how Pinteresting

Like about a billion other people, I am on Pinterest. It can get overwhelming, all the random images thrown in your face.

Like a massive department store, it can assault your senses, so I mostly keep to my corner and curate my own little collection of useful images and links. But one of my pins gets pretty regular attention. It’s been repinned from my “marvelous characters” board close to 300 times.

What is this image that seems to grab the attention of the Pinterest world?

It’s this:

Gibbs_Pinterest

There’s a reason NCIS is in its 13th season. And while there are a whole host of marvelous characters on the show, Leroy Jethro Gibbs is the driving force. He’s the leader, setting the direction and guiding everyone else. He’s quiet, but he knows how to say the right thing at the right time. He’s no-nonsense, but he will go to extraordinary lengths for his team.

Gibbs isn’t a cuddly type of character. He isn’t a bold knight in shining armor. He bends the rules to the point of breaking. He doesn’t have much respect for authority, and he has little to no tolerance for interference. But he’s wholly dedicated to protecting the innocent and ensuring justice has the final word.

In other words, he’s complex. He is wonderfully flawed, incredibly imperfect, and immensely relatable. His decisions are guided by intuition, and he is, above all, loyal to his people.

We see in him someone we’d want to advocate for us. We see someone we’d want on our side when things go wrong. He’s different from a lot of the characters on tv, especially those in cop/detective shows. There’s a subtlety to him and a quiet tenacity. He isn’t showy. And he has little use for big talk. So when he says something, we believe him.

We see in Gibbs an authenticity that we crave.

We see a man who builds a boat in his basement simply for the enjoyment of it, reads people like a book, and will never stop hunting bad guys, regardless of the personal cost. Not because he wants the praise or sense of achievement, but simply because bad guys exist and he has the skills to stop them.

Who wouldn’t want that person on their side?

So pin away, Pinterest world! You’ve got fantastic taste.

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