Look Up

Even though it was two years ago, I still remember mentally constellating the stippled ceiling as the vet probed into the particulars of Clark’s annual exam. My eyes stung and I could feel my chest burn while I tried to hold myself together enough to listen. Back then, I was a little more than halfway through my IDPhD and already felt increasingly defeated by life professionally and existentially. I remember feeling exhausted by precarity and platitudes, watching people with performative or hollow praxes become—or remain—gainfully employed and celebrated as others eagerly indulged them. It cast life as I knew it to be morally inverted. Things like sincerity, care, and principled effort—things widely avowed and encouraged—had little, if any bearing on who prospered. Amidst the uncertainty about my own future, I tried to hold onto some sense that my efforts meant something; that I meant something. Hearing that Clark had CKD felt like yet another confirmation that life is governed less by fairness or goodness than by finitude, inequity, and loss. Thinking of losing Clark while still feeling so unmoored and exhausted made life feel pointless, like everything amounted only to watching beloveds decline while life stretched on. The diagnosis seemed to affirm that something inside me collapsed under the weight of everything at once: even the beings who make life feel worthwhile can’t be protected from time, no matter how deeply they’re loved.

Maybe-not-so-coincidently, around this time, I found myself drawn to heroes like Superman, Shazam, and the tragic figure of Black Adam. The aforementioned anguish left me hollow and defeated which punctuated worsening insomnia and anxiety. Media had always been my refuge so, to pass the time, I watched miscellaneous cutscenes, animated films, along with compilations of character intros and outros online. For me, fictional worlds momentarily give shape to feelings that ordinary life and its platitudes seem unable or unwilling to hold; and I succumbed to the subtler tensions within these stories of heroes and fallen figures debating power, suffering, morality, and disillusionment. What got me wasn’t some fantasy of invulnerability or triumph, but the ethical and existential tensions they uniquely personified. Clark Kent continues to love and protect a world that repeatedly fails to embody the ideals it professes, whereas Billy Batson remains gentle and kindred amidst poverty and grief. Conversely, Black Adam represents that prolonged suffering and betrayal eventually—duly—calcify into contempt. Together, they all dramatize competing responses to the fact that the world is neither fair nor reliably governed; how candor persists alongside that fact by the perpetuity of will.

In my Clark, I picked up on something similar because—despite his illness, aging, exclusion, and the vulnerabilities inherent to being dependent upon others—he still sought affection, routine, and trust. I mean, Clark came to represent Superman to me because the Man of Steel has never really been about invincibility. Although I originally named Clark just because I was watching a ton of Smallville when I first got him, Clark came to embody his namesake over time literally—at a whopping 22 pounds to which the vet dubbed him a “tank” since it was mostly muscle—and figuratively in warmth without fault, tenacity without spectacle, and an undying capacity for love and connection in spite of the suffering and fragility woven into existence itself. He endured being an outlier among my other cats, experienced forms of exclusion and tension that could have made him withdrawn or fearful, and yet he still chose to be happy. He purrs, bunts, follows me from room to room, curls beside me with his favourite ball, and approaches life with a delicacy against the odds. That’s what feels ‘Superman’ about him to me: the resolve to stay warm and refusal to go cold against the grain of iniquity.

At the same time, narratives of Superman can be devastating when they speak more to his incapacity over his strength. Think of Jonathan Kent’s death in the 1978 film, how sadly Clark stares after the gravesite; or in Superman: Earth One, Volume 2 comic where he buries and grieves his cat, Fuzzball, on the face of the moon. These stories see him lament that his powers can’t—and won’t—save his beloveds from time or mortality. Bereaving other beloveds and Clark’s CKD diagnosis forced me into the same realization that love doesn’t grant omnipotence. No amount of care can completely protect those we love. But the fact remains that Clark still rests beside me peacefully, trusts me, and seeks me out affectionately—all within a cruel world where loss remains inevitable.

Which led me to—and honestly, will always lead me to—reflect on The Flashpoint Paradox since it was one of the first narratives that made me viscerally understand the limits of retroactive correction. Revisiting or ‘fixing’ the past doesn’t assure happiness, moral equilibrium, or some cosmic balance in the present or future. Before seeing the film and comic, I couldn’t meaningfully comprehend why people encouraged me not to rue past losses, injustices, mistakes, or alternate possibilities. My neurodivergence has always inclined me to ruminate [exhaustive reconsideration] as if sufficient reflection, self-blame, or temporal reconfiguration could somehow produce a version of reality in which my pain, sadness, or indignity were finally resolved. What affected me so deeply about Flashpoint—and later, The Flash (2023)—was how it showed that acts motivated by love, longing, or grief can cause unforeseen fractures that can’t be neatly controlled or undone. Barry’s attempt to save his mother doesn’t heal or balance; it radically destabilizes a world where suffering simply reconfigures itself into new forms. This also struck home in the live-action film when a version of Bruce Wayne tells Barry: “These scars we have make us who we are. We’re not meant to go back and fix them. Don’t let your tragedy define you.” That line got me because it expressed something I struggled to internalize for years; that pain and loss can’t be resolved through retroactive mastery, and fixating on alternate timelines can’t restore what has already been altered by time. Narratively, these evince how and why attempts to perfect and undo—or dwelling on—the past can become forms of imprisonment in and of themselves, keeping one suspended between realities instead of fully inhabiting the imperfect present and moving onward despite how uncertain the future may be. Instead of presenting suffering as purposeful or desirable, these narratives conveyed the danger of allowing grief and regret to wholly organize one’s relationship to existence, identity, and hope.

Believe it or not, that realization led me to revisit the Shrek franchise. I know, I know—folks will say I’m needlessly intellectualizing a kids’ movie and it’s “not that deep”; but given how much I read into superheroes and -villains, what did you expect? Moreover, given the creative and cultural context of media overall, it truly is always “that deep,” but that’s another topic for another time. Anyway, while the world of Shrek is populated by familiar fairytale figures whose narratives we know to be fixed or preordained, the franchise purposes those stories to be contingent, unstable, and shaped less by destiny than by relational choices, circumstance, and intervention. Here, ‘destiny’ actually becomes a socially coordinated arrangement dependent upon specific conditions remaining intact. Shrek had no call to meet Fiona; he was tasked to do so in an effort to recover his swamp. Prince Charming wasn’t inherently meant to rescue or marry Fiona; the Fairy Godmother [his actual mother] framed his rescue of Fiona as an inevitable fairytale outcome. Arthur wasn’t sanctified to inherit the kingdom of Far Far Away; he was pursued to relieve Shrek from a miserable life of aristocracy. Because outcomes arise from anomalies, the fairytale script is shown not to be ontologically guaranteed so much as sustained by convention and expectation. This contingency is focal in Shrek Forever After (2010). When Rumpelstiltskin removes Shrek from existence, the timeline doesn’t ‘correct’ itself by restoring Charming as Fiona’s rescuer. Instead, an entirely different sociopolitical reality emerges: Fiona is never rescued, Far Far Away falls under authoritarian rule, and Fiona becomes an ogre resistance leader. The absence of a ‘fixed timeline’ revises traditional fairytale logic. A happy ending isn’t operant on a Prince + Princess outcome. Narratives are unstable and revisable since they’re influenced by choice, interaction, and contingency. Ironically, Prince Charming exemplifies temporal rigidity, believing stories must resolve according to inherited scripts, whereas Shrek’s very existence disrupts and rewrites the assumptions those scripts depend upon.

