When I was younger I wanted to be Iron Man. No, don't laugh. I really did want to have megawatts of energy come out a cavity in my chest. Hmmm, that doesn't sound quite right the way I just said it. Anyhow, moving on...
Actually, now that I think about it, I wanted to be Tony Stark being Iron Man; I wanted to be the human in the suit, not the suit itself, you see. Okay, so what I said earlier makes sense now - the megawatts of energy would come out of a cavity in the breast plate of the suit. I hope I'm not losing you as I have a word with myself. Lol.
Back to Iron Man...After changing allegiance from Marvel Comics to DC (don't send hate mail, Marvel fans), I dumped Iron Man and wanted to be Batman (or Bruce Wayne being Batman). Tony had money, but Bruce was in a totally different league in other ways: he had way cooler gadgets, and he had that whole mystery thing going for him. The only minus was the exterior underwear. But hey, nothing in life's perfect.
Looking back now, I realise I limited myself to the characters and stories created by others. Why couldn't I be Bruce Stark, and fly around in an iron suit in the day, AND roam the streets of Gotham at night? Or better yet, be Tony Wayne, and have the suit AND the cape and cool gadgets (sans the external underwear and the silly side-kick)? I let others determine the fantasies that played in my head, and never questioned them because "that was just how it was."
I wonder if I'm doing the same today. Am I, are we, silently going along with scripts others have written for us? Are we thinking outside the boxes society "suggests" we play in? Would we know what to do with ourselves for a decade, if we had all the time in the world, and didn't have to work for money, and could do anything we wanted? Are we truly living, or are we just getting by? Are we being Bruces, or Alfreds?
PS. In support of Occupy Wall Street. A luta continua.
