If people was less obsessed with changin’ the world and more concerned ’bout changin’ themselves and playin’ a role in the few lives around ’em, then the world wouldn’t need so much changin’ to begin with.”
Full name of this book is Heroes & Monsters: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be Human. The narrator and main character is called Josh. And he explains some of his life experience. Don't worry, it's nothing spectacular. Unless you agree with the fact that the most fantastic things happen to us in our daily lives. That you don't have to travel all around the world to find adventure – to find something meaningful to fill your life with.
I guess it’s true what they say: if you don’t know what you want to fill your life with, there’s a good chance you’re going to fill it with everything that you don’t—
It's a story of quite ordinary young man. A story of his struggle with the monsters all around us on our quest of becoming heroes. A story of a colourful inner life with many questions.
I don’t understand, but understanding something isn’t a prerequisite to feeling it. We don’t have to understand things in order to be affected by them. I may not understand any of this stuff with my dad, my family. But I feel all of it.
As I have mentioned, I find this book very truthful. Because it resonated with my own human experience. Yes, many stories examine human behaviour in extreme situations – exposing the worst (or sometimes even the best) in man. But Heroes & Monsters is about the terrifying task of becoming a proper human. To love. Yourself, God, anybody! About reaching freedom. Inner healing.
"Because above all else you wanna be free. You dream of a life where the possibility of failure and folks’ opinions don’t control you, where unknowns don’t boss you ’round, a life where fear ain’t yer dictator. And if them fears, them flies, weren’t ’round now, well, it would only mean you were chasin’ the wrong dream. In order to find freedom, to overthrow the flies in yer life, you have to stand among ’em. Can’t swat flies from a mile away. And now here you are, swarmed. Right where you should be.”
The thing I appreciate most about this book is the fact, that I feel it's all true. It resonates so much with my own experience – overcoming my own fears, search for healing, finding a place for love and God in my life. I'm pretty sure, that not everybody will understand or agree. But for me, at this time, this book was a blessing. Well, life is like that. Eventually, you get what you need.
Our way of spitting in the face of the apathy that has come to destroy us.
(…)
(Because we are)... two people who know that life’s richest moments don’t come cheap, that they are the ones that we almost didn’t get, the ones that we had to struggle for. Because without the struggle to endure, we’d never be truly set free. We keep on like two people who know that sometimes you have to fight for the life that you want.
I never took so many notes while reading any other book before – I have written about 6 pages. Josh Riebock really makes you stop and think about what you read, to compare experience, to absorb. I'll return to Heroes & Monsters – I'm sure...
Life isn’t just about me finishing what I started. No, no, it’s about God finishing in me what he started.
(...)
I suppose the easiest thing to do in the old world is waste your life, and the easiest way to waste your life is to forget what my dad told me: “God is the only thing that matters.”
(...)
A friend is someone who will die to keep us from becoming anyone else, someone who fights for us against a world that is constantly trying to shrink us into shelved canisters labeled “how you’re supposed to be.” A friend does everything possible to make sure we become who we are made to be—nothing less, nothing more.
I could go on – but it is better in context of the book. If you are interested, get yourself a copy. I can't promise you anything – I can just honestly say, that I really enjoyed it.
