FaceTheReckoning.com

The other evening, my fetching girlfriend and I had dinner and a movie with two of our dearest friends. What makes them dear? They do.

We watched The Bridge, a documentary about the propensity that people have for choosing the Golden Gate Bridge as the launching pad to 98% success rate of fatality attempted suicide. It’s sobering, and I must admit my heart and mind were a bit numbed/stunned at what I had just seen. It made me angry and broken-hearted at the people who were interviewed because at some point they all expressed some weird form of acceptance of their son/daughter/friend’s choice to jump off the bridge. The kind of acceptance that contextually implied that they had done next to nothing to prevent this from happening. To be fair, not many of these people really took the jumpers seriously at the beginning. Eventually, according to their recall, they did realize the seriousness of their friend’s desire to end their life but of the few people interviewed it seemed that they were all adopting the stance of “Just say goodbye before you do it” or “It’s what he decided to do.” or “There was nothing we could do.”

I don’t understand it. One of the jumpers in the documentary is named Gene. He walked back and forth on the bridge for nearly three hours before making his final, fatal decision. His life had been described by his friends/family as somewhat of a disappointment. He wasn’t popular, but he was fun to be around. He didn’t enjoy effortless picking up of the women, or was successful financially, but he did care about his family and friends. What I didn’t get, and I didn’t get the whole story, was that it seemed that his family and friends had little to show for regret at losing their brother/friend. It seemed that as some kind of coping mechanism, they had rationalized his choice to end his life as simply that. A choice, and now he’s better off.

There’s a very small part of me that understands and can see how such a rationalization can be made. Aside from hari kari, suicide for the sole sake of “ending it all because life sucks” has never held a place of honor in any society to my knowledge. Naturally, this brings about many debates regarding the actual definition of death, the afterlife, etc…

It’s a hard discussion. Many religious circles believe that suicide is a sin, and damnable to Hell. Whether it is fear-mongering, or the truth, I do not know. Your mileage may vary. Suicide notes many times leave clear implications as to why someone ended their life. While the subject matter may complain about the selfishness of others, it sheds light on the selfishness and dare I say, whiny aspects of their character which were not strong enough to motivate or cultivate the desire for life. In short, in not knowing what to live for, they decided to not live at all. Were they too near-sighted to the point of hopelessness in the present in regards to their future? Were their ambitions and goals too lofty to the point of hopelessness in achieving them? What was it? It may have been both. The long-run didn’t look too hopeful, and the present didn’t look any better. If neither the present nor the future were hopeful, and the past confirmed this assessment… I think I’d feel depressed as well.

Some commonalities I noticed all dealt with the issue of acceptance. While these people had friends, relatives, and what I would consider close relationships, I noticed that according to the documentary none of the people they focused on had a romantic relationship, or at least one that was active concurrently with their choice to commit suicide. It seemed that even the parents who were interviewed were not close to their son/daughter. Granted, they acknowledged each other according to their perspective but there was an unspoken, subtle distance that I felt while listening to family members remember their son/daughter/sibling who jumped off the bridge. The relationship these people had came across to me as the kind where the parents felt obligated to be in relationship with their child up to a certain degree. Again, this is post-traumatic testimony regarding their loved one, I must leave considerable room for the rationalization that follows grief. That subtle distance I seemed to pick up on could be several things, all of which are assumptions:

A. Shame. The honor in suicide is never the kind of honor that brings happiness with acceptance. The accepting of someone having committed suicide is not a choice, but rather a forced decision. The person is dead, what choice do you have? It’s always sad, regrettable, non-sensical, and never joyfully preferred. Suicides are always a mystery even when a note has been left behind because the reasons themselves only produce more questions. The note usually lists things that answer “I committed suicide because of this, this, and this…” but it never answers the real question that we all would want to know. The question of “Why and how was death the answer to this?”
B. Regret. Perhaps the friends and family were forced to realize their shortcomings as friends/family, and this would tie into shame rather appropriately. I know I would. My friend and I both agreed that upon seeing The Bridge, that we felt compelled to pay better attention to the people in our lives. I’d say that he and I are afraid of regret in this regard. It’s not just “Call me if you need anything” but more like, “Wherever you are, I’ll be there, in person, in your face.” Who wouldn’t?

I once stood with a friend during a rather tumultuous time in his life. The kind of tumult that would make life seem not worth the effort. As the outsider, I could make sense of why killing one’s self would be counter-productive, but when I take a moment to empathize, the options presented, of which self-termination would be present, does somehow in some weird way make rational sense as a coping mechanism. The pain was great enough to warrant self-destruction. The pain was great enough to encourage giving up because hope was nowhere to be seen. My friend did indeed survive his tumultuous season, and I think that present situations allow him to be thankful for not taking seriously the option of self-termination. Did my outside perspective serve as that link to my friend that kept him connected with hope? Was it my objectivity and friendship during that time that gave him the needed support to maintain his sanity?

Did the twenty-four people who jumped during filming of The Bridge have that outside perspective to keep them connected to hope?

I think they didn’t. They died alone.