But contingency isn’t always experienced like this. For some, the instability of existence is just too much; realizing virtue doesn’t assure protection, sincerity doesn’t lead to dignity, and suffering reconfigures itself regardless of merit. Sure, I can look to Shrek as an example who undermines willed scripts and engenders chance forms of relationality. I can also empathize with Black Adam and the insistence that suffering must culminate in proportional justice within a world that continually frustrates that expectation. Figures like Superman and Captain Marvel/Shazam participate in care despite the absence of guarantees, as worlds like Shrek concede to the incidence of anomalies. However, Adam sees injustice and hegemony as elements that make compassion and restraint liabilities. He dramatizes what can happen when regret and rage calcify into ontology. A contingent world means that innocence can suffer meaninglessly, cruelty can prosper without punishment, and love or sincerity don’t attest to protection or dignity. There’s no intrinsic guarantee that pain culminates in justice nor that moral effort produces moral reward. The exigency of life as we know it requires accepting a fundamental doubt and resistance to absolutes, especially in terms of outcome; but Adam can’t accept this because a logic of betrayal, violence, and indignity define his lived experience. His concept of power refuses uncertainty, therefore he seeks to eliminate ambiguity by forcing order through supremacy—which is why his idea of justice becomes absolute instead of relational. Adam refuses contingency because it sustains iniquity through incoherence as the guilty flourish, the vulnerable remain unprotected, and sorrow occurs indiscriminately. Rather than accepting the limits of control, Adam strives to overcome any- and everything through domination which makes his violence just as metaphysical as political; it’s an effort to force a morally fractured existence into correspondence through power. It’s also just understandable. He represents the impulse to imagine that enough strength can reconcile pain and injustice into something intelligible or controllable. But—not unlike Injustice Superman—the irony is that the more absolutely he tries to impose order, the more he recreates the same cycles of fear and suffering that convinced him contingency was intolerable in the first place.

Another thing to consider is that his worldview comes from the very moral order that later condemns him. Adam was empowered by divine authority, entrusted with immense force to enact reckoning, only to later become denounced for embodying that logic too completely (Ordway, 1995). The contradiction raises the question: what exactly differentiates a righteous protector from a tyrant when both are empowered to impose justice upon others? Clark and Billy keep themselves in check even with their superhuman strength, accepting the painful reality that neither pain nor adversity can be overcome exclusively by force. By contrast, Adam sees keeping oneself in check as complicity within a world that vindicates cruelty, humiliation, and inequity to go on unchecked. The core tragedy of Adam is that he was initially granted the powers associated with imagination, wisdom, and transcendence—only to grow incapable of imagining vulnerability, mercy, or uncertainty as survivable conditions of existence. Instead of allowing power to expand his capacity for relationality or ethos, it cements his conviction that supremacy is the only means that can overcome. And while that conviction compels him to abolish contingency through supremacy, it eventually consumes him and thereby prevents him from partaking in the very integrity that once made adversity meaningful as opposed to totalizing. When power is reframed as ontological or inevitable, it collapses moral worth into hierarchy wherein superiority negates obligation. Once that logic is accepted, vulnerability nullifies compassion and serves to justify control, indifference, or violence.

Self-awareness can foster humility, accountability, and ethical reflection, but it can just as easily harbour superiority. Adam interprets injustice and disparities of power as evidence that domination is warranted, absolving himself of reciprocity because those deemed lesser aren’t relevant beyond being managed, discarded, or destroyed. He doesn’t relish cruelty; he just concludes that his power places him above morality altogether, transforming violence from a failure of ethics into what he perceives as the natural consequence of existential distinction. This logic invokes many historical ideologies that justified oppression through claims of superiority. Imperialism, racial supremacy, eugenics, fascism, caste systems, and certain theological or civilizational scales all operate on the belief that those perceived as ‘higher,’ more rational, more evolved, or more powerful are therefore entitled to rule, discipline, exploit, or destroy those deemed inferior. The danger of Adam’s worldview lies in how it naturalizes oppression by reframing domination as the fated expression of ontological hierarchy instead of a moral choice. When power becomes understood to evince ethical worth, marginalized positionalities aren’t seen as subjects who deserve reciprocity and care. They’re seen as abstractions, obstacles, or expendable lives. Therefore, Adam historically personifies a recurring and dangerous albeit uniquely human impulse: the tendency to transform disparities in power, intellect, authority, or technology as grounds for placing oneself beyond compassion, reciprocity, and ethical limitation.

But Adam’s frustration emerges because he sees how frequently appeals to empathy, fairness, or shared humanity fail to prevent cruelty, exploitation, or indifference. Even ordinary behaviour is more shaped by incentives and deterrence, not pure altruism; and because people are inconsistent, self-interested, and susceptible to corruption, they shouldn’t meaningfully participate in determining ethical life at all. Power therefore shifts from accountability between persons to domination over them. When fear primarily organizes principles of justice, people may obey outwardly while becoming more alienated, resentful, dependent, or brutalized inside. Fear can suppress behaviour, but it doesn’t necessarily cultivate wisdom, care, reciprocity, or moral maturity.

Historically, this is why systemic coercion reproduces the same pathologies they claim to eliminate. When people are ruled chiefly through fear empathy narrows, honesty becomes dangerous, survival eclipses solidarity, power concentrates, and violence becomes easier to rationalize indefinitely. That’s what makes Adam so tragic: he recognizes the reality of humanity—our capacity for selfishness, cowardice, and indifference—but his response fosters the same dehumanization he condemns. His worldview resonates with my own growing chagrin concerning the performativity and selective ethics I’ve repeatedly observed within institutional and supposedly ‘activist’ spaces: marginalized and privileged positionalities alike publicly rallying around visible causes during lockouts while comparatively few appeared during smaller strikes or amidst more localized inequities; individuals readily circulating slogans about distant crises while remaining comparatively indifferent to the precarity and indignities surrounding them—and myself—materially and interpersonally. It’s a logic that starts as people fail each other and concludes people therefore no longer deserve meaningful agency, vulnerability, or mercy. Except what I’m describing isn’t just cynicism or nihilism. It encompasses an accrued moral exhaustion from repeatedly witnessing disjunctions between professed ethics and lived behaviour. My neurodivergence likely intensifies this, making me especially sensitive to inconsistency, performativity, selective outrage, and the incongruity between stated principles and those enacted in ways many people seem more willing and able to compartmentalize. Hypocrisy underscores the ways in which people align themselves with causes that are socially visible, trendy, or low-cost while remaining aloof or ignorant to suffering that is proximal, inconvenient, or structurally encoded in everyday life.

