who can you look up to

Someone said to me once that it's a very frightening moment for a child when they realize that their parents are regular people just like everyone else with flaws & problems. While I know what she was talking about, I don't think I ever really felt that with my parents. Generally I was a happy child but sometimes I felt melancholy & lonely in a way I knew my parents couldn't fix, I didn't even ask. I don't think I ever expected my parents to change the world for me. While I didn't experience what she was talking about with parents I did experience it with teachers. Up until college I'd always thought of teachers as authority figures & people that were there to teach you specific things that you were widely expected to learn from some greater educational government structure. When I came to Stony Brook my view of teachers came crashing down. I noticed that a lot of the professors didn't seem to be particularly interested in teaching anyone anything. I thought a lot of them were just people who were interested in something & just happened to teach so that they didn't have to let it go. Teachers became flawed individuals for me spewing their personal beliefs about something. That's scary to me because if you don't realize that they are normal people & take their thoughts the same way you'd take anyone else's then their thoughts might replace your own because you think they're right just because they're a teacher & they're not.