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LOG ENTRY: SOL 116
I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes. I’m cringing after just that first sentence, but the first rule of combating isolation according to the SPL (Space Psychology League) is to write what you’re thinking about, so I thought I’d give them at least one entry that actually gets into the swirling netherworld of my lonely brain. Welcome to my twisted mind.
Anyways, I’ve been thinking about the definition of heroism. There are different types of heroes, of course. You’ve got your superheroes, your war heroes. Your jumped-onto-the-subway-tracks-to-save-a-little-old-lady heroes. Your Real Heroes who go out there every day and put out fires or teach kindergarteners to be our future. I’m not any of those, although I did once execute an amazing aerial stunt and catch a guy’s hotdog that went flying through the air when he tripped, so I’m pretty sure I’m his hero. (He hit the ground, but the hotdog didn’t, and that’s what’s important.) But I’m pretty sure the criterion for the sort of heroism that is universally considered to be and remembered as true heroism involves Sacrifice for the Greater Good.
Question is, how much sacrifice is Heroic Sacrifice, because I am a-okay with it not requiring death.
And this isn’t to say I particularly WANT to be a hero, I’m not jonesing for fame. Talk to twelve year old me for that, the me who wanted to be a movie star and got my big break in a commercial where I had to look enthralled by Maytag washing machines. (…Something I’d successfully hidden from my crew up until the minute they read these logs. I can hear Martinez now—“So your machine fetish started at an early age, huh, Watney?”) And yeah, okay, there’s a certain level of public attention that comes with being an astronaut. Doing the ad for Under Armour was pretty cool. And not to toot my own horn but astronauts are fucking amazing. I know the Apollo 11 guys are my heroes. But this isn’t about what I came to Mars hoping for, it’s about what’s happening now that I’m stuck here.
I’m thinking about heroes because when you’ve been stranded on a desert (noun and adjective) planet for 110 sols, one of the things you seem to find your mind turning to most often is home. Crazy, right? You think about what’s going on at home, and you think about if they miss you there.
And, with my Totally Objective Anthropologist hat on, one of the things I feel relatively safe in assuming is going on back on planet Earth is the hero-ification of little old me. Because look, right away astronauts have the Greater Good thing going for them, the (*NASA PR team voice* MINIMAL) risk to their lives in the pursuit of science and human advancement. I’m cool with that level of heroism, cool with being a picture in a science textbook for some STEM elementary schools. But then you go and take one of your astronauts and leave him on Mars for four years and the Sacrifice levels rise exponentially. Leave him on Mars till Mars kills him dead and Sacrifice levels are off the charts.
(Speaking of charts, Heroism is generally a simple linear equation between Greater Good and Sacrifice. But what happens if Sacrifice levels are way higher than Greater Good levels? I mean, I am getting way more experiments done than were ever planned for Ares 3 and I did grow motherfucking potatoes on motherfucking Mars, but there are only so many soil samples you can take within 35 kilometers of the Hab and call me vain but I value my life over innovations in space farming, so it’s like 1002 sac (Sacrifice) per 337 gg (Greater Good) at this point. How many hps (Hero Points) am I at then? I’ll do the math later.)
Point is, I’m fairly certain there are at least three monolithic statues of my heroic likeness back on Earth, and that’s freaking me the fuck out because it feels like a portent of my death. I should tell NASA to halt any monolithic statue construction.
Although, actually, you know what. If high school English taught me anything, it was the Hero’s Journey, and if the Hero’s Journey taught me anything, it was that…maybe?...the hero only becomes a Hero at the end of the journey. And they can live. They come back from the journey with enlightenment and bestow upon the common folks a boon from the gods. My boon shall be Martian potatoes from the Martian potato gods.
Yeah, okay. Fuck sacrificing my life, heroes are only heroes if they actually succeed at their heroic mission. So now, my two awesome options are: 1) survive, return to Earth as a Hero or 2) die on Mars and become a legend. The legend of Mark Watney, Martian ghost.
3) Reject all of the above, use RTG radiation to become a superhero. The jumpsuits we wear are spandex-tastic enough, and a bit of Hab canvas would make an excellent cape.
[00:17] WATNEY: Please forward note to any NASA or government private contractors: I’m flattered but monolithic statues of me are not necessary.
[00:31] JPL: We can schedule a psych consultation via Pathfinder.
[00:42] WATNEY: Joking!!