Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

The Nature of a Hero, Part II

I’m sort of continuing my thoughts on the nature of a hero, here, with some reaction to a recent comic book issue.

Leading up to this summer’s Avengers film, Marvel is publishing a line of one-shots called Avengers: Origins. While the art in most of the issues has been a bit stylistic for my taste, I’ve enjoyed the stories, which are simple re-tellings of the backgrounds of the heroes comprising the Avengers as they appear in Marvel comics (a larger cast of characters than will appear in the film, which will star only the most well-known of the core characters). I only dabbled in the Avengers titles when I was younger, and never collected them seriously, so these stories have been instructional for me.

I’ve purchased them a bit out of order, and the most recent issue I’ve read is Avengers Origins: Luke Cage. I remember Luke Cage as Power Man when he, partnered with Iron Fist, comprised Heroes for Hire. I was unaware of his origin story. A former gang-banger from Harlem is what looks like the 1980’s, Cage spends time is prison after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit, although he had committed his share. A victim of racist treatment in prison, he volunteers for an experiment that is intentionally botched by a guard who hates him, and endows him with amazing physical strength and near invulnerability. Cage escapes with these powers, and returns to the life he knows: committing crimes in order to survive, all the while plotting revenge for the old friend who had framed him. During one of these criminal ventures, he witnesses an elderly security officer paralyzed as a result of his actions, and flees with this haunting him.

Ultimately, Cage discovers that he can, in fact, use his abilities for good, and decides to profit off of this as “hero for hire.” His actions haunt him, though, and he spends the next several years unable to see himself as a hero, and attempting to make restitution for his actions, until he is finally forgiven by the paralyzed security officer. Only then does he recognize himself as a hero.

Of course, comic history shows us that Cage goes on to become one of Marvel’s more well-known heroes as Power Man. This story resonated with me because it shows a different aspect of the nature of a hero: the hero who has turned from evil to do good. There’s something almost mythological in this: the street-wise fighter who knows the ways of evil but chooses to eschew them for good, bursting through the darkness in a massive display of power to save the day. There’s something amazing about the hero who has previously been on the wrong side of the law, and then repented of their wrongs and moved to a life of restoration. Theologically, this would be repentance: a changing of one’s mind, an intentional turning of one’s life in the direction of good after recognizing the evil.

Of course, not every hero comes from such a background. This isn’t a necessary qualification, although many heroes have experienced some degree of darkness in their lives before becoming a hero.

So, when confronted with the epiphany that the way a villain has been using his or her powers for evil, if that villain changes their course and chooses to do good instead, then they are no longer a villain. They are a hero. And these heroes appreciate second chances, because they’ve received one of their own. Cage escaped his prison sentence, to never be re-discovered. He chose to be a hero in his new life, and thus experienced a sort of cultural forgiveness. Again, this is a theological concept: one who has been forgiven of much, will show greater love to those around them. And this, ultimately, is what a hero does: he or she shows love to those around them, by placing their own lives at risk to save those who cannot save themselves.

I’m not sure how this plays into my fictional explorations of the nature of a hero, but it must somehow, because I think that this is as critical as it is inspiring.

Photo Attribution: Zach Dischner

There’s something so amazing about being involved in good conversation with someone, especially with someone whose views are different than your own. These conversations force us to examine our beliefs, to better understand why we hold them. They help us learn how to respect each other, and how to do civil discourse. And that’s really important, because it seems that discourse in our culture just isn’t so civil, of late.

Right Away…

Karen and I have some disagreement on when goals should be achieved.

That is, once I get something in my head, I’m of the opinion that it needs to happen now. In fact, yesterday would be a good time. Its not that I make decisions rashly or impulsively, at least not most of the time. That’s actually part of the issue. I feel that I’ve reasoned through the decision, reached a goal after careful consideration and introspection, and all of that has taken time. So, there isn’t any point in wasting any more time. Its time to make things happen.

Karen, conversely, plans the execution of the details. She’s very wise about it, as well. There are no assumptions, no approximations with her. She plans every detail to the minutiae. Which is a great compliment to me, because I tend to gloss over certain aspects of life, to see the big picture instead of the smaller details. Of course, the big picture is composed of the smaller details, and I need someone to fill in the holes in my plan as they materialize.

And they inevitably materialize.

A serious life change is coming up for us (like we didn’t just experience that with the birth of our daughter), and I think that its been too long in the making. We had made a decision over a year ago, but hadn’t formulated an exact plan. Over the course of the year, Karen planned and led in the execution of a strategy that took care of almost all of the details, at least all of the ones that we could control. Now, we’re about to move forward in a much more secure manner, because of her planning. Had I been leading the charge, I never would have had the patience to wait this long. Once we had made the decision, it was time to go. Details, I tend to think, can be improvised.

It isn’t, though, that simple. Almost never.

I think that my problem is that I’m afflicted with more than my share of our instant gratification culture. The ability of the consumer in the digital age to immediately acquire so much of what we want leaves us of the perspective that this generalizes to the rest of our lives. Once we decide what we want to do with our lives, we think the education should happen immediately, that we should rise through the ranks of our new field immediately. We leave out the work and planning and intentionality that it involves.

I had a conversation at the beginning of the weekend about the difficulties that occur in a marriage when a couple has children. Many couples divorce during this time frame, often not for lack of wanting their problems to be solved. Yet, it seems (and I have no statistics to support this) that couples who struggle through the garbage of jobs and raising children and time restrictions and so on, and make it to the so-called “empty nest” period, make it. They’re closer, now, because they’ve learned as they’ve worked through it all. That experience can’t be rushed. We have to live through things to acquire it.

