Superman

Once upon a time there was this young boy named little Greenpsychopomp.  He was raised by socially liberal parents in a strict and lax environment.  His mother cooled meals every day and forced him to eat his vegetables, even when she obviously cooked the spinach too long and the broccoli too.  She made some meals fun and exciting by cooking curry and making fabulous desserts like pineapple upside down cake and fish eye (tapioca) pudding and stuff like that.  His parents were careful about many things, like language and undue influence of political belief.  For instance they talked about voting in every election, but would not tell us who they voted for, because that was a private thing and should reflect your own personal beliefs and not dictated by others, like them.  Obviously they voted left of center.  Centrists and right of center people make sure their children know what they vote.

Anyways, when I was young, the first movie that I eve saw made a huge impact on my life, movies do that, so if you have children select the movies that they see first carefully.  Most of my friends saw a very important movie when they were 5.  It was 1977 and the most iconic movie of the age was debuted in this year.  For many children who saw this movie, it remained a significant focus of their life.  That movie was Star Wars; I did not see it.  My mother would tell me that I did see it, years later, but the truth is that she thinks that she let me see it.  The truth was though, she probably did not think a War movie was a good movie for a five year old to see.  So this was not the first movie that I saw.  A lot of my friends though saw it and had posters of it and a lot of Star Wars merchandising.  This I clearly remember, and I remember not knowing what it was about and so when my mother says that I saw it, I know she is mistaken.

The first movie I did see was in 1978 and it had a HUGE impact on my life: Superman.  Let me be clear, if I had not seen it I would still likely be a very moral person, but having Superman as the first movie that I saw has pushed it into overdrive.  I still sometimes daydream about having super powers and saving the world.  I sometimes do good deeds and don't tell people that I did them.  Once I even got up really early on Christmas Eve and drove a housemate three hours to the airport so that she could catch a early morning flight home to her parents home for the holidays, then turned around and came back.  First time I told anyone that I did that.  

When I was younger, hell, whenever I role-play in any game like Dungeons and Dragons or Exalted, I play with a Superman complex.  Lawful Good, also known as lawful stupid.  The alignment in D&D, is hard to play, one has to be unselfish and follow the rules of society and protect the weak too.  When the King of the country is oppressing the peasants, my character would have to intervene, no matter the consequences.  I typically play a paladin.  Most character types hate Paladins.  They are so righteous and good, the higher form of both though.  When a village is being attacked by a horde of evil orcs, it is my character that will step in to hold of the orcs to give the villagers time to flee.  And then I might just have to roll up a new character.

Unfortunately, playing a Paladin in a game and being Lawful Good is one thing in a game, but in real life it is often difficult.  According to the definitions of D&D alignment, your typical city person is Lawful Neutral, keeps their heads down and follows the rules, in the rural areas people are most often Chaotic Neutral, they like to do there own thing but for their own reasons, but never at the expense of others, at least blatantly.  My alignment is closer to Neutral Good, with Lawful tendencies.  I try to have a positive influence on others and hardly ever be selfish, to follow the ideals of giving is better than receiving and doing onto others.

Let me tell you that it is difficult to do this, I feel that this moral center I have chosen has hurt me over the years, that I want to be selfish sometimes.  Sometimes I want to think of myself before I think of others.  But it always comes down to some variation of, what would Superman do?  

Superman, would be a feminist.  He would see that women are not treated fairly and he would treat women fairly, so do I.  He has power though and he can do more than I.  If I want to do more I try speaking out on the subject to varying degrees of success.  Racism and Rationality too.  Tricky that one, because the ideals of most religions match my own, but most itinerants do not practice what they preach.  Since they don't practice their religious ideals, then their religion is suspect and they need to examine their morality in the absence of the cloak of religion.  

Rape, I have never been put in a place where I could confront one of my friends attackers; I would.  Perhaps this is one part of why some of my relationships floundered, they sensed that I would confront offending family members with anger.

Anyways, Superman, the first movie I have ever seen remains deep within my core and although I realize that trying to emulate him in my own life is a little insane, as only he can hold these Super-ideals, because he is Superman and has the power to enforce them, but does not.