How Superheros Have Taken Over the World
A lot of people ask me what Vendicatori means. Vendicatori is the Italian word for Avengers. The Vendicatori were an actual society of people that formed a type of "Robin Hood" organization centuries ago in Italy and Sicily. What many people don't know, is this organization was the precursor to today's Mafia.
So superheros existed centuries ago, trying to create new ways to fight injustice in cultures all over the world. I'm sure you could go back even further than the Vendicatori to Superheros. Depending on your faith, one could look at Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammud, and Buddha amongst many other members of various Pantheons.
So why does society seem to cling to Superheros throughout history? Long story short, they give us hope. Humanity seems to need this "bringer of hope" in order to get through the day. What exactly is Faith afterall? None of us know what the future is going to bring, and just about all of us hope it brings something better for us.
We don't have a modern day Jesus or Buddha running around giving us miracles or answers to some of the deepest of philosophical question. Instead we are left to having faith in hoping what the "heros" of the past did, will provide for all of us. The human psyche doesn't seem to have the ability to survive on faith alone. For some reason, humanity needs something tangible. We need something that we can see and wrap our hands and minds around.
In walks Superman, Spiderman, The Flash, Arrow, The Green Latern, and even Wonder Woman to name just a few. We need our Luke Skywalkers, our Fox Mulders, our Captain Kirks and the Hulk. All you have to do is look at the summer line up for movies to see what society wants. Afterall, Hollywood doesn't make billions of dollars giving us what we don't want.
It's time for all of us to become these "bringers of hope". Now I'm not suggesting that any of us go down to Walmart and declare we are the next Messiah, but let's look at what we can do. We can help other people. We can oen doors for people, we can give to charitbale funds. We can walk by someone and say, "Good Morning".
We can help the elderly couple next door by raking their leaves in the fall or shoveling a path to their front door in the winter. We can volunteer at a homeless shelter or give our old clothes to charity so that the less fortunate can have something nice to wear. If we all just committed to doing a couple nice things every day, we could all be superheroes.
Little by little, people would begin to witness the humanity in their fellow humans and realize that we can all have hope for our future. It will be a great day when someone sees Superman in the average Joe or Joanne down the street. Start making good deeds become the norm and watch the world around you transform.