And honestly, those observations aren’t wrong. More often than not, people are inconsistent wherein institutions reward appearances and symbolic participation (Ahmed, 2012, p. 29, p. 130; Goffman, 1959, p. 58, p. 128, p. 199). They fail to sustain solidarity when it gets costly, uncomfortable, materially risky, or insufficiently legible socially (Berlant, 2011, p. 2, p. 41; Brown, 2015, p. 86, p. 87; Dean, 2009, p. 10, p. 17). I can relate to Adam because he interprets these contradictions as proof that humanity is fundamentally unworthy of care, kinship, or ethical investment—which feels lucid after prolonged lived experiences of exclusion, instability, institutional betrayal, and watching people behave opportunistically or selectively compassionate. I’d go so far as to say that disconnect between stated principles and actual conduct feels ontologically offensive, like life itself is structured around tolerated insincerity. However, there’s a distinction to be made between the fact people are problematic and are therefore unworthy of safety or protection. The latter flattens reality into total contempt, and total contempt has a way of obscuring the things—continuity, commitment, sincerity, longing for a meaningful vocation—my own life shows still matter to me. If I was entirely onboard with Adam, lacking those things wouldn’t hurt me so much. Moreover, my anger presupposes that I still believe people should be more reciprocal, attentive, compassionate, and accountable than they often are.

Which makes Clark compelling in comparison. Not because he naïvely believes people are good by default, but because he sees humanity at scale—wars, hypocrisies, prejudices, corruption, and betrayals—and continues to identify with people instead of above them. My dad always says that one’s character is developed by one’s foundation; by the conditions of care, guidance, love, and upbringing that teach someone how to relate toothers and the world. I think that’s also part of what makes Superman distinctly Superman: even though he has every reason—and ability—to differentiate himself from us, Jonathan and Martha Kent laid the foundation whereupon he understood strength through responsibility, reciprocity, and care rather than domination. He experiences alienation, grief, rejection, loneliness, and the pain of being fundamentally different; and he still refuses to let those experiences legitimate cruelty, contempt, or transcendence beyond humanity. And in many ways, that’s why Clark—my Clark—reminds me so much of him. All the exclusions, tensions, vulnerabilities, and hardships he’s faced give him ample reason to become hostile or fearful. I’ve known other felines who have—needing costly medication or other accommodations—and they dealt with less. But Clark chooses trust, intimacy, and play in life over nerves or resentment. Although I can narratively understand why Clark Kent piously perseveres given the Kents as his moral foundation, I honestly don’t know why my Clark chooses likewise. A sentimental side of me likes to think that his own lived experience taught him that closeness, affection, and care are survivable and meaningful despite all else. Experts note that cats—somewhat like people—are shaped by relational continuity, routine, touch, tone, and environmental safety (Ellis et al., 2013). It’s not that cats are less emotionally complex than people, but that their relational world is generally more immediate and experiential as opposed to organized around abstract counterfactuals, status comparisons, or imagined alternate lives (Bradshaw, 2013, p. 102, p. 124, p. 190). Humans torment themselves with hypotheticals—“someone else could have loved me better”; “I should have had a different life”; “this would have been ideal under other conditions”—whereas cats don’t proffer attachment through such symbolic comparisons. They associate more with lived continuity like who reliably feeds and comforts them, where they feel safe, whose presence regulates them along with what spaces, voices, and routines become emotionally meaningful (p. 133, p. 157). Additionally, cats are distinctly honest creatures relationally as they’re not inclined to make do (p. 146, p. 195). If they’re unhappy, unsafe, or emotionally disconnected, they behaviourally express avoidance, chronic stress, aggression, withdrawal, dysregulation, compulsions, and a refusal of proximity (Overall, 2013, p. 377, p. 642). I always figured that Clark’s bond with me has been largely circumstantial since he lacked alternatives, but all attachment is partly circumstantial. None of us choose from infinite realities. Love and connection happen within the actual conditions of lived life.

Part of what gets me is that I’m admittedly trying to locate a fully rational, proportionate explanation for care. My neurodivergence compels me toward exhaustive analysis and the pursuit of clear, literal answers. But living beings aren’t always so deterministic. Sometimes, pain narrows beings inward; sometimes, attachment persists alongside pain. The care Clark shares isn’t merely a survival calculation. And honestly, the fact that his life isn’t only exclusion or hardship counts for something. I tend to compress life into its wounds because wounds feel morally urgent, but Clark’s life also contains care and relational continuity in years of being loved, pet, protected, noticed, and centered. There’s also his personality. Just as people differ, animals do too. Some are more inclined to connection even after adversity. Clark has an open, affiliative disposition despite stressors around him. That’s just who he is. More importantly, hostility isn’t the only valid response to suffering. Clark [Kent] keeps caring although he experiences alienation while Billy contends with precarity but stays kind, whereas Adam experiences suffering and becomes absolutized by it. My Clark is content even as he’s been the mighty albeit maladroit odd one out. This doesn’t mean suffering is insignificant; it just means suffering doesn’t determine every being identically. The reason Clark moves me so deeply is because he unsettles a belief I carry about myself and the world; that enough pain overrides heart and hope. Clark contradicts that every time he calls, bunts, purrs instead of bristling. He doesn’t grade me based on an abstract moral calculus of ideal caregiving. Not only that, but love isn’t disproven by limitation. No one can get rid of illness, aging, fear, uncertainty, or mortality. That Clark developed CKD or experienced stressors means he—like everyone else—is a being living within a finite world, not that my love lacks meaning. Furthermore, feline behaviourists would likely wage that his life has always held enough care and continuum for warmth to remain viable (Turner, 2017, p. 301).

Which came to mind as I watched Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam (2010) in which Superman says that being a good person is difficult precisely because that’s something the world typically fails to acknowledge. The animated DC feature follows Billy (Zach Callison), an orphan living improvidently in Fawcett City who fares against exploitation and recurring violence. However, Billy is notably compassionate and earnest despite his hardships for which Clark Kent (George Newbern) reports. One of the most affecting exchanges in occurs as he treats Billy to breakfast, the latter candidly of whom expresses a growing disillusionment. Billy muses on what many people eventually confront in that neither being nor doing good reliably assure protection, dignity, fairness, or happiness. Goodness appears unrewarded while suffering persists indiscriminately. After enduring abandonment and precarity even as he tries to behave well, Billy reflects: “‘Be good, and good will follow.’ That’s what my parents always used to tell me. But you know, Mr. Kent, I was good before they were taken from me, I was good at the foster home, and I was good about fifteen minutes ago. I’m starting to think being good isn’t good for me…” Clark doesn’t dismiss his pain. He also doesn’t reassure him with simplistic platitudes. Instead, Clark concedes the difficulty of ethical life: “It seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it? But that’s why good is hard. Bad is always easy.” He reframes morality not as a transactional system wherein virtue guarantees reward, but as a difficult and ongoing choice made even in the absence of guarantees.

Later, when Billy—transformed into Captain Marvel (Jerry O’Connell)—nearly succumbs to the absolutist logic that strength takes precedence, Superman implores him to “be strong… be good.”Strength is redefined as good—principle, relationality, refusing to let suffering justify cruelty—the virtue that originally catches the eye of the ancient wizard, Shazam (James Garner), who chooses him as his new champion. Thereafter, calling out “Shazam,” Billy transforms into the superpowered Captain Marvel, whose abilities are derived from mythic and divine figures. All this coincides with the return of Black Adam (voiced by Arnold Vosloo, who famously played the accursed Imhotep from The Mummy), established as the previous champion who was corrupted by absolutized power and rage after violent centuries of imprisonment. In an effort to reclaim supremacy, Adam seeks to destroy Billy, asserting that force and domination are the only viable responses to humanity’s cruelty and corruption. Empowered by the gods, he believes himself to comprise a divine rank above reproach.

