(Read Part 1!)

When last we left our intrepid adventurer (that would be me), we were discussing the recent realization that I just can’t take it any more, that yes, fine, I admit it, I’m not an athiest. I’m also not one of the “vaguely spiritual”. I am, in fact, something else entirely.

What exactly is that? That’s harder to pin down. Maybe we’ll discuss that in a bit here, but first, I feel the urge (yea, unto, a need) to complete the tale that I began (if a 1600-word diatribe can be called a beginning) last week.

Let’s set the Wayback Machine to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to three weeks ago. That was about the time that this “I’ve had it and can’t take this lying down any more” idea first began to make itself known to my semi-conscious mind.

Let me be straight with you: I was, and have been, struggling with this shit. Now, those who know me may roll their eyes a titch at this, because I struggle with, you know, breakfast. Or, like, casual conversation. My existence seems to be largely defined as a chain of struggles, regardless of whether or not I’m actually being confronted with a challenge. Irrelevant! Worst case, I can struggle over my lack of something to struggle over.

But that’s not what I mean. I mean, like, soul-cramping struggle.

I may have mentioned to some of you in the past (and, you know, the entire Internet) that I am not without girth. That my girth-itude has, in fact, been increasing, and rather dramatically. Have I, however, mentioned that I am beginning to think that I may be in a great deal of trouble in this regard? Perhaps not. It’s… not an easy subject to broach. One very quickly starts to sound like a simpering weenie, and it’s not long before the “Well, why don’t you try eating less?” commentary kicks in. Also, it’s really fucking scary to consider the idea that I may… not… actually be able to do this without some help. The word addiction is beginning to appear in conversation, and more often than I’d like.

Unrelated to the leading topic? Not when desperation kicks in, my friends. No, I think not.

Here’s the thing: were I a born-and-bred athiest, I figure that when rock-bottom began to come into view, I would turn to… I dunno, the government? Friends? Couldn’t tell you, see, because I ain’t. Nossir. Around these here parts, when we spot rock-bottom-sign (which is how the Fremen refer to it), we go looking for help from the Muad’dib of the spirit.

Which was a bit startling, honestly. I mean, I was beginning to think that my fascination with all this spiritual shit had faded away into obscurity. When it’s been seven fucking years since you’ve dusted off the old altar and shaken the chicken bones at the sky, you kinda start to believe that maybe it was a passing fad.

(I’m kidding about the shaking the chicken bones at the sky thing. You shake the chicken bones to the north.)

But no. In truth, it’s starting to look like I was simply content for all those years.

Who’da thought? Seems that a contented darklord doesn’t go looking so much for conversations with spiritual archetypes. “Nope, everything’s fine, thanks! Keep up the good work!” was pretty much the vibe I was giving off, it appears.

Well, friends, let me tell you. It’s been brought to my attention (mainly by the fact that I’m having trouble seeing my feet these days) that something may be slightly out of whack, here in paradise. And so, after the fear made its way through my wittle brain (which took about three weeks), you get what you got with my last post.

Make sense? Fear of death == spiritual reawakening. Funny, that.

…

Okay, so now, as of that last sentence there, you and I are all caught up. We’re running in real-time now. Shut down the Wayback Machine, ’cause we ain’t gonna need it again in this post, baby.

Which means that I can FINALLY approach the original fucking point that I was setting out to make when I started writing my last post, which was Friday, for cripes’ sake. We’re at 2300 words so far, filling in the background.

In retrospect, the point that I want to make is probably no longer the point of these posts, and is in fact far less interesting in hindsight than it has been to try to explain all this bullshit to you all.

…

But it’s still a cool point. Here we go.

The point that I want to make has to do with what I deem to be a fascinating insight that I received from a friend of mine last week about the relationship between spirituality, your relationships, and how you treat yourself.

I know, I know. Sounds like Teen Vogue psychobabble. Brace yourself; it only gets worse from here on in. But, dig this.

You are, perhaps, familiar with the concept of psychological projection. It’s basically the idea that your relationship with other people is largely a reflection of your relationship with yourself. If you’re carrying around a lot of self-loathing, you’re going to project that onto other people, and will interpret everything they do and say as an expression of their loathing of you, when this may or may not have anything to do with how they actually feel about you.

