36 Actors...

 I am religious and in fact a Christian. I'm not given to a lot of hocus pocus but in my reading I discovered the mention of Tzadikim Nistarim an old mystical notion rooted in Judaism and thoughts of this have captured a part of my imagination. The belief is that there are 36 righteous actors in the world waiting for the right moment.

Depending on where you read about the Tzadikim Nistarim the number might be different. It could be 36 or maybe even 45. These are anonymous, ordinary people, hidden among the masses of humanity. They may not even know who they are. They are scattered across the Earth and don't know who the others are. They emerge, act to save their people and sink back into their daily unheralded lives. 

The more I thought about this the more I became convinced that I knew a couple of these people. Then I read that one of the qualities of one of these good actors that keeps the world from falling apart is humility. Nope, sorry about that, I was mistaken. 

I found mention of these people in the Kim Stanley Robinson book, "The Ministry for the Future." It's about climate climate change and now is a good time for reading since heat waves and forest fires are now something that happens here locally instead of somewhere else. 

Robinson notes in the book that we seldom get glimpses of the actors in action. "The stories of the secret actors are the secret action."

Do you know secret actors?