I’m a fan of the Superman character, more importantly his character origin the way it was introduced since the 30s. Truth, justice, and the American way type stuff… always making the harder decision for the good of everything involved. It would even seem that his fight against criminals and their imminent defeat seemed to be something that Superman felt was the right, or good thing to do not just for mankind’s sake, but also for the sake of his villains. Superman and Batman share qualities of non-lethal handling of their problems, in spite of their abilities to do so with extreme effectiveness. With Superman however, the character is so overpowered it makes writing for him difficult and so for many purists this makes him a bit annoying. I understand, and this is why Superman 2 was so freaking amazing, and why Superman Returns albeit visually nice, was ultimately disappointing.

Taken from a nerd board I frequent:

I never got on the bandwagon of Supes. I mean he just doesn’t make sense. I never have and will never believe that fiction means you can’t analyze it. Superman has all these unrelated powers, Super Strength, Super Speed, Heat vison, X-ray vision, Infrared vision, Telescopic vision, super hearing, Precise muscle control, flight, ice breath, and Super hypnotism! And what gives him his powers, yellow sunlight. Well to be fair, yellow sunlight and the higher gravity of Kyrpton. Couple this eclectic array of powers, the fact that he is unstoppable besides from a rock, and he can be hurt by magic, and his boy scout personality just doesn’t add up. I’ve heard the arguments that he also has Super goodness or it was his upbringing that made him the way he is, but that just doesn’t cut it for my suspension of disbelief. I mean if I had just one of his powers in teenagerdom I would have started some trouble. Not saying I would go right to crime or ruling the world, but I’m not being Super goody either. His attitude, powers, and just him are too unbelievable. It makes me despise him as a person and character. Superman is flawed character, that never got out of the “Wouldn’t it be cool?” phase. Like Wouldn’t it be cool if he could fly? Wouldn’t it be cool if he could freeze stuff with his breath? Granted I will admit, The Kill Bill Superman speech was awesome, his World of Cardboard speech in Justice League Unlimited was also pretty cool, but I just can’t stand him.

If you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them.

I mean if I had just one of his powers in teenagerdom I would have started some trouble. Not saying I would go right to crime or ruling the world, but I’m not being Super goody either. His attitude, powers, and just him are too unbelievable. It makes me despise him as a person and character.

If “I” this, if “I” that…

The thing about comic books and other fantasy stories/characters that get created is how people apply themselves to the role. The thing that makes me disagree with this guy/girl (you never know) is that they apply the character to them as a person and make judgments on the character and their characteristics based on themselves as the person.

The truth is, you can’t do that. The creators of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the Hulk, etc… made the comic book characters as intended. Like them or hate them for what they are, and not because you can’t project yourself to your liking on how you would be the one wearing the cape, the cowl, the suit, or the purple shorts.

Superman has all these unrelated powers, Super Strength, Super Speed, Heat vison, X-ray vision, Infrared vision, Telescopic vision, super hearing, Precise muscle control, flight, ice breath, and Super hypnotism! And what gives him his powers, yellow sunlight. Well to be fair, yellow sunlight and the higher gravity of Kyrpton. Couple this eclectic array of powers, the fact that he is unstoppable besides from a rock, and he can be hurt by magic, and his boy scout personality just doesn’t add up.

There is a reason he is called “Superman”. For the exception of his powers of vision, I’m not sure where the rest of them are unrelated. Humans have measures of strength, speed, vision too for that matter, athletic conditioning, leaping, blowing on something to cool it off, or to warm your hands. We also draw a certain amount of nourishment from the light of our yellow sun. Superman has all of these things, just exponentially more. We have the ability to discern right from wrong and make decisions based on those perceptions. Super. Man. Superman.

So the character of Superman does all these things better than we do. He makes the right decision all the time it seems, he believes in something greater than himself which is humanity (he’s Kryptonian after all) and by golly he’s really good at it! Better than us humans. I’m starting to think that people who dislike Superman because of their inability to relate to him and his near perfection is because of subliminal jealousy and a lack of hope in humans. How do you stand there and observe something you can never achieve, and not feel bad about it?

Granted I will admit, The Kill Bill Superman speech was awesome, his World of Cardboard speech in Justice League Unlimited was also pretty cool, but I just can’t stand him.

Here’s the Kill Bill Speech (if you are offended by any amount of language I apologize) the Superman speech point stops at 2:15, anything beyond that is up to you and your curiosity:

Here’s the Superman “world of cardboard” speech:

“That man won’t quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of… cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.”
— Superman, Justice League Unlimited

Here’s the video… you might enjoy it.

It makes me despise him as a person and character.