Capiche? Well-established psychological territory so far.

It is, perhaps, not inobvious or really a stretch to point out that the same is true about your relationship with yourself. If a person is carrying around a bunch of self-loathing, it would not be surprising to see that person carrying on in one self-destructive behavior or another.

In fact, you could say that these two things (external and internal relationships) are both one thing: you will have relationships (with yourself or others) that are what you feel you deserve. That is perhaps an oversimplification, but it will serve for the point I’m making.

Here’s the new bit. And, this is the paragraph that I couldn’t really write without explaining myself some.

Spirituality, of the sort that we would generally recognize as an actual practice (as opposed to the touchy-feely “sure, stuff is maybe possible, I dunno” approach) is defined generally as including (or, perhaps, being entirely defined by) a relationship with an external entity/power/archetype/universal intelligence/elder god of the deep.

The key word there being relationship.

So, get this: spirituality is a form of psychological projection. More specifically, spirituality is an exercise in which a human pretends to be having a relationship (ideally with someone who is really nice), and practices (if you’ll forgive the double entendre) having that relationship.

It’s a way… wait for it… to become a better person.

And, that is true regardless of your relationship with religion. All that is required is for the practicer to act as if they are having a relationship with a real thing. I’m not 100% sure that you even have to really believe it, to be honest. Couldn’t tell ya, though. See previous post.

And…

…well, that’s about it.

I’ve come a very long way in this post, much longer than I expected when I sat down to write about this topic, and I’m glad you made it all the way to the end, Fearless Reader. I honestly never thought we’d be having this conversation, but here we are. I, for one, am very interested to see what else is waiting around the corner.

As I sit here at my desk, while my avatar stands placidly on a rock out in the Bay of Storms in eastern Azshara, idly tossing her fishing line into the grey water in search of [Stonescale Eel], my mind, she wanders.

I suppose that’s sort of the point of fishing. That’s what people tell me, anyway.

I have, of late, been given over to some musings of a sort that have not graced my frontal lobes in more than seven years. And, I have to warn you, the general topic that these thoughts revolve around has no place in Silicon Valley. My dilemma is that I spend 100% of my time in said Valley.

The topic at hand is spirituality.

…

That’s right. I went there. Uh huh.

Allow me the liberty to fill in some of the background, and then we’ll talk about being part of an oppressed class. You’ll like that part, it’s got great sniveling. But first, some history.

My father was what I must describe as a philosophy collector. Over the course of my childhood, I was a member of just about every religious or philosophical organization that could be joined and attended in the greater Seattle area. He would dig himself into a new sect, burrowing into it like a paleontologist, reverently dusting off, examining, and catalogueing each new idea he came across.

His interest, though, was primarily in learning new things, so once he had taken his full measure of a group, he would invariably begin to uncover their faults. This would lead to the fall from grace, the leaving, the desperate chest-beating about never being able to find anything real or true, and then the search for the next thing to dig into.

So, then, naturally I (and my mother and brother) ended up being dragged along behind this philsophical juggernaut, bouncing off each new crested wave like a water skiier trying to earn his water legs without drowning. Because if there is one thing anyone who interacted with my father knew it was this: that man could share. Like nobody’s business.

We called it being “Dwighted”.

Expressing interest in a topic that my father understood was a dangerous behavior. The best outcome you could hope for would be a quick dive into hjs voluminous reference stacks, followed by a single papered volume or article being shoved into your hands. Worst case was that he took you on as a disciple. This happened… all the time.

The conjunction of this compulsive information mining and equally compulsive information sharing meant that I (and my brother, although you’d hardly know it to look at him) grew up with one of the most robust spritual and philosophical backgrounds I’ve heard of. It was the equivalent of being a Pastor’s child, but in every religion known to mankind.

Thus, I got a chance to see the profound strengths and profound weaknesses of most of the major (and quite a few of the minor) spiritual organizations out there. It left me scarred for life. And, as it turns out, a secret social pariah, wandering in a technological wilderness.

Because I bought it, see.

I believe.

