X-Men 3

I'm not always like everybody else. I'm different. In the USA people would occasionally ask, "how are you different?" as if just saying it would allow you to revel in it. In 日本語 I often hear the thought turned around, by people asking each other "How are you strong?" assuming that if you focus on the good in a person we will all feel useful to each other and get along.

Physically, I'm not strong. I feel I was gifted in two significant ways. Both showed when I was young, but have taken me on some wild rides as they've developed and I've explored them. They are my superpowers, if you will. Yeah, they're not quite super, but it's what I can do, it's how I'm strong.

I've got a stamina and an compulsive personality that means don't quit; I can just keep going, oftentimes, more and longer than other people; even than people stronger than I am. For example, I still one of the weakest guys on the Rugby team; I'm tiny, I'm scrawny. My muscles are not going to knock anyone off their feet. But at the same time, I am the only one who can bike more than 30km to work twice a week. And back.

#2? Seems to be a gift with words. One I never asked for and never would have expected. Most people see it as a gift for languages - but I take those tests, I know what I don't do well. Yet there is definitely some uncanny, inexplicable skill here. I pick them up fast, even now, I sound more native, I understand quickly and well. I can express myself using even the simplest of vocabularies - and with constant effort seem to be able to teach others to do so as well. I can hear, or read, or think something horribly complex and spit it back out in a way that most of the people around me can understand.

There are days when I have to laugh inside and smirk bemused at the person before me, who just doesn't seem to comprehend; asking me not to use my languages or to always take the bus to work is just... like... asking Superman not to fly. It's like asking the Flash not to go so fast because you can't see him when he does that.

I'm about to watch the 3rd X-Men movie; and as I invite and cajole and goad my friends into going to see it with it makes me think. Most of them are entirely unfamiliar with it; and many ask, "well, what's it about?" "People wearing funny costumes isn't interesting." "When I see those kinds of fantasy like movies I don't like them 'cause all this unreal stuff always happens and there's like no reason for it and I just don't get it."

When I was young people were always telling me I was weak.

I doubt this will surprise anyone. I was. And I was. And in many ways I still am. I had strengths, too, but they were often more difficult to see - or for others to accept. Sometimes I wonder, if it is possible to admit someone else's strength without seeing a weakness in yourself. I think it is - but I don't think everyone feels that way. And I think people are mostly the same the world over.

But what I have learned - and am in many ways still learning, is how I am strong. We like to think in stark opposites; black & white, male & female, smart & dumb, ugly & beautiful. Though these terms are sometimes useful, I think the real world is often so much more rich. Driving these words into meaninglessness.

I never was the strongest, and even when I was on the swim team I wasn't ever really strong. I dealt with the teasing and being picked on, sometimes better than othertimes, but on the whole I never really cared. Perhaps it's another weakness tied up with a strength - I don't notice or even care about a lot of the social cues and games people use around me. I was who I was. Imagining myself to be someone else was just alien to me; and it wasn't even amusing like trying to pretend to be a dog. I seem to remember my mom used to tell me, probably when I was making fun of someone else, "It's not whether you're weak or strong that matters. It's if, when the time comes, you do the right thing." It's not how smart you are or how good you are or how tough; but if you do what you can when it needs to be done.

That's part of what the first two X-Men movies, the Superman movies, the Spiderman movies... even Lord of the Rings were about, to me. And X-men so far has focused on the first part. Now that you know you're different, and you can't deny it; now that you can't refuse that your strength is also a huge weakness, what would you do? What would you give up just to try to be better at being who you are? And if you had the chance to lose your strength - but at the same time, hide some weaknesses - would you do it?

Y'know, some of us can't hide being different like many others like to think they can. :)