Achieve the Dream

"To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there's the rub."
Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)

The quote is from Hamlet's famous soliloquy where he is contemplating suicide. Small wonder. The poor guy's just found out (from this father's ghost, no less), that his uncle murdered his father, the King, and then married his mother. Hamlet is totally flipped out by this revelation and can't see anyway to deal with it besides killing himself. The problem is, he doesn't know that death will end his pain. "There's the rub", to quote the bard.

To die, to sleep-No more.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.

Last night, I wrote a blog about nightmares or rather, whether it is preferable to live our waking life as a nightmare or to seek the comfort and peace of sleep and dreams. Hamlet wonders if, even in death, we have dreams, or in his case, nightmares, so even suicide is no answer. What's the answer to pain and suffering?

Hamlet doesn't provide an adequate answer for us. He seems to go mad with grief but all the while is seeking revenge upon his uncle Claudius as his father's ghost has commanded him. In a series of misadventures, Hamlet eventually achieves revenge by killing Claudius but then dies as a result of being poisoned. Doesn't seem a satisfying ending, but that's a Shakespeare tragedy for you.

If we can't sleep forever to escape our nightmares and if death is no answer, what's left? As hideous as it seems sometimes, the only other option is to keep on living somehow. If Hamlet had actually gone mad and stayed that way, he would have been harmless (most likely) and would have spent the rest of his days in some asylum (too early for Arkham, though). However, most of us don't have the "luxury" of going out of our minds with grief or dispair, though depression too is a "mental illness".

Is pursuit of dreams or their waking equivalent, fantasy an answer? My blog articles are littered with the images of superheroes, mostly of the dark variety. Batman is a favorite because he is "the night", dark, brooding, and tortured. Yet Batman is the expression of Bruce's frustration and grief at the death of his parents and his need to do something about it. Ironically, long after the death of Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, Batman continues to exist. If Hamlet had lived after the death of Claudius, would he have continued down a similar path by seeking further revenge as Bruce seems to be doing?

Whatever the answer, Bruce continues to live and Batman gives him the purpose of fighting larger injustices than his own. For me, the pursuit of fantasy isn't just an escape from the mundane and the meloncholy, but a quest for purpose as well. In yesterday's blog Misfit, I described how many of our cherished heroes are anomalies or anachronisms in someway, not fitting in with the world around them, even in secret.

Of course, Clark does "fit in" behind the glasses and the tie, able to lead a more or less normal life while still maintaining his Superman identity and thus fulfilling his destiny to be humanity's greatest defender. Ben Grimm by comparison, is hard to hide behind glasses or anything else, though very early in his career, he did try to wear a mask (and unfortunately, I can't find any images online showing this). He tried to go out in public in a large raincoat and hat, but that didn't hide much.

Ben continually struggles with his appearence as the Thing (and even the name is pretty much a diss), but the hero inside pushes back with courage and sorrow striking a balance. How many times has he come to the realization (in error) that the only thing he has to offer anyone is his physical strength? In reality, from the point of view of the audience, his real power is the ability to live with disfigurement and isolation. He doesn't (typically) withdraw, but projects his rage against external foes, of which, as a member of the Fantastic Four, he always has a ready supply.

The same with Batman, Spider-Man, and just about a ton of other heroes. When the going gets tough emotionally, the tough go out and beat up a bad guy. In real life, getting into a fist fight everytime life gets you down will either get you beaten to a pulp or tossed in jail. What do to..what to do?

The essense of the answer remains, even if the form must be different; find a purpose and focus your emotional response there. What is my purpose? I have a job and a family and other responsibilities, but they don't always feel like my purpose. If they did, my life would be set. In some ways, writing this blog is in the direction of my purpose. The expression of frustration at personal and societal injustices in the form of writing and hopefully, drawing when time allows.

No costumes. No superpowers. No good guys. No bad guys. Just a sense of being a misfit caught in the maelstrom of a nightmare life, trying to turn and twist the disadvantage into a purpose. Battle the nightmare to achieve the dream. Find the magic and hold on to it.

Misfit

Not a fan of reunions of either the class or family type. They tend to be opportunities for those who have achieved by society's standards to brag and those who have not to get to be the example of what not to do with your life. Guess which category I fit in?

One of the reasons I lean toward superhero fantasy is that the heroes are misfits, at least a lot of the time. For instance, while swave, cool, rich Bruce Wayne leads a life that's the envy of anyone in Gotham (or anyone in the world, for that matter), it's his tortured, driven alter ego who sheds the tuxedo by night to wear the cape of the bat, walking in the gutters and consorting with the sleeze of the city.

