No-one wants to be special anymore. Only the truly naive beg to be
special, and even then it's their kind of special - chosen one, fairy
tale princess, supremely powerful witch - a one-sided childhood fantasy
of magically having everything we've ever wanted without having to do
anything for it but wait for it to happen because we are... special. And
so the wisest among us wrap ourselves in Copernican theory. We're so
far removed from the center of the universe that we think we are a freak
accident of cosmic chaos, a temporary and meaningless blip of nothing.
We've gone from the pathetically egocentric and geocentric model of
existence to the opposite extreme; a coldly logical and nihilistic
worldview that leaves us with nothing. Given that, neither view is
likely to be correct. The answer instead must lie somewhere in the
middle.
Logically, in any given set of data, there will be
extremes. And so it stands to reason that despite our current abhorrence
of the concept, some of us must in fact, be special. And
given our current knowledge of infinite multiverse, it may be radical,
but not unfair to say that we, as humans, are ALL special. So why are we so reluctant to be so?
If
the naive are desperate to be special, the experienced are reluctant to
be so for they alone bear the secret that every hero knows: it is the
journey that makes the hero. Read some mythology. Read some science
fiction. Read some fantasy. Find me a hero that had a happy life, who
had everything laid out before them. Think of the popular heroes of our
culture, line them up side by side, and tell me what common thread you
find wound among them. Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Neo... all went
through absolute hell to get where they were. There's a burden that
comes with being special; it means you are destined to struggle with
some serious shit. And that's what makes the hero. Every hero finds
themselves faced with a choice. Their specialness, their destiny, is a
given. It will not change or go away. The question is how they deal with
it. Does the shit make them a villain or does the shit make them a
hero?
We were born alone in this corner of the universe; a rare
and special combination of just right in a solar system of just right in
a universe of just right. Cosmically speaking, our entire species
occupies a very awesome sweet spot. We, each of us, are one of the few
(not only, but not many) occurrences of sentient aware beings in this
science experiment. What are we going to do with it? Certainly our
future is dubious as a species, but what of our future as individuals,
for it is as individuals that we comprise this species. We were born, we
are going to die. We are each unique. These are givens. What we do with
those givens are up to us. So I ask, do you dare to be special? Do you
have what it takes to confront yourself, to battle your demons and
struggle with yourself until you find yourself at harmony with the
universe, until you know your unique purpose? Do you have what it takes
to embark upon the hero's journey, to stand out, to lift your species to
greatness? Or are you a selfish villain, will you hamper the survival,
the betterment, the greatness that is our potential, because all you are
concerned with is yourself? Are you a villain? Or worse, are you a
mindless nothing, giving your money, your support, your very existence
to the villainy of selfishness?
Today is the day you make that decision. I made mine. What is yours?
