It Costs To Be Me

‘Being Yourself’ has to be one of the biggest challenges that people face in their lives. The ability to be ourselves from the innocent in age to the fully formed adult the world has come to know. It seems like a never ending conquering wall in which we must climb until we reach the top and shout ‘victory’. Our world, its cultures and societal structures consist of visual imagery and sweet rhetoric forcibly fed to us reinforcing an identity of who we really are.

In growing up we become the lab rat for some weird experiment. A symphony for advertisers in which we sometimes fall in tune with and dance to due to the richness of their beauty. After years of becoming accustomed, captivated and sometimes mind numbingly unchallenging, we too can believe that which has been presented to us is who we really are. Just as if the mirror off the wall were walking hand in hand with us as best friends rather than reflecting our true self. Before you know it it is not until you peel back the layers that what we see underneath can be really quite different.

Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually we are on a journey and this journey is called life. Whether good or bad, life forms and shapes us into who we are today. Health, beauty, education, religion, relationships are just some of these branches which grow from us and form the fruit of their impact on us. Your choices play a big role in this shaping. Situations, circumstances and how we react to them emphasise who we become. Spiderman is a great, even though fictional, character that correlates with this blog post in its intended context. He clearly expresses that it costs to be yourself, your true self. This is very evident in the Spider-Man 2 movie.

Peter Parker was your average typical guy who was raptured in science. His benevolent relationship with his aunt May and Uncle Ben, perplexed relationship with Mary Jane, roller coaster friendship with Harry, scurrilous working relationship with his horrid boss Mr Jameson, unpopular lonely exterior were yet again some of Peter’s branches of life. After his spider bite and transformation into the infamous Spiderman, his life changed including all his branches.

SpiderMan 2

In living and trying to balance two separate lives an internal battle was created. The life of Peter Parker was both drastically and involuntarily changing in order to become Spiderman. All of the branches as spoken about above aided this internal war between Peter Parker and Spiderman. Peter could no longer hold fashion to the demands of Spiderman.  You can not be two people otherwise they will soon collide. Spiderman had a very different branch, he required the soul (mind, will and emotions) of Peter in order to defeat evil and save both the city and people therein. Peter’s soul and therefore his identity were in turmoil and at war on the battlefield. You can not be two people otherwise they will soon collide and one will win; which one is your choice.

SpiderMan 2 shows a season where SpiderMan loses his powers and Peter can once again live. His personal life had become a broken jigsaw puzzle and Peter’s soul was wavering. The heart and desires of Peter were enmity against the requirements of SpiderMan. He makes decisions based on what he wants rather than on that which he was newly becoming as SpiderMan. Some of those decisions prove fatal because it was going to cost Peter something; himself and sometimes we are not ready to count the cost of giving up ourselves.

Downward spiral in powers

SpiderMan is no more

To summarise throughout the rest of the film Peter has to make a choice; to live as he used to with a quiet, lonely and uninterrupted life or be the hero he has become because of change in his life. If you have seen the SpiderMan movies or read the comics then you’ll know he chose SpiderMan… but it cost him. I am not saying that he can not or will never be Peter Parker because that is not true but it costs him some of his branches in order to become who is really is.

To be your true self it will cost you something. This could be relationships, friendships, values and morals, jobs, health, beauty, religion, education, wrong thinking patterns, ritualistic behaviour; anything. The branches in our lives can sometimes have damaging effects but who you really are is what the world needs, not a form of you but a true identity. We all go through stages on experimenting and transitioning but if we become the person who we really are we must weigh up our branches and accept the reality that it will require all of us to be ourself.

Resisting Venom

Spiderman 3 is one of the best movies you will ever watch, Spidey fan or no Spidey fan; you’ll like it. Not only does Marvel take you on a journey of a masked figurine fighting to keep the streets clean and rid the city of its somewhat un-natural menacing villains but also on a lesson of unforgiveness.

We have all been introduced to the ungodly beauty of unforgiveness, the bitter sister of truth. Unforgiveness is like a human’s moral high ground, the little thing in life we can control all on our own; the decision to forgive a person of their wrongs or hold it against them due to its impact on us as individuals or even sometimes with-held information we may or may not have. Venom is a beautiful demonstration of unforgiveness.

We all, if not most of us, know the introduction of the Venom character in the Spiderman 3 movie. Peter Parker has rejected the healing process of dealing with the death of his uncle. When we refuse to get delivered and healed from things of the past they eventually grow within us; unforgiveness in the case of Peter Parker. To avoid too much of a spoiler alert for those who have not seen this movie, we see Peter Parker’s heartache and pain directly affect his alter ego side, Spiderman. Peter’s unforgiveness opened up a portal for Venom in Spiderman’s life.

Venom from Spiderman

Venom is a liquid life form from another planet which requires a host to bond with in order to survive. Venom is pretty much humanities symbol of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness acts as a substance in which requires a person’s permission in order for it to survive and reproduce; reproduce its ugly family of hate, bitterness, resentment, rage, anger… basically anything that kills life. The longer you hold onto it, the shorter life becomes.

Peter Parker’s unforgiveness and refusal to find out the complete truth and receive healing allowed Venom to survive. The ugly family of unforgiveness allowed Peter to feel somewhat control and justification to act out all cruel emotions. Unforgiveness never produces or allows you to produce anything good, it is incapable of producing life; only death. Peter Parker enjoyed feeling everything that forgiveness would not dare allow him to feel, to think everything that forgiveness would not allow him to think; even act. Forgiveness justifies you acting on the wrongs of others because of hurt.

Unforgiveness even changes physical appearance, a person’s countenance. Spiderman’s suit turned black from red. Life with unforgiveness is fun but short. You can act, think, feel and treat anything and anyone without any regard and take great satisfaction in it, not truly knowing you are its slave and it controls you, not you it.

Sometimes we may be ignorant to the fact that we carry unforgiveness and should check ourselves for anything in our life if need be but if we are not ignorant of it, we have a problem.

Unforgiveness only needs to find one root issue, the problem is we have many. Once it finds one root, it finds others. Unforgiveness becomes stronger and stronger because it finds other roots and creates other roots. Peter was angry not only with his uncle’s death but also his friend Harry Osborn, Mary Jane his on/off girlfriend, work and work colleagues, etc. Unforgiveness had a field day with Peter Parker. All it took was one trigger, one gate and bam there it goes.

Unforgiveness in Peter eventually re-attacked Mary Jane, on purpose. However this was Peter’s wake up call. He realised truth; Venom was not helping him or Spiderman but actually killing them.

There is a time and place for everything. The season of unforgiveness was now over for Peter Parker. He had to get rid of Venom by choosing to forgive.

Healing must take place after deliverance. Forgiving not only those who wronged you but those who you wronged and forgiving yourself. Peter Parker and Spiderman turned back into what he was before unforgiveness took over his life; his true self.

My point is that regardless of the pain, trouble, heart ache, rage and anger fuelled emotions and hate people put you through and can often make you become; choose to forgive them. Don’t let Venom aka unforgiveness take your life and kill you. Resist Venom.

Also checkout the movie Hannibal Rising for a great lesson on Unforgiveness. All monsters come from somewhere.