Heroes and Villains

Indulging my paradox thinking last week brought me to the realization that nearly everything around us is a paradox.  

Plastic

It makes horrible knock-off toys from Hong Kong and it saves lives through pacemakers.

Porcelain

Craptacular babies with angel's wings for which your grandmother pays $400 and also toilets.

Paper

Gives you access to knowledge of the ages and gives your bird something to poo on.

Human Beings

Humans bring joy, pain, camaraderie, alienation, euphoria, torment, life, death.  We are cruel and forgiving simultaneously.  We want people to accept our differences and ostracize others'.

As terrible as it sounds, this type of thinking made me feel better.  There will always be some walking douche thriving on chaos and mayhem.  But knowing that life itself is a paradox means that there will always be someone who is the antithesis of said douche who rides in and fights back.

(Caution - Nerd Overload Approaching...)

Every Sauraman has a Gandalf.  Every Emperor has a Luke.  Every Alien has a Ripley. Every Biff has a Marty McFly.  Every Cobra Kai has a Ralph Macchio.  Every Kahn has a Kirk.  

They don't always look like wizards or Jedi but the heroes will fight oppression and hatred until the very end.


I don't think most people, myself included, are cut out to be traditional heroes.  We have our moments when we pull children from burning buildings and lift cars off of loved ones.  But for most of us our heroism peaks at finding the last blue ultra-mega-robot-man-thing in town for our kid's Christmas present.  Or volunteering our time/money to help less fortunate people in our town.

But looking at life as an amalgamation of paradoxes, heroes, and schmoes means that simple actions by regular people are some of the most important and heroic acts possible.

Every Frodo has a Sam.  Every Han has a Chewy.  Every Indiana has a Short Round. Every Kirk has a Spock.  Every Arthur Dent has a Marvin.

While the heroes are saving the day, the regular Joes find ways to make just as much impact on the world around them.  And without those sidekicks and regular guys, the world wouldn't be worth saving anyway.

(Also, if you understood all of the nerdy references above then we seriously need to be friends, like, now.)

The Paradox Parade

Do you ever have a day when you want to move to rural Montana and abandon anything that involves a battery or a power cord?

Do you follow up the next morning by blogging about a new gadget that's auto-posted to your Twitter feed and then blasted from there to your Facebook page?

I do.  All the time.  And I've probably said these same things a thousand times.

Welcome to my Paradox Parade.

I'm the guy who wants to have tons of friends but never wants to go out in public.  I'm the guy who can get up on a stage and scream and act like an idiot but I feel uncomfortable initiating a conversation.  Better yet, put me on stage in front of 150+ strangers and I eat it up.  I bathe in the attention and adoration of the audience and want everyone's eyes on me.  But put me on stage in front of 15 people and I become an awkward kid covering a Coldplay song during lunch break in the band room, too afraid to actually sing.  (high school...good times?)

So I can't blame people for not understanding me because oftentimes I thoroughly confuse myself.  I go through fazes of obsession.  My current obsession, to my wife's chagrin, is baseball.  A few weeks ago it was the Deadliest Catch.  Before that is was video games then comic books (love them, but too expensive for right now), computers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (What?!  I missed it when it originally aired), LOTRO (which has since been bastardized as a free-to-play shell of it's former greatness), etc.

My tastes change.  And when they do they're sudden and all-encompassing.

Looking back, I guess I've always been this way.

(The first time I can remember noticing this trait was several years ago after my mother and I got a large TV and HD movie stations (not paid cable such as HBO, we weren't THAT fancy).  I was flipping through the channels and found a movie I'd never seen before, Stargate.  I watched it, loved it, and wanted to know more about it.  The Internet heeded my query and told me there was a spin-off series staring TV's Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver).  In my mind it was obvious that I should immediately go purchase all eight seasons on DVD and watch them within a matter of weeks.  You know, normal everyday obsession style.)

My point:  Everyone is a paradox.  It's the interactions between the contradicting emotions and longings that make up our personalities.  And when those desires change and mature our persona changes.

Embrace who you are.  Own who you are.  If one day you find that you don't like who you've become, make a change.  You're the only one who can.

[Queue rainbow and Tony Robbins smile]