A most ingenious paradox

Today in Relief Society, we were talking about baptisms for the dead. The instructor was talking about how because we do the proxy work for these people, we are essentially "saviors" and are progressing on our journey to become like Christ. But before we can be baptized for them, we must be baptized ourselves. An example given was on an airplane, being instructed to place the oxygen mask over your own face before helping a child. The moral of the story was that before we can help others we must help ourselves.

Anyway, I got to thinking that this is the paradox of the modern hero; the fact that they aren't perfect and have problems is what draws us to them. Usually there is some underlying issue that pushes the hero to become super and help the helpless. Usually the problem is something that the hero's love interest points out later in the plot because, as we all know, our lovers can see deeper into our souls than we prefer.

I think I've gotten off topic.

Take Batman for example. I believe he will be an adequate example because he doesn't have "super" powers. His parents were mugged and killed in front of him, and when the killer was released from jail, he made it his life's mission to track him down and stop others like him from ruining innocent people's lives. The instance of his parent's untimely death pushed him to become a savior of innocents, rather than an intrinsic desire to make the world a better place just for the sake of doing so.

Spiderman was driven to use his spidey powers for good because he let a criminal get away that ended up killing his beloved uncle. Ironman was essentially repenting of his sins as a weapons creator because his creations had become the seed of corruption in the hands of terrorists. The list goes on...

Granted, if there was no underlying background story, the hero would be boring. Whereas, we need to be "boring", having "saved" ourselves first through doing our own baptismal ordinances before we can help others with that option. There's a worthiness issue with covenants and ordinances that cannot simply be overlooked.

Anyway, I guess my point is this whole "help yourself before you help others" thing is the exact opposite of the modern hero. The reason heros help others is because they cannot help themselves.