I just had the pleasure of watching "X-Men: Days of Future Past"; oh, how fitting it was for the day I am having. I've loved the X-Men since I was a little girl, not the comic book (sorry Marvel fans), but definitely the cartoon version. As an adult, a lady couldn't ask for much more than to have Wolverine come alive through Hugh Jackman. I'm so pleased that the wonderful people of 20th Century Fox picked up this great storyline and that I'll get to enjoy even more films in the future. I bet my son is going to grow up loving the storyline too.
It is appealing to me in so many ways, it's hard to narrow it down to just a few, but I shall try. Mutants or people who are different, good vs. evil and free will, these are the themes I am loving the most today.
For a long time I've felt that I've had a severe case of empathy for others. Empathy, is defined as, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. So for me, it is as if I can really feel other people's and being's emotions. Most of the time, it is so very real for me. It's a gift, really. I've always felt that it was a benefit, something to be grateful for. I never explored where it came from, or why I might be like this. Maybe I didn't want to know, or maybe I figured, the why didn't really matter that much. This is who I am and I like it.
One of the challenges to this is that it leaves me very vulnerable at times. I tend to put myself out there, without abandon, much to the chagrin of my loved ones and supporters. I can hear them now, "Ah, she's at it again!" Some might look at my choices and say, well she doesn't really do a great analysis before she puts her heart out there. On the contrary, I would say, the majority of the time, I do a great deal of reflection and analysis of risk and reward before making a decision to put myself in a vulnerable position. Being empathetic is so much part of who I am, that now I tend to act decisively. You see, I think I've had this trait since I was young and so that provides me about with 25 years of experience, give or take a few. I consider myself pretty lucky to be a severe empathetic.
However, recently I realized that by not exploring the why of this severe empathy trait, I may have left myself open to hurt and even danger. Which brings me to one of the other constructs that I love about life and the X-Men, the constant battle between "good and evil". Some might argue that these are man made, moral concepts, reinforced by religious zealots, Churches and centuries of societal norms and mores. That's all well and good. I can give you that, I can. However, if you have stood next to evil, seen it up close and in person, looked it in the eyes even, again, in my opinion it doesn't really matter why you believe in it. I believe, what matters is your level of fear, the amount of evil you can endure and ultimately the strength that is built from your experience.
Thus, I hypothesize that my severe empathy was born out of pain. Have I survived any more or less pain, than any of you reading along? Maybe and maybe not? However, I do feel, that I have, taken every opportunity that I could, to allow my pain to fuel my growth, especially in empathy. Have I done it perfectly, not in the slightest. I am human after all, not a mutant!
Which is how we get to our last and final X-Men thought; free will. We always have a choice. We can always choose how to deal with our own personal pain. We can always choose how we deal with others' pain. Every day we wake up, we can try to self correct. We can try, time and time again, to put ourselves in someone else's shoes for a moment, a minute or an hour and truly feel what it might be like, to be them, for that short while. Would that change our actions, would that change how we react.
I leave you with a few thoughts for whenever you have a moment:
Could you be making a better decision?
Are you doing the very best you can to support your loved ones today?
If you aren't, how might you try to do better tomorrow?
I think the one caveat to all of these questions and thoughts, is that it is very important to know your own limits.
I am and always will be, an eternal optimist, so as my favorite professor said: "Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment- a moment in the ripple of time. Enough ripple, and you change the tide....for the future is never truly set." X-Men: Days of Future Past, 2014
That is all.
Sara
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