Someone recently asked me what superpower I would have and what my superhero name would be. I wrote this instead.
The more I understand how complex the systems that run the world are, the harder something like this is to answer. I recently reread Watchmen, too, so that makes it harder – is it better to punish the poor shoplifter stealing from the family store, or the systems of capitalist society that left the shoplifter few other choices? Bah. That’s no answer.
I used to have dreams where I knew how to fly – dreams so vivid that I woke feeling that the dream-reality was just as real as the waking one. I hadn’t been born flying in the dream – it was some sort of physics trick I had figured out, something that only a few people figured out. It was many years ago now, but I would wake up remembering the physical sensation of flying. I remember a weird kind of stomping on the ground, and a surge, and then you were in the air. It took more than a physical understanding, though – it took belief, and a kind of fearlessnes. Maybe that’s the power I’d really like – that belief, that fearlessness.
