The best example I can recall of what you’re describing is the members of La Résistance in France during WW2. These people risked their lives and the lives of their family in order to blow up German rails, smuggle out Jews and kill key Gestapo operatives. They did not consider themselves heroes, because for them this was simply the logical course of action, the only way to act for a person with a shred of common sense. Most of them are dead now but along their lives they repeated that if France considered them to be heroes (which it did) that would defeat the point: that doing what they did should not be extraordinary, but common sense.
You’re right about the epic drama thing. Poetic flare can be useful in certain situations, I imagine, although it is a fine line between using that as motivation and spoiling rationality. (Poetry, as in beauty and fun, is a terminal goal of humanity so I would also advise against ignoring it entirely.)
The best example I can recall of what you’re describing is the members of La Résistance in France during WW2. These people risked their lives and the lives of their family in order to blow up German rails, smuggle out Jews and kill key Gestapo operatives. They did not consider themselves heroes, because for them this was simply the logical course of action, the only way to act for a person with a shred of common sense. Most of them are dead now but along their lives they repeated that if France considered them to be heroes (which it did) that would defeat the point: that doing what they did should not be extraordinary, but common sense.
You’re right about the epic drama thing. Poetic flare can be useful in certain situations, I imagine, although it is a fine line between using that as motivation and spoiling rationality. (Poetry, as in beauty and fun, is a terminal goal of humanity so I would also advise against ignoring it entirely.)