Well, I have a couple.
The first is rather predictable - His Holiness the Dalai Lama. For his composure and humility in the face of adversity, for his non-sectarian spirituality. I went to hear him teach a few years ago, and his warmth is still with me.
The second - Bobby Liebling. For those of us not fans of heavy music, he's the leader and singer with the veteran heavy metal band Pentagram. I recently saw a documentary about him, simply because I was interested in his music, and came away humbled and inspired. At the start, he is living, literally, in his parents' basement. He has hardly left it for years. He has been addicted to both crack and heroin for over 20 years and he looks like a corpse. He is covered in sores and scars - he is convinced that there is a parasitic infection inside him and he cannot stop scratching to try and get rid of it. The man is a total wreck, surrounded by rubbish, emaciated and looking 20 years older than his 55 or so years.
The movie follows, largely, the efforts of a fan, who becomes a friend and de facto manager to Bobby, to get him back working again. Making music seems to be the only thing that will save him. I won't recap the whole film, but amongst a number of setbacks Bobby kicks the drugs cold turkey, falls in love with a young woman but scares her off with his obsessive behaviour, goes back on the crack and ends up in jail for disobeying a restraining order she has placed on him. Out of jail he sets about winning her back. He reforms the band and starts playing again. Eventually they are reconciled, they marry, and the film ends as they have had their first child.
This sounds like a fairy tale but it is true. Bobby and his wife are still together, a few years later, and he is still clean. As an afterword, Pentagram recently played for the first time in England, and I went to see them. Bobby looked and sounded great, and the emotion at the concert, from the stage and the audience, was incredible. Not what you associate with a heavy metal show.
To see a man who is absolutely at the end of his tether, living in squalor, hallucinating, permanently wasted, then resurrect himself, through his own strength and through those who love him, I found inspiring and hopeful. If this man can do it .....
Sorry to have gone on, but I did actually shed a tear at the end of the movie. Not a thing I do often.