Let’s be clear what I mean by that, since our good friends the Asshole sect of the Christian faith (as opposed to most Christians, who are generally astoundingly kind and understanding people) have gone ahead and polarized the philosophical landscape to the point where I can’t say the word “believe” without it accumulating extra meaning about having confidence that the sky is populated with winged messengers and human dieties with white hair, the second coming of one Jewish Rabbi or another, or various other blatant absurdities.

So. To be clear.

What I mean by believe is that over the course of my life I have taken the time to experiment with various forms of spiritual pursuit, and have proven to myself that there’s plenty we don’t understand about this universe we live in, and much that is helpful to the human condition. There is quite a lot of the experience of living that has been swept into the dark, musty subbasement of Non-Scientific Hooey that is, alas, quite possibly true (at the very least, in the context of human emotions, and quite possibly more than that). And, some of this Hooey of which we speak I have proven to myself to be factual… at least to my own satisfaction.

If only it were provable outside of my own mind. Sigh.

I am, perhaps, not the first human to express such a regret.

For the early parts of my adult life (and much of my teenagerhood) I was a practicing SomethingOrOther-ian. I gathered together the pieces of the various teachings that I resonated with (you know, resonate, like my crystalline structure vibrates when exposed to sound. I’m a crystal elemental of spirit.), and did with them as I pleased, pretty much.

Until I moved to California.

Now, you would think that moving to the Bay Area that I would be among like-minded souls, and that my spiritual interests would… nope! Not so much!

Let’s narrow in on this for a moment, since it is, in my opinion, non-obvious what is going on around here, and it certainly isn’t what I was expecting. There is a kind of perfect storm of de-spiritualization blowing its winds through the Bay, which is kindof the opposite of what the travel brochures would have you believe.

Here’s how I see it:

California, as you may know, is the generally accepted leader o’ the pack when it comes to acceptance of a broad range of ideas. People flee to the west coast to escape the homophobia, sexism, fundamentalism, and general religiosity (if I may mangle my mother language for a moment) of other areas in the country. And this is where things start to go weird.

See, some large portion of the folk that flee here are fleeing here out of a desire to be able to express themselves as a Follower of Science and a Skeptic of All Things Flim-Flammy. These folk tend to see any spiritual pursuit as an indication of a weakness of mind, brainwashing, or perhaps flat out mental illness. “How could you believe in something you can’t see or touch?” goes the argument.

Can’t blame ‘em, really.

And, here’s the tricky part: many of them are up in arms about it. They see (rightfully) that fundamentalism is tearing our country apart, and (wrongfully) blame religion and the many and varied philosophical pursuits attatched thereto for the plague of incoherency that we as a nation are suffering from. They hate people of faith.

Hate ‘em.

Add to this the other side of the quotient: the aggressively over-spiritual. Berkeley and the Haight are famous for broad acceptance of spiritual pursuits, many of which stink so badly of snake-oil that you’d swear that guy standing on the street corner is the Music Man. Friends, trouble! Right here in River City!

Having a conversation with these folks can be just as frustrating as one with their oppressors. A philosophical conversation with a wild-eyed Follower of Crystal Healing And Stuff is… just fucking impossible, actually. It derails so fast you would swear they were doing it deliberately.

And, often, they hate the unspiritual. Hate ‘em. In a really nice, accepting way.

So, imagine you lived in a town that was populated with 25% hardcore Republicans, and 25% hardcore Democrats. Would you dare to strike up a political conversation with anyone, given a 50% chance that you’re going to be unwittingly swept up in The Great War that you have no interest in?

It is ironic, I figure, that there are enough of these aggressively spiritually inclinded and disinclined folk around the Bay Area that, living here, in the center of acceptance and progressive thinking, one gets very, very cautious about bringing up any kind of spirituality in casual conversation, if only to protect one’s sanity. And, even worse, if word gets out that you secretly harbor spiritual ambitions, there’s a chance that someone up the foodchain at your place of work is one of these psychos, and that that will have a direct negative impact on your career.

Yaay.

So, now that we’ve described the landscape in which I linger, I can finally start the conversation that I’ve come all this long way to write, and, as you are reading this, you have endured a torrent of wandering paragraphs to read.

I can’t take it any more. The gig is up. I confess. I’m one of them. A huge part of my person, my essence, the, shall we say, fiber of my being, is a profoundly spiritual substance of some kind. If one were to render me (as one would render fat into soap), you’d end up with 75lbs of gamer, 75lbs of dad / husband, and about 100lbs of spiritual dude.

