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AMC network's The Walking Dead is by far my favorite television show. Some may disagree, but I have never seen finer acting and character development on cable or network TV. Moreover, the ordeals and tension the living characters endure as they elude the hungry zombie hoards break my heart. Honestly, their personal tragedies have kept me up nights. The aspect of the narrative that strikes me most is how desperately some of the characters cling to every shred of hope that comes their way. Sometimes hope, even fleeting hope, is all they possess. In the real world we do pretty much the same thing. If we are to truly live, we must have hope as much as we require air, food and water. So we fumble about for the substance of life that lifts us up and inspires us. We have our own personal tragedies as well. Hurricanes and earthquakes, cancer and heart attacks, betrayal and altercations - life comes at us at breakneck speed and takes so many unexpected twists and turns, so it is vital for our survival that we can find signs that everything is going to be okay again. Stories in the form of books and movies provide for us a remedy of hope. Whether these stories are real or fictional is not as important as much as they inspire us to keep going, to continue loving and giving and believing our lives will make a difference. In the movie Second Hand Lions, Robert DuVal's character, Hub MaCann says, "Some things that aren't necessarily true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. Through stories of his heroic life, Hub inspired a young teenager with a wayward single mother to seek a better life. Jean ValJean occupies a special place in my heart as one of the greatest and most beloved inspirational characters ever created. He is real to my mythical self - the ideal me that I wish to become - and encourages me to be a better man. I will always be thankful to Victor Hugo for bringing him and the world of Les Miserables to life. The list of heroes and their stories in print and film provides for us a plethora of choices to motivate us to keep going and live a better life: The Lord of the Rings; Indiana Jones; A Tale of Two Cities (particularly Sydney Carton), Veronica Guerin; Harry Potter; Spiderman; Rocky; To Kill a Mockingbird (Atticus Finch), The Scarlett Pimpernel, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hiding Place, Schindler's List, The Bad News Bears and tens of thousands of others. Just living can be tough enough, so let me encourage my readers to grab a good book, watch a great movie, and find the inspiration and motivation you need. Hope is there for the taking. Long Shot - Somewhere Between Slim and None
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Inspiration, hope, finding hope, motivation, inspiring stories,
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