Character not being liked for aforementioned reasons, understandable. Person/ality not being liked for aforementioned reasons, not understandable. I’m having a hard time wondering why some people see Superman’s moral staunchness as some kind of imperfection. I don’t mean to be psychological about this, but it’s rather disconcerting that our literary heroes are required to have some kind of flaw that brings them down to our level instead of being a standard for what is good. I really do hope that someone with that much power and responsibility has the consistency of character to be self-less. It’s like a few people would rather live vicariously through their heroes humanity and wishfully imagine their lives as that hero just as long as they can relate to them, which I don’t find any measurable fault in, except their logic which would seek to look down on Superman and his boy scout reputation as some kind of flaw. To me, that doesn’t make sense in that the idea of Superman is supposed to be one that is hopeful, some type of deviation from life’s real moments of hopelessness that our suspension of disbelief can take some time to think of better things and perhaps push people to be straight up and honest with what they know to be right, and to be an adversary for the things they know are wrong and be that ideological definition in a world that’s bent on living in the gray. Again, not meaning to be psychological about it, but ideologies of good vs. evil are important because that’s what measures our superheroes vs. their villains and gives us that separation to see what good and evil is in the world of comics. Someone mentioned earlier that they hate Superman because they hate extremely ideological people… that in itself is an ideology that will get the human race to a real quick sterilization of everything from culture to morals… and that’ll be the end of all things comic and entertaining.

So we finally get to the point of why I’m even taking the time to argue for Superman. Good vs. Evil, or Right vs. Wrong is no longer a driving force in socio-cultural growth, instead it has been relegated to a fight between two ideologies each with extremes. This sterilization, and in some cases, neutering, has come into the land of politics, entertainment, etc. We no longer praise good works, instead we mock it as a goody two shoe. We glorify the flaws in the name of good storytelling to the point of creating within ourselves flaws that don’t exist for the sake being validated in flaw-glorifying culture, and would instead spoof the good works as if they are a self-righteous projection of judgment and intolerance. The Passion of the Christ is a great movie, but the subject matter was not without controversy, accusations of bigotry, claims of anti-semitism, etc. Jesus, the son of God, the Messiah, the greatest being, whether human or god, to ever walk through world literature or into the beliefs of millions everywhere. People aren’t capable of respecting the belief that God came down to us, but instead we’d rather make it about ourselves and how we can reach transcendence, or how we can make things better, or how we are all that matters… and we take offense at a belief in a deity that requires us to acknowledge our shortcomings and to instead go against our natural inclinations into choosing to live a true life of selflessness and harmony by uniting under one common belief in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

So, even in the land of comics and superheroes, especially something that is without debate a fantasy… we can see the human rejection (with or without the story-telling device shortcomings Superman has been) of a flawless super being, who has been written as the accepting, responsibility taking, adopted son of Earth who chooses to be Earth’s sworn protector from bad guys worldly or alien, even to the possibility of protecting the Earth from himself by having given Batman kryptonite “just in case”. Somehow we get this:

It makes me despise him as a person and character.

Share your thoughts!

Late this morning I was feeling a bit ill, but that quickly took care of itself after waking up initially, using the bathroom, and taking an additional hour to rest. I’ve been disciplining myself into maintaining a 1500 calorie diet for three weeks in order to reset my body weight. About 32 days priors to that, I was on a homeopathic diet that required only 500 calories per day.

All said, I’ve lost about 30 pounds net, (43 pounds gross if you count the actual process). This is good. I haven’t been overweight my entire life, in fact, I’ve been in healthy shape my entire life until my post under-grad years (2006-2009) when the reality of making a living and working 40 hours a week hit me, and I didn’t make the adjustment. The adjustment being a runner by virtue of my job during college, to a desk jockey after graduation.

Anyways, today after my ridiculous morning of near-illness, I stopped by a gas station to fill up my car when I was approached by a guy wishing to sell me speakers.

“Hey man, I’m on my way to an install and my boss f****d up my work order, and I have an extra set of surround sound speakers that I need to get rid of. I can’t take them back to him, he’ll just keep them but it’ll make me look bad… I can sell them to you.”

- Nah, that’s okay. I already have surround sound at my house.

“Yeah, but man these are some seriously expensive speakers…

(As he walks towards his SUV with the merchandise in the back)

… ever heard of Hardon Kharmon?”

- Yeah, very nice… (I lied, because I knew he tried to con me into thinking Harmon Kardon)

“This set goes for like $3000, but I can get them to you real cheap.”

- No thanks, man, I’m all soundeded out. (Yes, I said that.)

“Dude! Just a few hundred bucks and you can have a couple thousand dollar system, c’mon man!”

- Hey dude. No thanks.

The guy walked away pretty frustrated, knowing that I wasn’t about to buy his cheaply produced knockoff merchandise that isn’t worth a hill of beans.

What he didn’t know is that I had bit on a deal like this in the past, hoping to turn them over for a profit later. However, my conscience wouldn’t allow it, and I knew I had partaken in a scam. I went and got my money back.

Now, this is a rare happenstance. Usually, the average person can say bye to their few hundred bucks. Fortunately, grace was abundant and I was able to recover my initial loss and say goodbye to a piece of my impulsive stupidity that day. All this after I snuck into a storage facility and found the man-behind-the-scenes and told him, “These things won’t work with my current setup.” He handed me my cash, and I was out of there. I was a bit scared. It’s not every day you do business with criminal minds.

All that to say: “Don’t buy speakers from someone who sells them out of their vehicle.”