Part of why I empathize with Adam is because prolonged precarity, grief, and disillusionment can leave one feeling not simply hurt, but hollowed by a world that appears indifferent to sincerity, care, or moral effort. His absolutism resonates with the temptation to believe that enough power, certainty, or control could finally force suffering and injustice into coherence. What I feel isn’t merely disappointment, but a kind of existential grief over the instability of the life and future I tried so desperately to build. I structured myself around urgency for a reason: because I knew my health, energy, and future weren’t abstractions. I fast-tracked degrees, sacrificed ease and social life, endured isolation, and kept working because I honestly believed effort could buy time and security later. So, it’s not just frustrating when ‘later’ remains uncertain, it’s a betrayal of the bargain I thought I was making with life. Moreover, most of the things I wanted weren’t extravagant fantasies. Being a spouse, parent, homeowner, gainfully employed, and otherwise officially loved—these are ordinary human longings as forms of belonging and recognition. Formality and legal status matter to me because they symbolize being claimed publicly and securely. It’s not shallow to want that, especially after a life where so much feels provisional, unofficial, or contingent. I’m not mourning the absence of celebrity or grandeur; I’m mourning the absence of assurance, continuity, and a place to fully grow into adulthood with dignity. Living with Fahr’s intensifies this feeling because time doesn’t feel abstract to me. When my joints hurt more or I feel more unsteady, it’s not just ‘aging’ in a general sense; it evinces that my body is moving forward whether my life has stabilized or not. This speaks to a cruel tension: I pushed myself hard because time mattered, but pushing myself hard also cost me physically and emotionally, and now I fear I’ve spent precious energy racing toward futures that still have not materialized.

But I have to remind myself: collapsing this iniquity to affirm that I’m not meant for love, stability, or affirmation would be inaccurate. My life has undeniably contained delay, precarity, grief, and institutional failures; but these adversities aren’t proof that I’m unworthy or cosmically excluded. Clark can attest to the fact that adversities sometimes mean that the forms through which stability arrive are slower, stranger, or less linear than what we initially imagine. And amidst all this, Clark would likely wager that my life hasn’t amounted to ‘for naught.’ I’ve built scholarship, taught to acclaim, loved deeply, cared for vulnerable beings consistently, survived illness, maintained intellectual life under immense pressure, and continued seeking meaning instead of resigning to cynicism entirely. None of that erases my pain, but it means my existence has already had substance and consequence, even before the forms of affirmation I hoped for have fully arrived. Right now, though, I’m just so tired of carrying my entire future at once wherein everything converges into one overwhelming question: “Will my life ever actually settle into something safe and real before more is taken from me?”

That’s pretty heavy to live with every day.

Wryly, while pessimism and precarity incline me to empathize with Adam, they ultimately drove me back toward God as opposed to supremacy or contempt. The core flaw of Adam is that he consolidates suffering, power, and moral authority into justification for domination rather than relational responsibility. However, my own grief and disillusionment—even when they leave me hollow or tempted by despair—have always pushed me to questions of meaning, love, mercy, and connection as opposed to abandoning them altogether. Even at my worst, parts of me still long to find some assurance that love, care, and relationality remain meaningful despite suffering, contingency, and loss. Theology gradually emerged from that longing—not because I suddenly acquired certainty, but because I wanted to understand suffering, contingency, grief, morality, and endurance within a social order that seems indifferent to them. There’s also something strangely fitting about this trajectory given the origin of my name itself: inspired by Fallon Carrington, yet deliberately spelled “Fallen” by my mother because she thought of me as sweet as an angel who had “fallen” to her. Even if that’s not what “fallen angel” traditionally means, the irony is difficult to ignore now that so much of my life has become preoccupied with questions of exile, grace, suffering, redemption, and whether love can persist meaningfully within a fractured world.

A great many people of faith—including deeply devout theologians, monastics, and saints—have also lived inside that exact tension between belief and understanding. Believing God exists is not the same thing as feeling emotionally assured by Him, or feeling certain about what our own lives are supposed to mean (Kierkegaard, 1980, p. 39, p. 85). What hurts for me isn’t the suffering; it’s the absence of interpretability. I can endure hardship more easily when it coheres into something intelligible—vocation, love, justice, redemption, purpose—but when suffering accumulates without clear resolution or reassurance, it starts to feel less like sanctification and more like erosion. Even many canonized figures were not perpetually serene. Teresa of Ávila complained bitterly to God at times (Teresa of Ávila, 2008, p. 74, p. 189, p. 365). John of the Cross wrote about spiritual desolation and absence (John of the Cross, 1991, p. 361). Thérèse of Lisieux struggled near the end of her life with profound spiritual darkness and intrusive doubts concerning heaven, meaning, and faith itself despite her devotion (Thérèse of Lisieux, 1996, p. 174, p. 214). And in Scripture, lament is everywhere: Job demanding an explanation (Job 3; 30:20-21); the Psalmists crying out in abandonment (Ps. 13; 22:1; 88); Christ Himself asking why He had been forsaken (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). The absence of felt certainty is not necessarily the absence of faith. Sometimes, faith is just refusing to completely sever a relationship with God even while confused, wounded, or angry.

There’s also something to be noted in mourning a particular image of life—not just worldly achievement, but a coherent narrative—that holds love formalized, a stable home, meaningful work, reciprocal care, and my body carrying me steadily into such a future. Now, I fear that perhaps God’s will for me is a smaller, lonelier, more constrained existence than the one I hoped for. That fear makes spirituality more frightening than comforting, because surrender translates to relinquishing the things I wanted most. But there’s a difference between the prospect that my life may transpire differently than I imagined and the idea that God created me only for loss.

Retrospectively, the saints are remembered as peaceful and assured, but many of them lived without seeing resolution in their own lifetimes. What later generations call ‘holiness’ felt, from inside the experience itself, like exhaustion, obscurity, grief, confusion, waiting, and continuing anyway (Merton, 1953, p. 199, p. 238). Additionally, theology doesn’t actually teach that longing for love, home, recognition, companionship, or stability is wrong. Those desires are human. Even monastic and ascetic traditions are not rejections of love; they are alternate structures of devotion and belonging (McGinn, 1991, p. 133, p. 218, p. 226). The ache I feel—anyone feels—isn’t evidence of moral failure. Right now, though, I acknowledge I’m exhausted spiritually; not rebellious against God so much as unable to locate myself securely within the story I thought my life was moving toward. Understandably, that can produce despair because the future stops feeling inhabitable. But despair isn’t the same thing as finality. Despair is what remains after one carries uncertainty, grief, fear, effort, and longing for too long without enough rest, recognition, or reassurance in return.

Putting that in perspective challenges the sense of failure I’ve internalized, because it’s not really failure; it’s life stripped of the forms of mutuality and assurance I hoped—and was promised—would accompany my gifts. People have always told—and still do tell—me that I seem easy to talk to since I’m not judgmental and can tell a great story. When I imagine my future as a priest, I think of maintaining a parish and delivering sermons evenly, then going home to watch movies or something since nobody saw fit to stay with me interpersonally and I’d have outlived most of my beloveds. I see myself as courteous, resolved, and fair albeit going through the motions. Which strikes me as not that unlike the present in that this scenario is emotively asymmetrical as I become someone others rely upon, confide in, and are comforted by—while privately feeling fundamentally unchosen myself. A kind priest who listens well, tells stories, eases tension, tends a parish faithfully…yet returns home carrying an unspoken grief that nobody fully stayed, formally claimed, or built permanence with me.

