Let’s say you’re superman: you can fly, see through walls, you’ve got incredible strength, you can blow out fires. Whenever you go out flying around, you find some life to save. So why would you have a mundane 9 to 5 job? That’s 8 hours you’re stuck in an office, 8 hours you could be out saving lives. Those lives would haunt you, those lives would torture you in your dreams, they’d have to. You’d see the kids that died in the bus crash while you were stuck in a meeting. You’d see the old lady that was raped and murdered in an alley while you were on hold with tech support. You’d see the fireman who was disfigured for life when a burning building collapsed on him while you were signing your timesheet.
Granted, you need money. You’ve got to pay for groceries and rent. But it would be so damn easy just to take it. Just fly in to a bank and say “give me two thousand dollars.” Who is going to say no to you? Or just demand a paycheck from the government. The city government pays $2000 a month keeping the windows clean on city hall, do you think they’ll have a problem giving you rent money?
Go ahead, live off of the people you’re saving. It’s a great deal for them, they couldn’t ask for a better way to spend their money. But the money isn’t the point, the money is nothing in the scheme of things. If the world’s most brilliant heart surgeon ran off to work in a fast food place, don’t you think you’d say ‘hey dumbass, why are you serving fries instead of saving lives?’
And what is this social life shit all about?
“Hey, superman, you want to go get some coffee?”
“Well, I could be flying over town using my x-ray vision to scan for the pedophile that’s been kidnapping children.”
“Yes, but we could blather on about sports and the weather.”
“Oh, that sounds much more important than saving children. Let’s go.”
Yes, if you don’t spend time socializing with people, you’ll get very lonely. But guess what: right now, this very moment, there are people getting beaten. Beaten trumps lonely. There are people getting raped. Raped trumps lonely. There are people getting murdered. Murdered trumps lonely.
So when an old college buddy invites you out to dinner, calmly explain to him that if you went and hung out with him for an hour there would be at least one gruesome, painful, tragic death that didn’t have to happen. Or don’t tell him. Keep your ‘secret identity.’ Let him be partially responsible for death, torture and rape without even knowing it.
Quit your job. Disconnect your phone. Never speak to your friends and family. Yes, your social skills will suffer. But do you think the people you are saving care? You matter to them because you can tear open cars like tinfoil, not because you know the latest sports scores. You could keep your mouth shut, never say anything to anyone ever again and nobody would mind.
And for god’s sake, stop bathing. Fuck laundry. You take a shower, some guys gets his legs amputated in a train wreck. “Hey superman, I’ll never walk again, but at least you smell like an Irish spring!”
Can you think of anything you could possibly be doing that’s more important than saving lives? Is a nice dinner worth a life? Is a clean apartment worth a life? Is a haircut worth a life? I guarantee you that every single person out there would rather be saved by a hairy-smelly-socially awkward-pale-urine smelling-barely clothed hermit than be killed while some bastard brushes his teeth.
They can’t just hire another superman to take over while you are out getting a haircut. It’s not like you can take out your powers and put them in someone else. It’s you, only you.
And forget about sleeping eight hours a night. Drink coffee. Pop amphetamines. Do whatever it takes to stay awake, even if it makes your nauseous, irritable, paranoid, depressed, exhausted and unhappy. Yeah, I know it sucks, but it’s nothing that will prevent you from pulling people out of burning buildings. Sleep is for people that don’t have the world to save.
You didn’t think having superpowers would be fantastic and wonderful, did you? You didn’t think you’d get to save the world very week and get all the fringe benefits of being a normal person too, did you?
It comes down to this:
You can spend every waking moment of your life helping people. No social interactions, no comfort, no personal grooming, no job, nothing that normal humans do. And you’ll be a monster. Or, you can shirk your incredible responsibilities in order to lead a normal life. You can just ignore all the people that are dying right this moment. And you’ll be a monster. Either way, you are a fucking monster, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Sorry Superman.
