Lost 5-3 on the weekend, while we were 3-1 up at one stage. But that's not important right now.

It's not difficult to become a hero these days. Maybe you'd sing a crappy song that every dullard and pseudo-intellectual would find humorously endearing and profoundly self-connected to. Perhaps you'd support an outwardly noble cause while using it as a facade for shameless plaudit-grabbing and public self-endorsement. Maybe you just look good. No matter what, you'd always find somebody who'd idolise you and your image, hold you in as high esteem as is humanly possible, can see no wrong in anything you do, and excuse your shortcomings and mistakes as just the errors of another human being. Of course that's wrong. You have no shortcomings. You can do no wrong. To these people, you, are perfect. You are the God-incarnate.

It's funny in an unamusing manner how people never actually pause to think about the people they idolise. People never ask themselves questions like "What's really so great about what so-and-so did anyway?", or "Did they really do that out of the compassion of their own heart?". Caught up in the frenzy of showering these people with gold and plaudits, we tend to forget that ninety-nine percent of the time, these people have had, at most, only one or two moments of real greatness. The thing about today is that image is always the main issue. Everything is about what so-and-so did and how he or she did it, and hype-ing up those moments in a blitz of positive publicity stunt-pulling. In the greater scheme of a personal lifetime, those moments are really only just fleeting moments which may last a year or two, a single sporting season, in most cases even a few seconds.

Maybe it's an unescapable rule of nature, but mankind is obsessed with image. Try as we might, it is impossible to totally deviate from the reality that is today's accepted mainstream and the proponents of that world. Wherever you look, Kylie Minogue stares out at you from every corner. Most every guy either dresses like a rap star or a trashbag, and I'm sorry I'm even making a distinction. Let's not get into what shreds of cloth most girls drag their tepid corpses into. Never do we consider that the person we idolise is really 'just a singer', or 'really only an actor'. We forget that there's very little a rap singer actually contributes to society in his/her profession [and in fact does a lot to make it a whole lot worse]. Like it or not, Pirates of the Carribean is only just a movie, and try as we might we will never pull Johnny Depp out of the screen, and it doesn't really add very much to your life watching 99% of today's flicks anyway.

That's why to me, it's pointless and frankly stupid worshipping the largesse of today's heroes. To me, the trick to being a hero is not to have just some single discrete moment that means nothing practical by any term, but to be able to mark a cause which has a positive impact on the world. Not just an impact, but a legacy. And even more importantly, to constantly and unflinchingly uphold and support that legacy. In upholding this legacy, the person actually adds value to humanity and will actually contribute to making the world better. This to my mind, is a genuine person worthy of being someone's hero. And this is why Steve Irwin is my hero.

I know I have already eulogised Steve Irwin in my previous post, but as his memorial service was held today, I feel it is apt to add to my admiration of who was probably among the few people today we could genuinely call a human being. He lived and died upholding the cause he supported, and left behind a world poorer for the enthusiasm and passion with which he carried out his work. Many people dismiss his approach as petty showmanship, but to my mind, the Steve Irwin approach to nature conservation was probably the most important step undertaken by the world of nature conservation since the formation of national parks.

While certainly never encouraging everyone to perform the same hands-on daredevil stunts as he did, Steve Irwin advocated an even more important underlying message: that we are really so much closer to nature than we'd really ever consider, and as the technologically dominant species have the responsibility to ensure we do not run away with our large minds and wealth, and instead channel a fair proportion towards preserving the dignity of other living creatures. In essence, Steve Irwin was just another nature presenter. He made the animals the superstars. How cynical he might have been, with the realisation that the 'cool-radical' approach was the only way to get today's material-inclined society to pay any attention.

For better or worse, nature preservation has lost it's most valuable PR cornerstone, with few even daring to contemplate themselves magnaminous enough to inherit the mantle. The truth is it'll be impossible to do what Steve Irwin did in the same style as him. It was heartwarming to hear his daughter Bindi pledge to continue his legacy, but she will never be her father. No one in the rest of the world has the same charisma and willingness to work in the same manner as the great man. We can only hope naturalism finds a way on and up in this most depressing of circumstances, and realise that while it is important to mourn, we should never lose sight of the vision laid out by this brave crusader of conservation. Today we laid to rest Steve Irwin, one of the finest naturalists of our time. Long may his legacy live on, in the hearts and minds of equally dedicated individuals. It will be the only way we can give thanks. RIP Steve, you are a great hero.