Thoughts
Borders
We live in a world of borders. Of boundaries, within and without. There’s check-ins, check-outs, passports, barbed wire, controls, guards, rivers, unseen lines in the sand. We all want to go somewhere. And we all pass through borders to get there.
We carry our borders within us. What we know, what we lived so far, the world we see and feel and touch, our friends, our families, our experiences — that is our territory. Sometimes we go out, conquer something new. “I didn’t know I could do that…” “I just found out that…” These are words, formulas, they’re spells that we invoke when we extend our borders.
But sometimes there’s no need to walk through there. We look, we see, and what we cannot see, we can imagine. All the world’s stories are means of introspection, for a good story has within it the magic to transport us within. We walk in the heroes’ shoes, we see through their eyes and feel with their hearts. We shudder at their cruelty, we cry their tears and laugh their joy. We live their lives, if only for a time. And thus we learn. “Would I have done that?” “What would I have done?” This magic helps us scry beyond our borders.
The way we are dictates the way we walk, the way we conquer. Some of us wonder far and wide, amassing lands, never stopping in wonder of what lies beyond the wall. Then there are others that erect huge towers, from which they can see far and wide. They never walk, for they don’t believe it necessary. They can see just fine from up there. These are the most extreme, of course — most of us will do both during a lifetime. Sometimes our friends do walk ahead us, and we follow. Other times not, because we see the pit they fell in, or the lions they encountered. And so we live. And learn.
And then there are the times when life throws us off balance. We’re wondering content within our borders when a tornado drops us into Oz. Everything’s new, everything’s different, and all we ever knew is now long one. In times like these one learns about oneself. To one’s glory, or perhaps to one’s dismay — for even the cruellest of the tyrants are heroes of their own story, and no one likes to see a villain in the mirror.
Indeed, most of us walk through life without ever having to ask ourselves the hard questions. Look in the eyes of the next stranger you meet — can you see his potential? Can you see yours? Did Hitler imagine the horrors he’ll cause when he was just a corporal in the Austrian army? If a tornado would tear you from your cosy little world and drag you into an Inquisition court, would you side with the cardinal? Or with the witch?
We can only imagine.
Kindness
What’s it like, being kind?
Is helping someone without an apparent benefit to your person enough to justify itself as an act of kindness? I don’t know. Some people genuinely like to help. Others do it as atonement for past or present sins. Or to impress someone, be it a potential future mate or a potential future employer. For the ones at the receiving end I guess it doesn’t matter much, as long as they get help. For them the kindness is the act.
But what does make a person kind? There’s got to be selflessness involved, that I know. Kind people don’t help for their own benefit; they do it because they can’t afford not to. If they abstain from helping they deny their own nature, so helping others is probably as natural to them as breathing. It’s something you are, not something you do.
But being kind does not necessarily mean walking about with huge bewildered eyes, looking for kittens in distress. Kindness does not equal empathy or compassion. On the contrary, I’m guessing even a slap in the face may be construed as an act of kindness, if it’s done at the right time and with the right attitude in mind.
I have a small scenario in mind. Imagine that you have a friend who is in terrible pain. He is clearly out of his wits with suffering, literally writhing on the floor teary-eyed, begging you to just make it stop, please, make it go away. You’re standing there, looking at him, and seeing him in this state breaks your heart. He looks at you, and you realise that you hold in your hand a solution to his problem, and with a simple gesture you can make his pain go away. Yet you’re witholding it from him — you shake your head, and you watch him suffer. Is that an act of kindness?
And what if I told you that your hand holds a dose of heroin?
“You can’t always get what you want… but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.”
— Mick Jagger
Superheroes
Contrary to what Marvel or DC might want you to think, there is no such thing as superpowers. A statement which, if you’re not under 12 or have a double-digit IQ, won’t strike you as odd, or even the least bit surprising. Indeed, if evolution taught us anything, it’s that natural occurring superpowers are nigh-impossible. James Randi made it his life work to prove that mystical superpowers are by and large a hoax. And while technology-based superpowers (the other kind) may occur, the large-scale adoption of said technology will soon throw it back into the realm of the mundane.
In a way though we all have superpowers. We project our voices around the globe! We can read and write across vast distances! We can travel faster than a speeding bullet!1 And yes, we can even fly.
But that’s not what a superhero makes. As Stan Lee probably guessed decades ago, what we like the most about superheroes is that they are unique — in their respective universes, of course. They have something to set them aside from regular humans. The power to fly without using an airplane. Or a hot air balloon. Or a lawn chair. The power to read minds. The power to wear underwear over pants without anyone laughing out loud. The power to shuffle the cards with the aces on top. It’s something they excel at, something nobody else has, something that makes their life choices easy.
Oh boy. You’re in high school, your conscious mind barely awoken, and you hear this one word over and over again. Potential. You have it, or you don’t. Or you have more than one. You could be a doctor. Or a programmer. Or a lawnmower man. Or you could be so damn good at flipping burgers, you’d go and open your own franchise. Everybody’s talking about what you could or couldn’t do. And the hard part, the real bitch is this: you need to choose. And keep on choosing, until one of those potentials is realised, and the others are so many steps in the sand.
That’s when you start seeing the lucky ones. The guys and gals who know already what they want to be when they grow up. They decided, they have certainties, and they move ahead. And your mind reels with the possibility: what if you could get something like that too? What if you would know what you’re good at, and pursue it, and become the greatest anyone had ever known — in that field. In that job. In that way of life.
Which is where superheroes come in. Talk about easy choices. Along comes the first girl (or boy) and then you dream up she’s kidnapped by the worst villain you can possibly imagine, and then you fight him, and you win. You prove your courage, and then you act upon it and you ask her out. She accepts gratefully. And so it goes.
There’s nothing wrong in wanting to be good — to do good deeds, to save the planet, to get the girl, that sort of thing. That’s a goal that you can relate to — at least in your tender years. And that explain the success of all those comics-based movies, brought on the silver screen by the power of CGI and the Hollywood top brass’ quest for a guaranteed profit. It reminds us of adolescence, when things were clear-cut and life was simple. We could see the line between good and bad. And we were always on the side of good.
But as time rolled on and life got harder, the lack of that one unique feature became the focus of our blame. If only I could fly. If only I could teleport. If only… my life would be different. It’s orders of magnitude harder to be a superhero with no superpowers. When there’s no easy path cut out in front of you, and the choices you have are gray at best. And you have to choose the best of all possible options, day in and day out.
That is, if you don’t want to wake up one day, look in the mirror and see him. The villain you were fighting all along.
- Provided that it’s a subsonic bullet, or you’re flying military jets for a living. [↩]
