It's hard being Superman.
No, it's not a Five for Fighting reference (though the song makes some poignant points), not even close. It goes a little something like this.
First of all, look at this. It's old, but it pretty well explains the kind of things I've been reading lately and the kind of mindset I'm trying to adopt. I said before that my change in job has sort of given me a new-ish, more polished outlook on life, and while I've always regarded 'inspiration' of ~this~ sort as a lame trick to try and jump-start you when you shouldn't need jump-starting at ~all~ (maybe I always thought it was a sign of weakness), I'm finding that the trick can work for me sometimes. Every now and then I can give myself a ZAP in the brain that reminds me of something that I've kind of always known, but occasionally have to work hard to remember.
For background, I've been at home from work for a couple of days due to a combination of recovering from ColossalCon and having car problems. During the earlier part I was kind of frazzled from a weekend of sleep deprivation and constant buzz and in the middle I was worried about said car trouble, but in the latter part (like today) I was able to find at least one moment where I was at peace. I was sitting someplace with no worries weighing down my mind, not feeling sore or tired, and in fact I was feeling quite ~creatively~ inspired, which is something I haven't been except in the tiniest fleeting moments in literally years. I felt really good, very unconstrained, very ~buoyed~ I guess you could say. I didn't feel like someone with a labor-intensive job with very little free time for personal things, I just felt like myself - I felt the way I'm sure deep down in some quintessential part of myself that I'm ~supposed~ to feel, I felt like the person I'm supposed to be. I guess you could say, I felt like Superman, with all my limitations dropped.
But the trouble is, there always comes that time when you have to shed the tights and go back to ~not~ being Superman, when it's time to buckle down and go incognito again for the sake of living your life. And that's really ~hard~ sometimes. To function in life you have to control yourself carefully, speak carefully, and work within the seemingly-infinite rules and regulations dreamed up by people with far more self-importance than experience with anything that's not getting tons of money for wearing a tie. And when you ~know~ that what you really should do is bust out the heat vision or just knock that jack-off giving you a hard time through the ceiling and into space, you can't. You have to take a deep breath and remember that you're not Superman, you're not the big cheese, you don't get to buck everything and run wild and free.
And don't get me wrong, those lessons are important. Without rules there'd be nothing at all except a bunch of loud and ugly mess. But the problem is that that isn't who I am. It never ~has been~. I'm not saying that I want a world without rules (far FAR from it) or even that it feels wrong running close to a clock, making and executing complex plans, or privately high-fiving myself when I do something clever and things work out perfectly or even better than expected - I'm pretty good at those things, and often I like doing them. But it's when I'm ~not~ at work while everyone else is, free to go where I want and do whatever and even be ~bored~ at intervals, that's when I'm being who I'm supposed to be, that's when I'm Superman. That's when I feel like there's nothing - from fixing a car to writing a masterpiece of fiction to 100%-completing all the Sammy fighting games out there - that I can't do.
I guess the title was a little off, what it should have said was, it's hard ~not to be~ Superman. Again, once upon a time someone I know said "it's hard to be yourself only in passing", and it's completely true. When I put on a typical uniform and go to work I'm living a lie. It's a lie we ~all~ have to live I guess, but sometimes it really takes some strength, some ~might~ to make myself fit into that role. Sometimes it takes more strength to pull myself out of bed at 3 AM for the fifth or even sixth time in a week than I imagine it would to free-hand climb the tallest building in the city. Sometimes it seems like the kind of thing mortal man just was never meant to do.
But I got this, because I'm Superman.
First of all, look at this. It's old, but it pretty well explains the kind of things I've been reading lately and the kind of mindset I'm trying to adopt. I said before that my change in job has sort of given me a new-ish, more polished outlook on life, and while I've always regarded 'inspiration' of ~this~ sort as a lame trick to try and jump-start you when you shouldn't need jump-starting at ~all~ (maybe I always thought it was a sign of weakness), I'm finding that the trick can work for me sometimes. Every now and then I can give myself a ZAP in the brain that reminds me of something that I've kind of always known, but occasionally have to work hard to remember.
For background, I've been at home from work for a couple of days due to a combination of recovering from ColossalCon and having car problems. During the earlier part I was kind of frazzled from a weekend of sleep deprivation and constant buzz and in the middle I was worried about said car trouble, but in the latter part (like today) I was able to find at least one moment where I was at peace. I was sitting someplace with no worries weighing down my mind, not feeling sore or tired, and in fact I was feeling quite ~creatively~ inspired, which is something I haven't been except in the tiniest fleeting moments in literally years. I felt really good, very unconstrained, very ~buoyed~ I guess you could say. I didn't feel like someone with a labor-intensive job with very little free time for personal things, I just felt like myself - I felt the way I'm sure deep down in some quintessential part of myself that I'm ~supposed~ to feel, I felt like the person I'm supposed to be. I guess you could say, I felt like Superman, with all my limitations dropped.
But the trouble is, there always comes that time when you have to shed the tights and go back to ~not~ being Superman, when it's time to buckle down and go incognito again for the sake of living your life. And that's really ~hard~ sometimes. To function in life you have to control yourself carefully, speak carefully, and work within the seemingly-infinite rules and regulations dreamed up by people with far more self-importance than experience with anything that's not getting tons of money for wearing a tie. And when you ~know~ that what you really should do is bust out the heat vision or just knock that jack-off giving you a hard time through the ceiling and into space, you can't. You have to take a deep breath and remember that you're not Superman, you're not the big cheese, you don't get to buck everything and run wild and free.
And don't get me wrong, those lessons are important. Without rules there'd be nothing at all except a bunch of loud and ugly mess. But the problem is that that isn't who I am. It never ~has been~. I'm not saying that I want a world without rules (far FAR from it) or even that it feels wrong running close to a clock, making and executing complex plans, or privately high-fiving myself when I do something clever and things work out perfectly or even better than expected - I'm pretty good at those things, and often I like doing them. But it's when I'm ~not~ at work while everyone else is, free to go where I want and do whatever and even be ~bored~ at intervals, that's when I'm being who I'm supposed to be, that's when I'm Superman. That's when I feel like there's nothing - from fixing a car to writing a masterpiece of fiction to 100%-completing all the Sammy fighting games out there - that I can't do.
I guess the title was a little off, what it should have said was, it's hard ~not to be~ Superman. Again, once upon a time someone I know said "it's hard to be yourself only in passing", and it's completely true. When I put on a typical uniform and go to work I'm living a lie. It's a lie we ~all~ have to live I guess, but sometimes it really takes some strength, some ~might~ to make myself fit into that role. Sometimes it takes more strength to pull myself out of bed at 3 AM for the fifth or even sixth time in a week than I imagine it would to free-hand climb the tallest building in the city. Sometimes it seems like the kind of thing mortal man just was never meant to do.
But I got this, because I'm Superman.