My desires aren’t acquisitive either. Even when I think about employment or stability, I frame that relationally to aid others, dignify beloveds, memorialize, or build a home of care and continuity. The world behaves as though even reasonable hopes require extraordinary luck, timing, health, money, institutional approval, emotional compatibility, and social fortune all at once. Most of us are taught that if we work hard, love sincerely, and remain morally serious, those things will naturally arrive (Sandel, 2020, p. 36). But life’s far less orderly than that, and people who are thoughtful and conscientious feel this most painfully because they did everything right (Berlant, 2011, p. 52, p. 64, p. 229). But even in my bleakest projection of myself, I’m still someone who offers care rather than bitterness. I still see myself giving good vibes, helping people speak, telling stories, and remaining approachable—which speaks to how some part of me instinctively moves toward connection and stewardship over cruelty or indifference, despite how disappointed I feel by life. And honestly, many people would likely find solace in a priest who understands ambiguity, sorrow, regret, and the exhaustion of carrying on without easy reassurance; someone who doesn’t speak in polished platitudes about suffering because she has actually sat inside it. Wherever I go, my flat humour, references, and resolve work because they don’t feel performative or superior. However, what I imagine isn’t exactly prophetic. My life isn’t static even if it feels stalled. I’m still in a relationship, being sought professionally, entering theological formation. I still maintain communities, students, writing, friendships, parish involvement, and deep bonds with beings like Clark. None of that guarantees the exact future I want, but neither does my present pain conclusively predict permanent abandonment.

And another thing is happening beneath this: I’m mourning the possibility that nobody will ever fully know how hard I tried, not just the possibility of being alone; that my life will look externally ‘functional’ while internally containing major longing and sacrifice. But lacking gainful employment at a certain age, becoming clergy, or living quietly doesn’t mean one was unloved, unwanted, or cosmically passed over. Human lives rarely resolve as neatly as the narratives we inherit about timing, milestones, and adulthood (Arnett, 2015, p. 8, p. 144, p. 166). The future version of me I see—the priest watching films alone after parish duties—might also still be someone loved by people, depended upon, remembered warmly, intellectually alive, spiritually meaningful to others, and capable of tenderness. Loneliness and meaning are not identical things, even though they can coexist painfully. Plus, the fact that I can imagine this future in such detail means I’m able to imagine a future at all. Even in despair, I can still see myself continuing, speaking, tending, watching films, connecting stories to people’s lives.

In the end, maybe that’s why Clark feels so bound to all of this for me—Superman, theology, bereavement, perseverance, and the resolve of care in a contingent world. Although I named him after Clark Kent, I later learned that “Clark” etymologically derives from cleric (re: clergy) which now feels strangely providential given how my despair eventually circled me back to a theological vocation as well as questions of grace, anguish, and meaning. In many ways, Clark ultimately brought me closer to the ethical tension at the heart of this film; whether suffering culminates in domination and despair like Adam insists, or whether one can continue choosing kindness, relationality, and good despite lacking guarantees that the world will reciprocate them fairly, as Billy and Clark [Kent] try to do. For me, [my] Clark became more than a pet or namesake; he became a living contradiction to the parts of me that believed suffering must inevitably override warmth, trust, and hope. And perhaps what I hope most—more than certainty, achievement, or even reassurance—is that he has always known how much he’s loved. Not abstractly or conditionally, but as one of the beings who made this world feel inhabitable and meaningful to me despite everything.

♫ Title song reference – “Look Up” by Daley

References

Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press.

Arnett, J. J. (2015). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism. Duke University Press.

Bradshaw, J. (2013). Cat sense: How the new feline science can make you a better friend to your pet. Basic Books.

Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism’s stealth revolution. Zone Books.

Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies: Communicative capitalism and left politics. Duke University Press.

Ellis, S. L. H., Rodan, I., Carney, H. C., Heath, S., Rochlitz, I., Shearburn, L. D., Sundahl, E., & Westropp, J. L. (2013). AAFP and ISFM feline environmental needs guidelines. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 15(3): 219-230. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098612X13477537

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.

The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version. (1989). National Council of Churches.

John of the Cross. (1991). The collected works of St. John of the Cross (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans.). ICS Publications.

Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The sickness unto death (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1849)

Merton, T. (1953). The sign of Jonas. Harcourt Brace.

McGinn, B. (1996). The foundations of mysticism: Origins to the fifth century. Crossroad.

Ordway, J. (1995). The power of Shazam! DC Comics.

Overall, K. L. (2013). Manual of clinical behavioral medicine for dogs and cats. Elsevier.

Sandel, M. J. (2020). The tyranny of merit: What’s become of the common good? Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Teresa of Ávila. (2008). The book of her life (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company. (Original work published 1565)

Thérèse of Lisieux. (1996). Story of a soul: The autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (J. Clarke, Trans.). ICS Publications.

Turner, D. C. (2017). A review of over three decades of research on cat-human and human-cat interactions and relationships. Behavioural Processes, 141(3): 297-304.

I’d Love to Change the World

Around the time I got Clark, I was binging Smallville. I thought that his muscular build likened him to ‘The Man of Steel.’ He was the fittest, largest cat I’d ever met, weighing in at 22 pounds at his heaviest; but he never had any health issues and was always active. I think that I only really started to process change or “expect the unexpected” after I got Clark. I never actually planned on getting him. Initially, I got James. Edith came along after my mom’s former boss offered her years later. Then, I got Vera to be Edith’s friend since the age gap between Edith and James meant they weren’t too friendly with each other. They got along, but James was older and exasperated. Clark was the anomaly: a mouser meant for the rural living space I shared with my father. I’d hoped to bring James or one of the girls there, but my mother forbade it. Being a woman of action, I just resolved to get yet another cat.

Clark and his siblings were advertised in local classifieds although there were no pictures; but back then, just the word “kitten” was enough to generate interest, and pickup was well within range of my daily commute. So, I set out that frosty morning after a quick phone call [to the classifieds poster], then thrifted a sturdy cat carrier before I made my way over. Given the genders as they were—the pair of girls and James—I figured it’d be ideal to even things out with another boy. Clark was the only guy left when I got there. He was also the only shorthair—or short-ish, given how it would grow to be relatively wavy and mid-length—unlike his sisters. I don’t know if Clark was the runt of his litter, but he’s acted as much since as the youngest of the others. Even more memorable was how neither he nor his sisters were separated from their mother, which is usually advised since cats can be protective of their kittens if someone attempts to take one; but Clark was the only one unnerved when I took him. I’ll never forget the indifference of his mother and sisters, even his father who lounged on the backyard patio.