It’s just that it’s all on the inside. So you never see it.

To some, such a declaration may be equivalent to me confessing that I wear black. Sort of an “um, gasp?” situation. If so, then great, you know me better than I have known myself for the past few years.

To others… not sure. I haven’t been very forthcoming on this topic during the last… decade.

So, here’s a note: If you’ve managed to make it all the way down this page, you must be a friend of mine, because who the fuck else would endure such a post? Checkmate! So, friend, here’s a request for you: don’t you dare dance around your athiesm with me just because I discussed this shit.Sneer at my woefully illogical thinking. Scoff if you must. Better that than tiptoeing around the topic so as not to offend. You tiptoe around me at your peril, bub.

…

To be continued. Because, believe it or not, I didn’t manage to talk about the actual point of this post, and I’m already well over my word count.

Be afraid.

I…

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to get a little burnt out on WoW.

Maybe it’s because for the last three weeks I’ve been averaging 4-10 hours of play per day. That might have something to do with it.

It’s not that I don’t want to play the game. Not by a long shot. Indeed, I’m signed up to go raiding in Molten Core this very weekend, last weekend my goddamn Lawbringer Spaulders dropped, and I got them.

That’s right. 2/8. ZOMG.

But… still, I’m a little burnt. It manifests itself in a strange kind of naseous fatigue that begins the moment I see the logon screen. I’m assuming, for the time being, that this is a bad thing, and that it means that, at the least, I should see if the Real World is still there, alive, and intact. Perhaps take a census of still-living friends.

Of course, this extra time only allows room for other interests to invade.

For one, there is Tomb Raider, which a friend of mine has graciously loaned me a copy of.

…

[ ASIDE: Yeah, okay, so while collecting that link for you, this happened:

Normally, I hate desktop buddies. With a passion. But, I've gotta admit: having Lara Croft walking around my desktop scaling my windows seems perfectly reasonable. I'm a sick, sad little man. ]

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah!

Hell of a game. Tomb Raider: Legend is a true evolution of the franchise. Crystal Dynamics has succeeded where Core had failed: bringing Lara across the console generation gap. Core clearly leapt, missed, and let Lara fall to her death in a little crumpled heap (as she is want to do). Crystal reloaded their save game, made the same leap, and cleared it.

Although, barely. It’s short. Too short for some, but not too short for me. Lara is nearly perfect, and the innovations in climbing gameplay that the game has to offer will certainly become standardized within a single product cycle.

It’s also the first new game I’ve played in something approaching six months. And, get this: I’ve been busting out with some DDR action of late. I love that game.

Video games are not the only obsession re-emerging. Witness:

That’s blood on the stairs there, coming from the blood gutters cut into the tile around the sacrificial altar. Yes… yes. Turned out pretty good. Still needs some grass and stuff, so that’s next, but for a first “invented and built entirely from scratch with no plans or anything” effort, it doesn’t suck. It’s also extraordinarily heavy, being made entirely from plaster. I love my stone block molds. Yes I do.

I’ve been painting my Orkies, too. And, Dave & I had a rip-roarin’ game of Warhammer 40k on Saturday. (Dave learned an important lesson: don’t let the Genestealers get into your back rank. Ever.)

As a whole, not playing WoW constantly seems to be gently re-opening the doors to other pursuits, and I’m meeting this brave new world as any true hero would: cringing in fear, and blinking and wincing at the bright thing in the sky, my pasty skin and huge irises having been evolved for survival in a subterranean environment. I hope that with some integration therapy (and a little light surgery) I might be ready to be released into society at large within a few weeks.

I’ll let you know when that’s likely, so you can bar your doors at night.

Friend of mine sent me a couple of links today that dramatically altered my world view, and changed my understanding of the balanace of geopolitical power in the world today.

…

No, really. I’m serious.

Here’s the thing: let’s set the Wayback Machine to 1982, when Yours Truly was busily learning how to cope with a new batch of hormones that had been uncerimoniously dumped into his bloodstream without so much as a “Get ready to be a basket case for a decade!”. I was not, shall we say, endowed with a broad, world-wide perspective at the time (being a punk kid), but even I knew that something was seriously fucked up in the way things were going. In a geopolitical sense, I mean.

