The End of the World and how I saved it

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ESIGN-S Spider-Man shelving shelf bookcase room furnitureAn excerpt from a chapter of my amazing autobiography that I have yet to write

I have been reading a lot of Dystopian novels during this COVID-19 outbreak, so much so that I am now tired of the books.
For those who don't know, Dystopia is a genre of sci-fi/fantasy where the world ends by some disaster --  a plague, zombies, alien invasion, or government run amok, and the world can only be saved by a teenage girl. Light reading indeed.

The Hunger Games trilogy is the most popular series of this genre. Basically children killing children for material gain. It was made into a movie that did very well. The Divergent series looks to be the next most popular dystopian novels.

I am tired of dystopia because the stories are the same. Just change the disaster and the name of the teenage girl as well. Worse, I have started to dream dystopia.

Last night, I dreamt that the lady who sits next to me at work and I were chased all over the country by zombies and we were losing. Most disturbing. If I were to interpret my dream, I would say that it's a work thing. Think senior management as zombies and you can figure out the rest.

What puzzled me for a long time is why is dystopia so popular? Why is a story where very bad things happen, where children die needlessly, where life is so bleak, and where the future is horrible, selling better than any other books except romance novels?

Finally, it came to me. The answer, and I don't know why I am so dense not to see it before, is that the dystopian readers identify with the teenage heroine. The readers think that they have all the hero traits and are as brave, resourceful, and as competent as the heroine.

I should have known that.

As a child, I read and watched Superman, Batman, books and movies, and all the other super hero books and movies because I thought I could one day be like them. One day, some strange chemical would spill on me and I would become a superhero. I would save the world, save everybody I knew, plus get the girls. As an adult, I put away childish thoughts, but at least for us old guys, Superman was replaced by James Bond, super spy. There is still lots of Superman in me.

Imagine me as a teenage girl heroine. Not likely. My mind is better at fantasy than that. I converted this teenage girl into, well, me. I kept her bravery, confidence, and strength but made her into a man. I suspect that Freud has much to say about that.

The curious thing is why do I and all the other readers of dystopia think that we would be the heroes in the first place? In dystopian stories, only the teen-age girl who saves the world has the hero traits. The rest of humanity fails miserably, suffer and die for it.

Where in our lives have we exhibited these hero traits that would cause us to think that we are hero material?
  • Have we stuck our necks out to save a victim from some mean nasty mugger?
  • Have we stood up to the bureaucracy of government?
  • Have we marched in a protest for what is right?
  • Have we told our bosses what we really think of them?
Perhaps it is more subtle. Perhaps the hero traits are there buried in us and have never had the chance to emerge. All we need is a disaster for our hero traits to come out.

Now is our chance.

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