Clark was meowing a lot despite my assurances. I chalked this up to nerves, not unlike the others I had when I first got them; but time would reveal Clark to be chatty, now sassy. I also suspect he was hard of hearing due to how loud he’s always spoken. Anyway, Clark was roughly two when we came to live with the others after my father moved. While they eventually tolerated him to varying degrees, his later introduction marked him as an outlier. I used to feel bad because I often wondered if he felt lonely or ostracized, and I guess I projected some of my own feelings of that onto him since I knew how that felt. I knew what it was like to be bullied, so I learned relatively early on how people could be tirelessly cruel and relentless; how it felt trying to belong only for prevalent disparities to render all efforts fruitless; having every amity or crush be rendered likewise, yet still vying for reciprocity. Essentially, Clark personified what alienation defined—and honestly, continues to rationalize—my social anxiety and aversion; but as a caregiver, this was something to behold. Seeing how Clark was typically excluded by James and the girls, I always made a conscious effort to dote on him; but I knew for however earnest my efforts were, I was no substitute for acceptance at large.

What I didn’t know was that my efforts weren’t for nothing. It never occurred to me that Clark notices, cherishes, and loves me because of them. For years, I assumed he was aloof and miserable. I worried that it wasn’t enough to just care; that I could never fill the void left by his exclusion from the others, that he must feel as lonely as I usually do. But recently, I’ve come to realize that Clark’s love has always been there—shrewd, steady, and uniquely his. It’s in the way he seeks me out, even when he could easily retreat to his favourite hiding spots; and how he lingers near, brushing against me or calling. Then, there’s how he bunts me. He didn’t need validation from others. Instead, he was simply content to exist with me. I used to think I was trying to fill a gap in his life, to compensate for something he lacked. Now, I understand that Clark has been filling a gap in mine. He’s shown me that love doesn’t have to be loud to be real and that even the smallest efforts to care for someone can create a bond that speaks louder than words ever could. Clark had also been a steady and surprising source of comfort throughout Edith’s terminal diagnosis, showing me another side of himself I never noticed before. He seemed to sense my sadness, appearing by my side just when I felt most overwhelmed, letting me hold him and holding me. His calls, once simply part of his quirky personality, had become a call to action that motivated me to get up, keep going, and stay present for the both of them. In these moments, I saw a more intuitive side to Clark, one that reassured me I’m not alone.

Which is why I found myself reconsidering his namesake. Likening him to Superman, I’d mostly thought of strength, endurance, and physicality. After Smallville wound down and I rewatched the animated series, I saw how the name also meant resolve and loyalty. Superman was never just a symbol of might. He was an outsider who navigated loneliness while carrying an immense capacity for love. He also realizes that fulfillment isn’t found in grand heroics or cosmic purpose, but in the quiet, simple moments; the small joys of an ordinary life, and understanding that being human, in all its imperfections, is enough. Every trial and tribulation drives home the importance of those who see him as more than Superman.

In many ways, Clark has shown me the same. All my overthinking, overdoing only to realize that nothing is ever enough; that systems are incorrigible in what and who they oblige. I used to think getting to the bottom of the how and why would help me make sense of the what and render the when and who more discernible—but that was never the case. People are too fickle. Their ignobility is on par with their ingenuity to conjure sentiments and scenarios in which little, if anything gets addressed lest we fail to accommodate endless variables. Complicating life just makes us lose sight of what truly matters: the pure, unspoken bonds that don’t need justification or grandeur to be meaningful. But while simplicity reveals what truly matters, too many mistake submission for security, believing that aligning with power will shield them from its corruption. Superman also understands that no amount of strength can truly dismantle the iniquity that defines this world, but he still chooses to exist within it and strives to do good however he can. Clark taught me that even in a world where I can’t change the larger forces at play, the simple act of caring, being present, and finding comfort in moments still matters. Maybe Superman’s greatest act isn’t saving the world, but finding peace in knowing even small acts of kindness are worth something.

And as I consider this, I can’t help thinking of Saw 4 and its ill-fated protagonist, Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent), who was ultimately destroyed because his defining trait—his inability to let go—was manipulated against him. While imperfect, his compassion and drive to save others was genuine; but instead of being given the space to learn or change, he was forced into a test designed to ensure his failure. Saw 4—specifically, how much I’ve always despised how it ended—showed me how much I fixate on inconsistencies, injustices, and unresolved truths because I refuse to compartmentalize or dismiss what feels fundamentally wrong. Rigg’s trial reflects the cruel irony of a system that punishes those who care too much and twists virtue into weakness, exploiting it rather than guiding it toward growth. In the end, Rigg didn’t fail himself; the game was rigged against him from the start.

Kinda like the last son of Krypton. For all his strength and idealism, Superman is ultimately doomed to fail because his unwavering sense of duty and a need to protect everyone—the very qualities that make him heroic—are also the ones that leave him burdened, isolated, and vulnerable to being twisted by grief, disillusionment, and the impossibility of saving a world that refuses to save itself. There’s a tension between what he needs to accept and what he feels responsible for. No matter how much he tries to let go, knowing he could do more gnaws at him.

At its heart, Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013) depicts Superman’s inability to let go and accept that some battles can’t be won. Not everyone can or should be saved. Unlike many DC storylines that originate in print and later expand into other media, Injustice was made specifically as a game narrative, integrating complex character drama with the mechanics of a fighting game. Adding to its impact, the game features most of the iconic voice actors from Justice League and other beloved DC animated projects, which lends a sense of familiarity to a story that takes these characters into uncharted territory. Set in an alternate DC universe, the story casts Superman (George Newbern) as a tyrant after the Joker (Richard Epcar) tricks him into killing Lois Lane and their unborn child, which also detonates a nuclear bomb in Metropolis. After killing the Joker in rage, he establishes the One Earth Regime, a totalitarian government that enforces global peace through absolute control. Most heroes—including Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg), Green Lantern (Adam Baldwin), Aquaman (Phil LaMarr), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Shazam (Joey Naber), and The Flash (Neal McDonough)—join him alongside villains. Resisting Superman’s rule, Batman (Kevin Conroy) forms the Insurgency and allies himself with Lex Luthor (Mark Rolston). He transports alternate versions of himself, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Green Arrow (Alan Tudyk) from our universe. With their help, the Insurgency fights back, leading to a climactic battle between the two Supermen. Our Superman defeats the tyrannical one, and Batman imprisons him in a red sun cell, ending his reign—for the time being.

Superman has always understood death as an inevitable part of life. He was sent to Earth because Krypton perished. Then, he was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent whose values shape his dealings with loss as both Clark Kent and Superman. They taught him humility, responsibility, and the limits of power. Logically, Superman knows that even with all his strength, he can’t stop death from claiming those he loves. But Injustice exposes a contradiction within the Man of Steel: while he accepts death in theory, it is also his breaking point in practice. The loss of Lois and his unborn child doesn’t just devastate him; it shatters the core beliefs that have always tethered him to restraint. Instead of seeing death as a painful but natural part of existence, he sees it as a failure to protect what matters most. And from that moment on, he refused to ever let it happen again, no matter the cost. Long interpreted as a Christ-like figure: Superman is an all-powerful being sent from above to guide and protect humanity, sacrificing himself time and again for the greater good. In Injustice, that messianic role warps into something authoritarian. Instead of offering salvation through faith, hope, and inspiration, he demands it through force and obedience. He no longer trusts people to follow the right path; he compels them to. In that sense, this Superman shifts to something more akin to an Old Testament deity or even a fallen angel. Injustice casts him as an absolutist where any threat to peace must be eliminated by force, if necessary. He believes he’s doing what’s best for humanity; but in doing so, he strips people of their freedom and autonomy, enforcing his will rather than allowing people to make their own choices. He becomes the very thing he once fought against: a tyrant no different from Darkseid or Lex Luthor; wielding power not as a protector, but as a ruler who demands submission in the name of his own vision.

