Superpowers (GC)

There's no way I'm the only person who tried to move something with their mind when they were a kid. Holding out my hand, tensing every single muscle, and waiting for that pencil, cup, or whatever small item to move (even if it was just a little). Okay, so maybe you didn't do that exactly, but you must've tried something similar. Maybe you tried to push something that was physically impossible for you to move at that age or ran around your yard as fast as you could with your arms stretched out to the side in a vain attempt to fly. To bring this type of idea to life, humans invented stories. It started with someone telling their friend about a guy that lifted a heavy rock, then they told another friend he lifted a boulder, and that person tells someone he carried a mountain (this is an exaggeration but I'm trying to describe the first game of telephone here). In time there were books to solidify the legends. Then there was the moving picture, then comic books, and so forth. Today we have an endless source of novels, comics, and movies that illustrate the story of people with superpowers. Everybody loves hearing the story of the person who could do the impossible, and I think it's a wonderful exercise in imagination, but there's a downside. I've noticed everyone loves superpowers, but not a lot of people realize and take advantage of the powers people are actually capable of wielding.

Honestly, a big pet peeve of mine is when someone says they can’t do something. It might be cliche, but there’s evidence to support this claim: a person’s reach exceeds their imagination. One classic example is the plane. Thousands of years went by filled with people looking to the sky while dreaming of flight and doubting that they (or anyone else) ever could. What drives home my point is the “or anyone else” in the last sentence, but we’ll get to that later. And, during those thousands of years of dreaming, was, without doubt, those who dare not to dream. Among the few who dreamt of flight, hundreds said it was impossible. This applies to the concept of the radio, car, television, space shuttle, and the list goes on quite extensively. However, any rational reader following this train of thought can come to the simple conclusion that there were times where those creations simply could not exist. The human race just hadn’t progressed to that point yet. So, the saying “a person’s reach exceeds their imagination” contains within it a loosely defined term: person. The human who lived 10,000 years ago and thought it was impossible for him/her to land on the moon would have been right to think so. Their mistake, however, lies in thinking that no one “person” ever could.

Now, I want to pose a question to you about the ownership of great achievements. Who was responsible for landing on the moon: the hardworking men and women of the 1960s, or the millions of people who dreamt of going to the moon before it ever occurred? I would say that the answer is both, but I would assert that the millions of people who dreamt about it put in the majority of the work towards that goal. An outrageous idea needs someone to believe in it for it to eventually come to life. The logic for an idea can be applied to a superpower. Humans have the power to achieve things that people aren't even capable of imagining, but the idea has to stay fresh in the mind of the collective. If you forget about what can be accomplished in your lifetime, and hold true to the knowledge that your efforts will work towards the goals of the collective, you can do anything through your people with time.

Enough about the future, let's talk about the here and now. Superpowers are very much attainable in the present day (we're speaking about the year 2019 here). We can fly, move mountains, talk to someone on the other side of the planet, etc. But those are just examples on the extreme end of possibilities. We can measure power in terms of influence. So, when we consider the abilities we have access to through the lens of influence, it becomes evident that superpowers are readily accessible to us. For instance, take into consideration the influence that YouTube videos might have on millions of people. Alan Watts talked about the presence of (or lack thereof )the individual self and its relation to the universe. The videos on YouTube that are essentially recordings of his seminars get hundreds of thousands of views. Because of that, we can come to the conclusion that he has gotten several hundreds of thousands of people to at least ponder about the topics he’s lectured about (and that at least a small fraction of those people took the message to heart). If we consider Professor X’s ability to make someone think a certain way (a superpower from the X-Men), then we have to hold one man’s power to influence thousands of minds to the same standard. You can also influence other things like the way people see you, the circumstances of your own life, and the circumstances of other people’s live (whether it be through helping them or hurting them). This is the modernity of superpowers that can be obtained by all people.

To round off this little rant of mine, superpowers exist in real life and are accessible to anyone willing to work for them. Humans as a species are capable of so much more than we might think. Sure, Superman can fly of his own accord, but the Buddha convinced millions of people to put less value in their material possessions. You tell me which one is the real superpower.

Unprecedented is the concept, likely is the possibility.