Even Sting was telling me about it when I turned on the radio. I bet I can recite the goddamn thing from memory. Let’s find out, shall we?

In Europe and in America
There’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets

Mr. Kruschev says “We will bury you!”
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
Would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too.

How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy
There is no monopoly in commonsense
On either side of the political fence

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

There is no historical precedent
To put the words in the mouth of the President
There’s no such thing as a winnable war
It’s a lie we don’t believe any more

Mr. Reagan says “We will protect you!”
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too.

-Sting, “Russians”, 1985

I remember distinctly drawing nuclear explosions (the glorious Mushroom Cloud, with its little ring around the stem; why did that ring always form?) over and over and over, fascinated with this shape that might someday darken my sky and bring death to everything I’d ever known.

It was not a pleasing thought. Yet, it seemed entirely normal to me at the time to be dwelling on the imminent death of all civilization.

We were all doing it, after all. It was a national preoccupation. Wargames. Miracle Mile. A Boy and His Dog. Mad Max, The Road Warrior, and Beyond Thunderdome. The Day After. The Handmaid’s Tale. Red Dawn. B movies at the time were fascinated with the genre (no doubt partially because you could film the whole thing in that wrecked junkyard just outside town): Cyborg. Def-Con 4. Steel Dawn. Stryker. And many other fine, fine films. You couldn’t drive past a (recently invented) multiplex theater without seeing a poster with a ‘shroom cloud on it.

And, although this might be difficult to remember, it was a genuine, constant fear. Kinda like the way you feel about terrorists today, except this one was about all of civilization (and, in fact, all life on the planet) being wiped off the map. It was sorta mind boggling, the amount of sheer destructive power that was put at the fingertips of a (very, very carefully selected) few, so you tried not to think about it too often.

Now? Not so much with the fear of world-wide devastation.

There have been a few exceptions, but you don’t see many stories nowadays built around the idea of life after a nuclear war. In fact, I would daresay that kids these days would want the word “post-apocalyptic” explained to them, as they have likely never come across it in their day-to-day routine. They might, in fact, be more familiar with the Christian version of the apocalypse then the nuclear one.

See, somewhere in the mid-90′s, right around the time that the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone sorta looked around, and checked to see if they weren’t the only one who thought that maybe… just maybe… we could put this particular worry source in a box and pack it away in the closet for safekeeping. Whaddaya think?

And, in a great collective sigh, we decided that the chances of the world ending because some crazed government employee Pushed The Big Red Button had diminished to an acceptable level. Such an act, as we all eventually came to understand, would leat to Mutually Assured Destruction, and even the crazed government employees seemed to be getting that through their heads.

*whew* That was a relief.

But…

Yeah, still nukes out there. A lot of them. That’s been bugging us recently, and… well… actually sortof all along, but… it looks like it’s fairly unlikely that anything really bad is going to happen with the “free nukes, aisle 20!” stuff, given that there are a whole lot of government organizations very seriously invested in ensuring that nothing bad happens. Or, looked at from another direction, it’s possible, but we seem to be actively attempting to prevent it. Go team!

*whew* That’s a relief.

But…

…

But nothing. All well and good.

Until today, when I get this email in my inbox, and click, and read. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, pal. Thanks a lot.

*sigh*

So, for your amusement, and in the spirit of sharing, here is the thing that until this very day had never been presented to me as an interesting factoid, and until this very day hadn’t occurred to me to apply any real concern or consideration to:

In terms of nuclear strike capability, the US is way, way ahead of everyone else in the entire world. Way ahead.

That’s the gist of this report, which is neatly summarized in a blog entry (in what appears to be a blog full to the gills on criticism of the current Hegemony) here.

I recommend it. The short version, I mean. I haven’t read the long one yet; I’m still working up the nerve. Although, put your blast shields up; I don’t believe it’s entirely conspiracy-theoryless.

I’m not sure it will make you any happier, and I have some serious doubts about some of the basic assumptions and some of the conclusions laid out in the piece, but… man, there are some points made in there that are worth thinking about.