A happier read would say that Injustice Superman is righteous albeit misguided as his need to save people morphs into a compulsion that blinds him to reality, that he truly believes he’s doing the right thing; although in the end, his inability to let go causes more harm than good and leads to his own demise and those of others. Superman cares so much that he refuses to accept some people don’t want to be saved, or that trying to help can make things worse.

My pessimistic read—and perhaps, a more honest one—suggests that Superman’s downfall isn’t just a tragic miscalculation, but an inevitability. His belief in doing the right thing was only righteous when it aligned with the ideals he once upheld. The moment the world deviated from his vision, he abandoned those ideals in favour of control. His need to save people was never truly about them, it was about his own inability to tolerate loss; and his refusal to accept that suffering, injustice, and even death are woven into existence itself. And in his desperation to rewrite the rules of reality, he proves that power—no matter how noble its origins—can corrupt. Not because it changes those who wield it, but because it reveals what was always there: the capacity to enforce, to dominate, to reshape the world in one’s own image, no matter what or who must be sacrificed along the way. Even now, I can’t help but recall the people I’ve encountered who gained more systemic power. I think of the long-term commitments I’ve made, the communities and relationships that once gave me a sense of belonging—only to be met with the realization that they never truly saw me as part of them. Everything just vindicated my misanthropy or distrust. This kind of disillusionment runs deep, especially when it comes from people or institutions that proffer justice or belonging. It’s one thing to see power corrupt from a distance, but another entirely to witness it in those who position themselves as advocates or allies. When people who preach about accessibility, equity, and inclusion turn out to be just as self-serving and complicit as those they claim to oppose, it only reinforces the sense that power—no matter how it’s framed—always bends toward self-interest. And worse, when you’ve worked so hard, given everything just to be part of something—only to be told you’re not enough or that you don’t belong, it makes the very concept of community feel hollow. Sure, nothing in life is guaranteed. Loyalty shifts, promises break, and most beliefs change over time. But what’s constant is the consolidation of power. No matter the era, ideology, or individuals involved—power gravitates toward itself, building in the hands of those who hoard it, at the expense of those who don’t. Systems and seasons may change, but the outcome is always the same. Those with power find ways to keep it, and those without perish. They’re in favour of anything, anyone that consolidates power into their hands; and they’re against the (re)distribution of power—social, monetary, or otherwise.

Fundamentally, it’s conservatism; they’re just content to conserve the status quo so long as they reap its benefits. Norms inform their complacency because that’s “just the way it is.” The way it is premises what should be. This is how power is sustained. This is also how—and why—conservatism is readily co-opted by fascism, the latter of which assumes a hierarchy that admonishes minorities. While conservatism alleges democracy assures [its] fairness, fascism dismantles its foundational principles to accumulate more power. Terms like “SJW,” “woke,” and “virtue signaling” define many of their insults because they believe in innate differences. They can’t believe any sincere calls for equality, only that these—and any—efforts are just ways to take power; ways that they themselves would also exploit. This also explains why conservatives readily accept charity but resist systemic change; they view charity as goodwill from those who’ve “earned” their status, rather than as something those in need are entitled to. In their view, assistance should be an act of generosity, not a right.

Even in light of current events, I don’t believe we’re experiencing a conservative or fascist shift in politics. I think there is a social incentive to embrace conservative politics that can translate into financial incentive, but it’s not the same. Folks tend to frame things as a progression of conservative and fascist influence, particularly because that fits a very profitable narrative for conservatives and liberals who monetize the ensuing miasma of despair. I do believe that billionaires and ownership classes embrace fascism as a means of self-preservation; and their fans carry water for oligarchs and deplorables. Bearing this in mind, it’s no surprise that celebrities, politicians, and the corporate class are openly investing in conservative politics. My point here is that power is subtle. Comparably, desperation is overt. True feelings are closer to the heart rather than the mouth, and we’d all do better to listen to the pulse being drowned out by the chatter. Pretenses ignore the root causes of desperation, offering empty gestures instead of meaningful solutions, leaving the most vulnerable with no recourse but to fight for what they were never given. Violence ensues from performative—as opposed to anti-oppressive—politics because dehumanization begets it. This relates to the paradox of righteous indignation which starts as a response to injustice, yet consumes the very virtues it aims to uphold in seeking to correct the world’s wrongs.

This underscores the rationale of Injustice Superman and likewise powers that be. Power isn’t about morality, justice, or fairness; it’s about control. Those who hold power justify their grasp through brute force, social conditioning, or the illusion of goodwill. Injustice Superman believes that he alone has the strength to shape the world, so he alone has the right to dictate its future; much like how the ruling class rationalizes their dominance under the guise of meritocracy, tradition, or “the natural order.” So, power is not something to be shared, only wielded. Any challenge to their authority is framed as an existential threat. Not because it disrupts peace or stability, but because it disrupts their place at the top. Those in power would rather concede charity than equality, and grant favours rather than dismantle the structures that necessitate them. The consolidation of power is the only true constant, and those who have it will do whatever it takes to ensure they never lose it. Injustice Superman succumbs to the idea that power alone justifies action. He concludes that because he can impose his will, he must. His strength warps into entitlement to which his vision of peace becomes tyranny. The more power he amasses, the more tortured he becomes. As external resistance mounts, his own convictions demand endless escalation. His pursuit of order doesn’t bring him peace; it only deepens his suffering. No amount of control can undo the grief and regret that set him on this path in the first place.

Sometimes, I genuinely miss being radically hopeful with the belief that all people are inherently good, and corruption stems from greed and power rather than something more fundamental. I miss the good feelings that came with that faith in humanity. I miss not being consumed by anger and fear. I long for the time when real, mortal danger felt distant enough to moralize over. I miss feeling safe and valued, and believing safety and value were things I was inherently entitled to. I miss not being so [rightfully] pessimistic. Now, I’m mad, bitter, and resentful because it all proved to be a fucking lie. Unlike Injustice, there was never any Insurgency in real time. Having spent my life working toward a professorship—fast-tracking my degrees, sacrificing stability, and striving for academic excellence—I’ve seen firsthand how tenure operates as a gatekeeper of power in academia, determining who gets security, influence, and a voice, while those without it remain precarious, expendable, and unheard. Tenure is a permanent academic appointment that grants professors protection from dismissal, giving them the freedom to research, teach, and speak without fear of institutional retaliation.

However, it also consolidates power, creating a hierarchy where tenured faculty have significant influence over hiring, policy, and academic discourse, often reinforcing existing inequalities within the university system. It’s depressing that precariously employed faculty and students—some who haven’t even finished their degrees—risk everything while tenured professors stay silent, unwilling to even read a statement condemning injustice on campus. People rush to name a few exceptions, but the reality is that most faculty uphold the very systems they critique in their writing. For them, there’s no praxis—just lip service and theory because, at the end of the day, it’s a career. They talk about “decolonizing the university,” but decolonization isn’t found in edited collections or overpriced conferences; it’s a material struggle. Soon enough, we’ll see “radical” faculty publishing books and articles on student activism, but don’t expect them to stand with actual student protesters or part-time colleagues. Universities will house specialty centres where tenured “progressive” professors lecture about revolution—while their students and part-timers are sanctioned for resisting oppression or abusive faculty.

