Why I Admire Amelia Earhart

 It's not the flying, though we wouldn't have ever known her if she had never flown.  And it's certainly not the fact that the media/government needed to promote her as a ray of hope during the Great Depression.   What struck me, and still does, about the story of Amelia Earhart was her determination to hold on to some sense of self through the journey.  She knew her love of flying was her own.  Even though her husband, and the government, and the world at large clung to her as a beacon of light in darkness, as some extension of their own desire to soar; she had the strength to focus on the thin line that separated her own fragile veins from theirs, and held on to the mystery of her own evolving identity. This is what separates heroes from the famous.