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Off the Wall: Spidey Scenes

Spiderman
Spiderman

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”- Stan Lee (Uncle Ben)

I don’t mean to always tie my ideas to some totally geeky, but awesome character such as Spider-man or Yoda, but I tend to see connections often in pop culture to reality. Sometimes through fiction (books, comic books, movies…) we can learn hard lessons while having fun. Spider-man was like that for me. I loved him growing up. I was even jealous when my brother got Spider- man underoos (superhero kid’s underwear from the 80s) , and I could only have Wonder Woman!

It broke my heart when Spider-man failed Uncle Ben (I don’t mean Uncle Ben’s rice)  in all his incarnations over the years. I just held onto Uncle Ben’s quote, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  I know I don’t have super powers, but I defined great powers, as my own strengths. To me it meant if you can do something to help you have the responsibility to do so. In later years I was over stressed and exhausted from taking this idea too far. My husband told me you don’t always have to help, sometimes you can say, ” no.”  I turned to him and quoted Uncle Ben. He said, “Honey, that’s not what that means.” Now this is still debatable. But he did have a point, you can’t always help, if you overload yourself,  you just end up being  no help to anyone.

So I’ve made a small change to the quote, “With great power, comes great responsibility, to always prioritize what you can do to  help to others.”   

Okay it’s not short and sweet, but I do think now I am a better support to others, because I am not spread to thin. I still cannot climb walls,  and I doubt I’ll be designing any web fluid anytime soon. But there is something to be said about using our abilities to help others, while being aware of our limits.

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Off the Wall: Commitment to Dreams

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
-C. S. Lewis

My father is a dreamer. I believe he just started out that way always dreaming. My grandmother was very protective of him and kept him sheltered, but she couldn’t tame his need to question the norm and dream big. Growing up with a dad like mine I caught the dreaming bug early. But it took along time for me to grasp what it meant to truly be committed to a dream. You see that is a big part of making dreams come true, you have to be committed.

When I was in my mid twenties my husband and I were having some trouble, and I found I was extremely unhappy most of the time. I asked my father what is the most important thing in the world? I wanted him to say happiness or adventure, instead he said commitment. You see he already understood that without commitment there can be no passion, without passion, dreams fade. Needless to say he was telling me that happiness comes with commitment. It took me a long time to grasp this, for a while I thought well that’s a cranky answer. But sometimes we have to find our passion to our commitments.

Earlier today I was talking with a man about this very word. He was saying that we are committed to so many things in life, ball teams, our favorite music band, our cars, and the list went on. I thought well yes this is true to a point, but I don’t like my ball teams much when they loose, and my favorite bands keep changing, as for cars if they don’t work I don’t like them. But this is because commitment is far more then just liking something. It’s like jumping out of a plane, you are committed to this action and have faith that your parachute brings you down safely.  But you have to make the effort in order to fly, or fall gracefully in this analogy.

So I personally believe that dreams can be the fire that pushes us forward. But without commitment the lack of passion will let them just be flitting nice thoughts. To make a dream come true you have to really put yourself into it. And there is never a time you are to old to dream, or continue dreams, or to even find something new. Sometimes the longer it takes us to reach a goal the sweeter it tastes in the end.

Now if I can just remind myself of this each day.

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Off The Wall: Opportunity in Every Difficulty

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ”  -Winston Churchill

I have to fight myself to be optimistic. Life in general creates an attitude of cynicism. Just watching the news we are bombarded with bad news, hardships, doomsday declarations, and reasons  to run for the hills. Sometimes it takes a lot of strength to look at what is good in our lives.

I believe as humans we are geared to remember the negative, for basic survival. We often forget the simple joys of life itself.

I was once asked by a teenage girl, “Why do you want to live?” She had attempted suicide recently, and was sent to a youth program I was working at. I had to actually stop and think. I’d never really considered why I kept going, or why I fought to continue on. Like most people I had good and bad days, tragedy and successes in my life.

The answer came to me that life in general isn’t about being happy, or even being sad. Life isn’t about existing, but rather to live is to value those magical moments you actually know you are alive. The first moment that came to my mind that was magical and worth living for was the day my first child was born.

I remembered the sun coming through the window and his tiny cries. I remember everything being so blurry cause my eyes were filled with happy tears. But most of all I remember feeling I was part of a miracle.

So, I still fight to be an optimist and to view difficulties as possibilities. Looking for the beauty in living is not naive nor is it ignorant. But rather to treasure beauty and life takes strength and grace, and a bit of inner fire to continue.

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“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
When life becomes difficult the first impulse is to run, and the second impulse is to destroy. Instead of facing your own demons and those of the others you love. True friendship isn’t about everything always being perfect, it’s about people willing to face the dark together. Even sometimes face the darkness of each other and overcome.I’ve always enjoyed Tolkien’s novels mainly because they are about different sorts of people being able to overcome the dark. The key in most of his stories is that they need each other to do so. Each individual must have faith in the others to continue. The sorts of sacrifices made in the name of friendship are both inspiring and sometimes unbelievable.
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