As I’m writing this at the end of my work day, instead of the ususal morning routine, I believe I’m going to go home now, and think about what the title of this blog entry would look like in a mirror.

(You may as well get settled in, if you plan on riding this one to the end. A quick scan down will show you that my ambitions for your attention span may well outstrip your level of commitment. Consider yourself warned.)

I do all my best thinking while driving.

I’m not alone in this; there is something about a long drive down a straight highway that activates the contemplation circuits. It’s a kind of gentle, enforced modern meditation. I am, however, one of those people who, when confronted with a sticky problem, will actually leave and go for a drive to sort it out.

It was on one such drive, several years back, that I got to thinking about Superman.

This was on a spectacularly long drive, four hours between Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle, WA. On such a drive, one has a chance to take an idea and turn it over and over in your mind, until it spins, and you can begin to shape it, carve away at it, as you would a dowel humming away in a lathe.

On this trip, I was turning over in my mind the fact that Superman bugs me. And I had a good long time to think about why.

Consider what you have with the Man O’ Steel.

He is (as far as we can tell) the closest thing to completely invunerable as any creature can get, short of actually having no weaknesses. He takes the most egregious kind of poundings, gets back up, keeps coming, and never relents. In fact, most types of assault simply glance off of him, ineffectual-like.

And this… this… is what bothers me.

Most of what I have learned in this life (small though that sum may be) I have learned through receiving and contemplating the painful consequences to the actions I have taken. I often think that my life can largely be described by the long chain of mistakes I have made, and the course corrections I have taken in response to those mistakes.

I am not exceptional in this. It is safe to say that this is one of the Ways of life itself. Pain exists as a way for creatures (sentient or otherwise) to condition themselves to avoid behavors that will damage them, in an ever-changing environment. Yep. Pretty sure about this one.

So, what we have here, then, is a creature who, at least as far as physical feedback goes, has no way of receiving negative reinforcement. He, simply, cannot learn through pain.

What would that do to someone?

(We don’t really know. But, there are, at the very least, ideas about this floating around the American myth and story gestalt… Since we are talking about a fictional character, let’s accept these baseless fictional ideas as fact. Lawmakers do it all the time, why can’t we?)

Absence of pain stunts the development of empathy in the poor afflicted sod. It’s simple: if you, yourself, can’t feel pain, then you can’t imagine what pain someone else is experiencing, which is empathy.

So, of course, being utterly invulnerable, Superman would of course become an utter sociopath, and, since he is a) unstoppable, b) inhumanly powerful, and c) from another goddamn planet, he would, of course, rise up, claim the world as his own, and rule it in whatever depraved manner he sees fit.

Right?

Except he didn’t. Not even close.

Instead, he became humanity’s savior, a paragon of virtue, and defender of every goddamn thing within his remarkably broad reach.

So, the question I have is how?? How did this happen??

Let’s look at the facts. Superman apologists (you know who you are, you flag-waving tree huggers) generally tell us about two major factors in the development of this goody-two-shoes approach to demigod status:

1. The training the young Kal-El (Supes, for those not in the ultra-geek squad) was given while in the escape pod he was carried to earth in;
2. His raising at the hands of the good and kindly Jonathan and Martha Kent.

Let’s talk about each of these briefly, and then discuss what this startling declaration must mean.

Training Pod

The idea here is that the escape pod Superman’s parents put him in to carry him away from his dying planet contained within it some pretty fucking bitchin’ technology and design, and that, over the course of his long, long journey to Earth, it stuffed his head full of understanding about the universe and the planet that he was travelling to.

In most presentations, this is basically a recording talking to a baby Kal-El floating in a sphere, which would make me a dead Kal-El from confinement, boredom, and physical inactivity within a month. But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Krypton Recreation & Instructional Bureau was a well-financed and well-regulated governmental body, and that they put some brains on the job of building that darn pod. Nerds, I mean. The really geeky ones, like the ones who stuffed the computational power of the entire planet in 1972 into the computer with which you are reading this drivel, bored silly and impatient with me to get to the goddamn point.

Hang on. We’re almost there.

So, let’s assume that this was a really good teaching machine he was in. Okay, cool. Kal-El (who quickly became the young Clark Kent) got his brain all stuffed full with information and detail about where he was going, how stuff worked, and how his parents expected him to behave.

