Anybody else not a big fan of analogies and metaphors? This is something I learned about myself over the last year or so....I hate them. Metaphors always seem to detract from the reality of what's going on. My dad used to tell me 'Life is like a pile of leaves, it looks indimidating at first, but when you bag it all up it was mostly air.' Sure, that makes sense, you might even say it's true, but life is not a pile of leaves. And I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean that literally!
But I'm going to step down of that soap box. Metaphors and analogies work for some people, so I won't say they're stupid. They just don't work for me and make me angry. What I really want to talk about is something that has been on my mind for the last week or so: the idea of a Super Villian. Not necessarily even the ones from the comics, but even guys like Hitler or Fidel Castro. I mean let's think about it for a minute. What are Super Villians? Extremely powerful people who take control of the world. And ordinary people can't stop them (unless you count Die Hard), it usually takes a super hero. Super Villians are always extrodinary people, they are people with drive, commitment, and an incredible amount of talent and skill. Were it not for superman, Lex Luthor would rule the world. Think about the things the Joker was able to pull off in 'The Dark Knight'. Were it not for the Autobots, the Decpticons would have trashed our whole planet.
For those of you religious folks, look at someone like Saul. Saul was single-handedly destorying the church, one believer at a time. I mean this guy didn't even bother refuting the gospel logically, he began a systematic destruction of the church. Then he got turned around, and became an equally powerful force for christianity. This, beyond anything else, proves my theory that the only way to be anything great at all is to shake your fist at the world and go 100% all the time. Because if you do, you just might be lucky enough to hear heaven open up and the voice of God say "Hey, great effort, but try doing it the other way around...".
So to try and bring this short post full circle, let me say this: the greatest mistakes one can make as an artist, athlete, and person is to overanalyize the situation. The ability to take in information and make informed decisions is what sets us apart from lower animals, but if there is anything I've learned in my measely 19 years on this planet, it's that our instincts about people and situations are rarely wrong. It's time we stop trying to protect ourselves so much and just start living. It's time to quit using standards and estimations to figure things out, it's time we start looking at the situation at hand and solving the problems in front of our face. Because that's the funny thing about life: it's just one damn thing after another. And here's the kicker, even if I'm wrong, the grace of God is sufficent for me. So I'm going to live. What about you?
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