I’m not good at patience, even though I’d like to be. I really need people to tell me that my self-imposed deadlines aren’t always realistic, that there are things that I need to experience before I make it to the goals I’ve set for myself. Those experiences are what make achieving the goals worthwhile.

We always appreciate more the things for which we’ve waited.

Photo Attribution: gemb1

Finding Headroom

Do you remember Max Headroom? The artificial intelligence from “20 minutes into the future,” which was in a dystopian world in which huge corporations dominated and off-switches were illegal? When I look back over the types of science fiction that I experienced during my formative years in the 80’s, its no wonder I’ve developed a love for cyberpunk and dystopian science fiction. In fact, “good science fiction” and “dystopian” are practically synonymous to me.

When I think of a media-driven world in which a constant exposure to corporate-controlled media is a reality…that’s pretty dystopian for me. When I grew up, I remember when we first had cable television connected (I was completely stoked to watch Battle of the Planets). From that point forward, the television became more and more of a reality, a constant source of white noise that brought difficulty to the dinner table, sparked occasionally heated conversations in the evening, and was used as a litmus test for the fact that I needed glasses to correct my vision. Television had become such an integral part of my life, in fact, that, when Karen and I were married and combining our lives into one apartment, I remember her giving me a quizzical look when I included cable in the list of essential utility bills. She could live without cable. I couldn’t.

Of course, cable television has become a bit of a dinosaur now, just as landline telephones have for personal residences. Both industries struggle to survive, with only the fact that they are also ISPs giving them any chance of life, at all. When Karen and I disconnected our cable shortly into our marriage with the realization that the Internet was now the source of all network programming, I imagined that there would be even more white noise. The decision was primarily a financial one, though, and one with which we continue to be happy. We find all of our programming through either the network websites (which stream a great deal of their programs for free), Hulu, Netflix, or simply by purchasing season passes on iTunes. Gone were Tuesday night Cops marathons. Gone was having the television on in the background, forgetting what was even airing, as we went about this or that. Gone were the TV Guides. Unfortunately, gone were tennis matches and basketball games, as well, which is the one thing that I miss. Now, we’re more intentional about watching specifically what we want to see. There’s more music playing in the background, and rarely looping television programs.

When we visit family that still uses cable, I find myself noticing just how nearly omnipresent the television remains. I’m glad that’s not the case for us.

Moving to the Internet for all of our television viewing has reduced the amount of television that we watch. I know that’s not the case for everyone. I know people who can waste hours in front of YouTube, or stream endless programming on Hulu. I know that its all in how you use the technology, and perhaps that fact hasn’t changed from one medium to the next. I just think its kind of interesting that the same technology and media trends that brought us the frightening landscape of Max Headroom actually moved us beyond that landscape into something with much more flexibility.

Here’s to the Internet.

Photo Attribution: *USB*

Cuts Both Ways

I heard a story on Monday morning listening to the BBC in the car. Of course, I can’t find it anywhere, now, but the story sparked a strong reaction from me. The story was an interview with an editor that makes his life’s work of abridging fiction, most notably the classics. His stated reason for doing this during the interview was because attention spans in our culture are decreasing rapidly, seeming to infer that most people don’t have the patience or motivation to read a full length literary novel.

My knee-jerk reaction was not a pleasant one.

Now, a more thought-out response. Abridging is nothing new in the world of fiction. I don’t read abridged fiction in written form, but I occasionally read it in audio form. Whenever we travel by car, Karen and I listen to audiobooks. Depending on the nature of the trip, and on the genre, I haven’t been opposed to buying abridged audio versions. Typically, though, these are genre novels, not literary novels. Sometimes, though, I’m amazed at just how condensed the books are, and sometimes the abridged novels accomplish what an editor seems to have missed the opportunity to accomplish.

We’ve all read books in which the author became a bit verbose in descriptions of mundane details…books in which we find ourselves thinking, “was it really necessary to know the full and minute details of every meal that character ate in a week?” Worse, when you read this during a murder mystery, you find yourself taking copious notes of minutiae in case it becomes a critical factor in determining “whodunit,” only to find out that these facts had nothing to do with the story.

I’m all about character development, but every author makes the mistake of spending too much time describing some things, and not enough time describing others. Sometimes that makes it into the book. Larsson, for example, strays a bit into verbose-ness in the Millenium trilogy. To give an example of the unabridged vs. the abridged versions of Larsson’s work: the abridged audio version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo weighs in at just under 8 hours; the unabridged version of The Girl who Played with Fire was nearly 19 hours of audio.

So, perhaps I’m being verbose in saying all that, but I’m pointing out that abridging fiction isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Still.

I think the issue is motivation. To abridge a novel, especially a classic work of fiction, because the attention span of the average individual is too short to handle reading a full length novel, is problematic. The reason is because it is catering to the symptoms of a problem…adapting to a dysfunction…rather than working to solve the problem, to address it. The fact that the average person doesn’t read a book for pleasure in a year, or that their fractured attention span won’t permit them to focus on anything more than the length of the average Twitter update, is an issue that needs to be solved.

Which leaves us with two possible alternatives at a basic level: admit that stunted attention spans is a problem that needs to be addressed, or pretend that its acceptable instead of wrong and re-adjust our lives around it.

So, I could abridge my post here by saying that hacking up works of classic fiction in order to cater to the psychological trauma done to the average reader by a media-saturated culture is wrong. Classic literary authors are considered such for a reason. Their works were crafted the way they exist for a reason. To cut appendages off of them because we in our judgement deem them “too long” is tragic. Those texts, which frequently have been foundational to our culture, deserve more respect than to carve them into pieces.

Just so we can multi-task better while saying we’ve read them.

140-character thoughts have their place. So do 50,000 word ideas. We need to be able to engage, and appreciate, both.

Photo Attribution: misteraitch