Batman is a common character in the overrun world of Marvel and DC movies, comics, and fan art that we have come to live in today. Far from his previous failures as a '70s slap stick, tight clad poofter, he has once again regained his title as the "black night" in his recently released to DVD feature "Batman Begins."
I am not here, however, to tell you about the amazing quality of that movie, or reminisce with you about the anticipation and skepticism that it was greeted with at the box office. Instead I would like to take this time to relate Batman as a superhero to Benjamin as a simple man.
The first time I saw the movie was with my 17 year old sister. I had been postponing my big-screen experience for a more romantic and friendly (read: Girlfriend) movie experience, but amidst the commotion of the blockbuster event of a release, I had lost my girlfriend. Horror of Horrors.
I was very heartbroken at the time, which lead me to enter a creative, yet utterly depressing state of mind. I felt rather alike or masked hero as he was left as a child with nothing, only a silly statement about falling down only to pick ourselves back up again. My parents may not have been killed, but I felt that there was something great lacking in my life.
Like all good people of our generation rather than being introspective on this topic, I began to look toward a more constant guiding force in my life. Comic books and movies. So, Mr. Caped Crusader. How can you solve my problems?
It came to me rather quickly, the key to happiness. Even more powerful, the key to happiness in adverse situations, in the eyes of defeat, and in the wake of destruction. Bruce Wayne lost all that the average person held dear, his family, his childhood, even his ability to date women. (Look at the turmoil around Vicky Vail, and his childhood girlfriend Rachel Dawes) He was without anything, yet, in various scenes of that cinematic experience there were few times when we didn't want the life of Bruce Wayne. What gives?
After becoming aggravated that all I had held true about Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness had been wrong, I started to approach it from a different fashion. Why? Why, Mr. Bruce Wayne, are you so content at your misfortune and also generating the envy of men everywhere?
After rethinking my goals in life, I have limited them down to three simple rules:
1. One must have a greater good, or higher purpose to fight for:
Bruce Wayne was not a careless renegade firing at random into the sky. He had a reason to wake up in the morning. A goal, to rid this city of it's crime. To make Gotham a place to live again. It gave him a reason to exercise in the morning and the evening. It gave him a reason to open his eyes before sunrise. It gave him the desire and the drive to do what must be done. Something that everyone needs in their life to be human.
2. Job Happiness:
Although it is tied greatly into the first point, it is very important to be happy in your job. You must be content in swinging from fire escape to fire escape chasing down your villains. A man cannot live on desire and goals alone. There has to be a level of immediate satisfaction in your daily activities. It's always important to enjoy what you do, or to do what you enjoy. That is a symbol of a truly happy man.
Also, you can read into this as my complaint about most religions. The faith and desire is there, but not the happiness in daily activities.
3. Insane amounts of cash:
When push comes to shove, and your crook has gotten away, and in the process ruined your hopes at saving the city for the night, you can always get in your Ferrari, drive down to a high class restaurant with a $10k hooker on each arm and piss the night away.
With these three points, I think you can become truly happy in your life and all of your endeavors, and therefore is my new goal. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of all things Batman!