WHY WE FIGHT: The Final Edition

{WHY WE FIGHT is leaving, but here's one last look at what could have been. And yes, this is a bit over-dramatic in places, but it was also an English essay on which I scored 96%, so there!}

From the moment we enter the world, we find ourselves naked in more ways than one, crying out with every new sensation we experience and questioning this strange new world. Our emotions are on display for all to see, but while the collective coos and screams from our infant mouths may seem chaotic, we’re asking the question that will echo throughout our lives: “why?” This intrinsic desire to know more than one does permeates every fiber of our being, and, in a way, it is the unconscious reason behind so many of our actions, forcing us to move forward in the hopes of learning more. I’m not sure that anyone will ever truly answer the question of “why?” to a degree that satisfies all curiosity, but I believe that we all find truths in life that aid in smoothing out the confusion brewing within us, screaming at the most primal level. Throughout my entire life, there has been no single person, place or event that has helped answer my question of “why?” as greatly as comic books.

The four-color panels of comic books have jumped out at me since I was a child, and I first spied a glance at my cousin’s collection of comics that featured heroes in seemingly magical garbs who could accomplish the greatest of feats because they were the “good guys.” The inherent nature of these tales-- both ridiculous and illogical- didn’t occur to me and it wasn’t something to which I gave much care at the tender age of five. Instead, I found myself enamored by the idea that people could triumph in the world, despite their secret identities as bumbling outcasts (a description that resonated with my self-view), and find victory through the righteousness of their own quests, when I had already found that my skin color and ethnicity prevented me from being accepted by the overwhelmingly Caucasian population in school. Though the chants of “stupid Packy ( a racial slang used to address those with brown skin)” and “my mommy says you’re going to hell if you’re not Christian” still found their place in my daily thought cycle, they became overpowered by the notion of “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Superman stood by me in my moments of self-doubt, when the cruelty of children revealed itself in the condemning glance, the joke you couldn’t hear or the “accidental” shove down the monkey bars, and, every time I felt myself stumbling into situations I could not win, my thoughts raced back to those comics. As my head struck the ground, perhaps a tree along the way, I remembered that Superman wasn’t the kind of hero who would let a bully overpower or outsmart him, even when people around him only saw the klutzy Clark Kent; no, despite the best efforts of Lex Luthor and the villainous Legion of Super-Villains, Superman proved to me, in my own innocence, that you simply had to be smarter and more resourceful than your opponents, because there was always a way out. Now I didn’t have super powered dog to help me and I couldn’t fly away at super-speeds, but part of me believed that these comics represented the reality of being an adult, so that when the tumultuous years of adolescence became a memory found only in pictures and the idle daydream, the ideals of Superman would shine through for all to see, because the world had to work that way.

I desperately needed it to work that way.

It wouldn’t be fair if it didn’t work that way.

It wouldn’t be fair if there weren’t a Superman or a Batman to protect people from that cruel minority that didn’t want to play in the sand with the kid colored like sand.

In these moments, when I wore the exploits of these fictional friends like a suit of armor, part of me whispered words of doubt and apathy, as various thoughts collided inside myself. No matter how honorably, or how strongly, I fought back, it seemed like the troubles of the world would never stay down until I caught my breath, regrouping to fight back even further. Every day should hold much more promise, I thought, and that notion stayed with me for years.

As with most teenagers, my view of the world became much more cynical as the senior years of high school took their toll on me as I began to reject those childish comic book theories and embrace what I felt what my darker (and to a teenager, inherently “deeper”) emotions. As my weight increased, and my own apathy regarding school and life began to parallel the gains in my waist, I found myself spiraling down a tunnel of my own self-doubt and self-loathing, fertilized by the pent up anger I selfishly attributed as unique to my life, a life that I would have seen as exceptional had I looked outside my anger and absorbed the true breadth of my experiences. I remember one day in 1998, when I had taken a “sick day” and signed myself out of school that day-- ah, the liberty of the Canadian educational system-- when I stumbled upon an old comic from my cousin’s collection under my bed.

I lay down on my bedroom floor, took in the smell of the slightly yellowed newspaper and ink, and remembered the days when these comics comforted me, the days when I needed friends who wouldn’t tease me or leave me for the cooler new kid. Call me weak if you will, but those comics had been there for me, ever the stalwart friends and asking for nothing more than to open their pages with a smile on my face. As I laughed out loud at the obvious logic gaps in these tales, and smiled at the tenacity of heroes in their “dire” straits, how these characters dealt with pain immediately struck me.

I’m not sure if it was the relaxing beat of the rain pounding on my windows that day or the people who had found their way out of my life days earlier, permanently I am sorry to say, but I sat up and began to wonder how I could have ever denied myself the pleasure of the simple truth espoused by these spandex clad champions: there is no feeling in life that doesn’t present us with the opportunity to seize it and become something greater. As I sifted through the excuses weighing me down, I began to realize that there was universality that was equally pronounced in some of these comics, which meant that if someone else was writing about these feelings I felt and someone else was showing a way to overcome these inner villains, then there was a way-- finally-- to triumph over one’s own nemesis, whether the result of internal or external turmoil.

As I’ve grown older, that day has constantly been at the forefront of my thoughts, like a good sidekick to assist me in making sense of the world. My own youthful arrogance prevented me from seeing the truth in these simplistic tales, and that fact has made me wonder how many other self-evident truths in life I’ve shunned in the name of pride. While these comics seemed to solely propagate a “biff bam pow” style of logic, where might made right and coincidence saved the day, I’ve found that the subtleties of these stories have only come to light as I’ve aged. The idea of “Truth, Justice & The American Way” is, I believe, a paradigm, that if embraced, that can help to make the world a better place, for we surely live in a world where helping others and being considerate fosters reciprocal actions. If that is a notion we hold to be true in all situations, then we all have our own superpower after a fashion and like Superman, and owe it to the world to share our abilities with others, so that we all may benefit from those experiences. For if we were to behave with malice and contempt, the opposite would be true- there would be an extreme deficit of happiness and opportunity to be happy. I refuse to believe that a world drowning in sadness, and base emotions is the one sought out by the hearts of mankind, so the mitigating factors must be the reason for derailing our altruistic aspirations. Perhaps it is the details of life, the ones we so selfishly believe to be so unique to our experiences (as I did), which find a way to complicate our good intentions.

To try and rationalize pain in this world is to again ask “why” and it’s a question left for smarter men than I, though comic books have explained one “why” with such resonance that I am dumbfounded by the simplicity of it all. Sometimes we ask why we should fight to create a better world, to stop others from being hurt, when we know that the darkness that clouds our hearts has existed for generations before and will continue to embolden the wicked far after we’ve shed our mortal husks. The answer is there in the blue and red garb of Superman, the shining emblem that draws our attention and the simple mantra he repeats without fail. We need to keep fighting for Truth, Justice and The American Way because we all deserve a moment where the light shines through and we possess the innocent hope that tomorrow might just be better… and the good guys always win.