Act: A Way of Being) I’ve been nibbling on since Christmas. I use the word “nibbling” because there are so many times when my buddy Rick will share a morsel with me that causes me to slow down and savor the flavor in his words. It’s going to take some time, and more than one reading, to fully appreciate the meal he is serving up to me each morning.

“Every artist has heroes…creators whose work we connect with, whose methods we aspire to, whose words we cherish. These exceptional talents can seem beyond human, like mythological figures…legendary figures in art and history are sometimes held up as deities. It is counterproductive to measure ourselves against them because they never existed as such (emphasis mine).”

I have done everything I can to read as much of the canon of Isaac Asimov and C.S. Lewis as possible. If I have literary heroes, those two men would fit the bill. Both write in wide ranging genres, fiction and non-fiction. Both were voracious readers and prodigious writers. Both were very well respected in their field, yet seemed to possess a great deal of humility when it came to their work. I don’t think either one of them would have recommended that I view them as one of my “heroes.”

There have been times in some of my previous blog posts that I have referred to writers as my mentors. I think I like that description better than heroes. And I think Rick, Isaac, and Clive would be amenable to that description as well. 

I spent a little bit of time this morning looking back at the last few years of my blog posts, specifically the last post of February in 2022 and ‘23. Three years in a row, the last post of February, and authors tend to play an important role in my writing. Ogden Nash, Louis L’Amour, Pastor Dave Langer are all mentioned in my post on 2/28/22; Charles Dickens, Marcus Borg, and Robert Milholland make the cut on 2/27/23.

Are they heroes? Mentors? Word chefs that keep me well fed?

According to Rick Rubin, it really doesn’t matter. “Expressing yourself is all that matters.”

                                                    **************************************

Share with our community the artists that have been feeding you of late.

To leave a comment on our blog, you can use Disqus.  It is easy to sign up.  You can use Google, Facebook, Twitter or your email.  There is no cost.  Just put in your name and email address and create a password.  Then confirm your account with the email they send you.  Then you can use Disqus to comment on the blog.  We would love to hear your thoughts.