The X-Men, at least as originally conceived by Lee and Kirby, are also outcasts. Genetic freaks, hated and feared by "normal" humanity, have to hide behind masks and behind the walls of Xavier's school for "gifted youngers" to keep from either being lynched by mob justice or dissected in some government lab. While touted among other mutants as "homo superior", the next stage in human evolution, they also represent another marginalized segment of our culture: victims of birth defects.

Matt Murdock is blind. Yeah, his other senses are great, but he still can't see a sunset or watch a movie. Ben Grimm, though incredibly strong, was hideously disfigured by exposure to radiation. Cyborg, AKA Victor Stone, was also disfigured by an interdimensional massive gelatinous monster and only survived by having the damaged parts of his body replaced with experimental prostetics. The Doom Patrol's Cliff Steele, otherwise known as Robotman, had his body completely destroyed in a car crash and miraculously lives only because his brain was transplanted into a completely mechanical body.

Yeah, extreme examples compared to "real-life", but despite their heroic identities, they not only don't fit in to human society very easily, but are almost completely assured that they'll never have relationships the way most people have. If your body is robotic, will you ever have a spouse and children?

We have such "extremes" in our world too, but not of the superhero variety. People are injured and mutilated every day. How many people have prosthetic limbs (that don't make them as strong as the Terminator)? How many people are blind, in wheelchairs, disfigured, suffer from Downs Syndrome, are terminally ill, are chronically in pain? And Kermit the Frog says "it's not easy being green". Tell that to the Hulk.

That leads me back to my original statement about reunions. In the film Star Trek: Generations, Geordi is kidnapped and subsequently tortured by an Elorian scientist named Sorn. At one point, before the torture begins, Sorn queries Geordi about his visor, asking why he doesn't wear a prosthetic that makes him look more "normal". Georgi asks Sorn, what's normal. The reply is "Normal is what everyone else is and you're not"

Not sure normalicy is the currency by which acceptance is bought and sold at reunions, but I'm pretty sure compatency is. Example. I was once told by a very attractive lady that dancing is sexy. She implied that she'd probably hook up with a guy who was a good dancer. We got along in just about every other way, but guess who has two left feet?

I was reminded of this over the weekend. Hung out with some relatives. Uncle was there. Uncle's a nice guy. Very successful. A CEO type of guy, but not too hard to talk to. He also took dancing lessons, Very graceful. Says everyone should do it. I broke out in a cold sweat. Remembered the first and last jazz dance lesson I was talked into. Felt like a hippo among gazelles.

Uncle is successful, like I said. Very good money maker. Understands investments. Talked about the plan to take his company public. Everyone else in the conversation seemed to understand all of the strange words and phrases being tossed about like ancient sanskrit. Yeah, Uncle left his wife, moved out of his huge mansion digs into a more modest setting. Took up with a new woman. Says it's helped him relax a lot more. Still friends with the ex. She even showed up with one of the kids (grown). Everyone says he looks a lot better. Leads a charmed life. I hate reunions.

We're all more or less comfortable in our own wombs and cocoons. All by ourselves, we can be depressed, but we can be depressed and still safe, without the intrusion and judgment of the world around us, especially by those we are supposed to be closest to and safest with. A roomful of strangers would be safer than a gathering of relatives. Everyone wants to know what you're doing now and what your plans are. Socially acceptable activities and plans are rewarded. Socially unacceptable activities and plans are punished.

You can't dance. You can't make money. You aren't successful. Your car isn't a Porsche. You don't understand business or investing. Your house isn't big. You can't afford the latest iPhone. You suck.

Yeah. Being "outside the box" is supposed to be a good thing, but only if you can make money at it and it's a socially accepted and approved area outside the box. It's really still inside the box, just relabeled. If you're actually operating outside the norm, you're just a misfit. Unlike superheroes, being a misfit doesn't come with the benefit of being really strong or having wings. You're just ugly.

Not a fan of reunions of either the class or family type. Reunion is over. Time to crawl back in the cave, lick my wounds, and overcome enough intertia to get on with day-to-day life. Got to let the memories of other people's expectations fade. Time to put on the mask and hide behind the walls.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves...
Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

Epilogue: The quote from Shakespeare's Cassius is a reminder that fate or circumstances aren't the final authors of what happens to us and how we think or feel about it. We are.