They brainwashed him pretty good. Yep.

Ma and Pa

All right, so now we meet the second major influence: the Kents.

Before we swallow this pill, let’s again consider what we’ve got here. We have a young boy, utterly brainwashed by his parents in a space machine to earth, who has had no real-world experience at all, until he crashlands in a wheat field in Kansas. We can assume that there was some kind of physical simulation stuff in the training pod, so he’s not emerging like some kind of blank slate; he’s a healthy Kryptonian boy of six. Or however old he was. However, he’s never actually done anything real.

Enter the Kents: two kind, gentle, rugged, apple pie American folken, looking for a kid. And, one just dropped into their back yard. Fine.

However.

This boy of theirs could crush their torsos accidentally if he sneezed while giving them a hug. If startled at the wrong moment and lets fly, he could knock one of them into the next county.

This is not your usual kid.

Now, let’s talk quickly about children. The parental relationship is based on many things: experience, love, relation, community… and, also, physicality. It is true that part of the reason that kids have to do what their parents tell them to (especially when they are young) is that, deep down, they know that the parents can just pick them up and put them in the goddamn car, if they had to. Many kids know this, and never test it. Some test it. Some test it constantly. But it is most certainly one part of the web that keeps children from destroying their parents. And, darn tootin’!

This was not the case with the Kents. Oh no. If the young Clark got it in his head to, he was gonna have that goddamn plushy Scooby-Doo, and that would pretty much be that. Yep.

And Therefore…

We must assume, then, that as Clark grew from child to hormonally-posessed teenager to superheroic adult, one of two things occurred. Either:

1. The young Clark Kent never tested his parents authority, or
2. If he did test his parents, his behavior was successfully shut down based exclusively on verbal and emotional feedback. Every time.

Let me say that again, because it’s the basis of the point I’ve brought you all the way down this long, long, page of small white text to make.

Clark Kent either never genuinely rebelled, or if he did, he was talked out of it, every time.

Now, he would certainly not be alone in this. There are many people out there who, when they were youngins, tested the boundaries of their social territory in only the most casual way, and for whom a firm talking to was plenty to curb their behavior. (I think it would, however, not be a stretch to theorise that few of these kind of folk grow up to fight villains for a living, but that’s a discussion for another day.)

That said, it’s important to not forget that this creature who quietly accepted the boundaries he was given is someone who has no possible way to receive any negative physical consequences for his actions. You can’t incarcerate him. You can’t prevent him from taking something he wants. He can move fast enough to appear to vanish. It is trivial beyond words for him to demonstrate his physical superiority. You ultimately have to depend on his own internal systems to prevent him from defying you.

And, lo, he’s the most powerful creature on the planet. None can oppose him, and it is safe to say that he was vastly stronger, faster, and smarter than everyone he ever knew when he was growing up.

WTF? What is going on inside that head of his?

Now that we are here, I can finally say what I’ve wanted to say all along, and I think, given all that we’ve been through together, you’ll understand what I mean when I say it.

Ready?

…

Superman is stupid.

Like, dumb-as-a-post stupid. Head full of rocks. What kind of a mind would never, ever test the boundaries of his social web, when the potential reward for succeeding could well be rulership of anything you wanted?

Even worse, the mind that made this choice was a mind with strong leadership tendencies, and the broad desire to have a world-wide impact on the lives of humanity. What sort of person would wield such broad ambitions, such vast power, and yet live strictly within the gentlest of restraints, never once testing them for their strength?

Someone phenomenally dull, that’s who. Someone on whom brainwashing would be so spectacularly successful that…

…well, that you’d have the ultimate pawn for some national power, wouldn’t you? Hmm.

Hmmmmmmmmmm, indeed.

————

So, in the end, the thing that bugs me about Superman is his utter lack of vision, and his willingness to simply accept what was put in front of him at face value. It would be easier to swallow, I think, if he even once struggled with this problem. If he had ever expressed uncertainty about what he was doing given who he was. If he had demonstrated for a single moment that he was capable of seeing his position in the universe from an objective position, instead of from an absolute one.

It’s absurd. The bullets bouncing off I can accept. Inability to view the world as it is? Unacceptable.