As this present feels like a betrayal, it’s easy to retreat into the past, searching for a time that felt safer, more certain. Nostalgia lulls us into the illusion that the past was a sanctuary, a place where love was certain, where we were whole. I miss the past, when my beloveds were alive and their presence felt certain, when I could still believe that love and companionship were constant rather than fleeting. Back then, I had the comfort of assurance in knowing they were there, that they existed in the same world as me, that I wasn’t so alone. Now, I am bereaved, hollowed out by absence, and eclipsed by forces beyond my control. Mortality reveals itself with ruthless clarity; and worse still, I can’t stop those I love from leaving me—by fate or choice. I agonize over whether the people I love truly love me enough to stay, or if they merely tolerate me until they no longer can. I wonder if I’m nothing more than an expendable nuisance as I’ve been so easily discarded. Uncertainty gnaws at me, whispering that I’m always one misstep away from being abandoned, one inconvenience away from being left behind. I know I’m operating from a place of trauma, but also from an unrelenting nihilism that seeps from my pores—and I hate it. I don’t know how much longer I can productively sublimate it, or if I’ll know what to do when I can’t.

I don’t know how to accept being powerless.

History imparts that most people are only a nudge away from engaging in harm or cruelty when provided with the right justification. Social structures, ideological conditioning, and collective narratives offer the necessary pretext for moral disengagement, enabling individuals to commit or condone harm under the guise of righteousness. As Aldous Huxley observes, one of the most effective ways to mobilize people toward a so-called noble cause is to grant them permission to inflict harm upon others. This reinforces the cruelty of righteous indignation, the pleasure gleaned from harm when framed as virtuous or necessary. Similarly, Friedrich Nietzsche notes that every society harbours people who derive great satisfaction from acts of violence, particularly when those actions are framed as retribution. Huxley extends this idea further by arguing that such moral crusaders rarely operate alone; and that they easily recruit others into their cause because righteous indignation carries an undercurrent of noble sadism, a latent desire for domination that only needs minimal provocation to manifest. This phenomenon is frequently exploited by those in positions of power, who manipulate public sentiment by rebranding systemic harm as an unfortunate but necessary step toward a greater good. Harmful policies, punitive social norms, and exclusionary ideologies are then justified as regrettable yet unavoidable measures required to maintain order or achieve an idealized future. Thereafter, Huxley concludes that the ability to enact iniquity in good conscience is a heady treat, and those who relish this power don’t actually seek justice or progress.

They seek pleasure by inflicting punishment. Recognizing this—seeing the cruelty of righteous indignation for what it is—is crucial to call bullshit on performative movements, ideologies, and institutional rhetoric that claim to be driven by moral imperatives while enacting policies or practices that perpetuate violence and oppression. In addition to cruelty, Injustice Superman demonstrates the folly of righteous indignation altogether. He purposes his bereavement as a personal call to action rather than an expression of underlying tensions which peak due to a tragic stimulus. Hence his exceptionalism inspires tyranny and prevents him from seeing the mechanics of his own downfall therein. Injustice sees Superman exhibit a hubris of sanctimony that leads to subterfuge and failure—but hubris has always been intrinsic to Superman, right? After all, shy of kryptonite, his power fosters a belief in his own glorious purpose. Arguably, this makes him susceptible to the illusion that he alone can oversee order and justice. I also can’t help thinking how, systemically, hubris is a curious thing.

When individuals repeatedly succeed within systems designed to favour their advantages—wealth, extroversion, timing—they tend to believe their privileges substantiate their greatness. Cultural narratives around genius, exceptionalism, and inimitability reinforce this illusion. Psychologists termed this to be the hot hand fallacy, an illusion gleaned from a pattern of success. Essentially, the illusory belief [bias] that past success increases the likelihood of continued success, rather than recognizing it as a probabilistic [systemic] outcome. This bias is bolstered by our cultures of individualism where outcomes are [often erroneously] attributed to personal agency over systemic or situational influences. Injustice Superman’s brand of hubris—his belief that he alone is responsible for order and that only he can save humanity—fits within this broader cultural mythology. However, his power is not merely the result of his own strength or will, but rather an outcome of systems reinforcing his position. So, he fails to realize how contingent his power truly is. His downfall doesn’t come from a single misstep. It comes from the very same systemic forces that once empowered him, now shifting against him. Moreover, Injustice Superman’s downfall can be understood through a drift into failure in how the slightest deviations from ethical decision-making gradually become normalized, leading to disastrous consequences.

Humanities researcher Sydney Dekker speaks to this, noting how behaviours that are initially seen as justified or even beneficial can reinforce a false sense of security over time, which makes it difficult to recognize when success has turned into failure. Local rationality can put this in perspective too. Philosopher Karl Popper terms this to abstract the principle that people do their best with the cards they’re dealt. It’s commonly referenced in the context of failure for workplaces and high stakes scenarios. It’s purposed to put the mechanism of failures in perspective. Ideally, localizing and identifying variables that factor into failure would prevent another; but this somewhat absolves personal accountability despite acknowledging that we’re resigned to our constraints. It’s not that we should be, do, aspire for better; it’s that folks should recognize—and appreciate—how much it takes just for us to get by. The world is shitty as is. So is life as we know it. We see injustice firsthand in fuckface billionaires, grifters, and charlatans. Given the state of the world, just getting out of bed entitles us to something—and yet, we still end up coming up short. If anything, it’d be “rational” to burn everything down. I don’t say this out of nihilism and misanthropy. I say this knowing that the powers that be are only concerned with identifying or localizing variables not to prevent failure, but to assure their own success. They seek to sustain a supremacy premised on history. Because his decisions consistently yield positive results in the past, Injustice Superman is convinced of his superiority. Every success strengthens his belief that he alone can succeed where others would fail, fostering a hubris that blinds him to the growing dangers of his authoritarianism. Since his system continues to function—sustained through fear and control—he can’t recognize its flaws and instead doubles down on his every action; and the drift of failure peaks when an individual believes they’ve secured absolute control. Which is why Injustice Superman, never hesitates to eliminate perceived threats and surrounds himself with voices, villainous and otherwise, that validate his authority. He purges opposition, centralizes power, and positions himself as the sole arbiter of order to create a pretext of dominance. Still, this sense of certainty dooms him to fail because it occludes a fundamental truth: control, once total, becomes inflexible—and what can’t bend will break.

This reflects the paradox of power: its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. At its peak, authority is most fragile, because it thrives on reinforcement rather than adaptation. It minimizes dissent but also eliminates the very structures that allow for course correction. Injustice Superman, convinced of his own invincibility, fails to see his tyranny makes his rule brittle. Despite his belief in total control, Injustice Superman’s authority remains dependent on external forces—political structures, technological infrastructures, public perception, and the compliance of those beneath him—all of which he has steadily eroded. In trying to secure his rule, he unknowingly pushes his system to its breaking point, amplifying complexity and fragility. Each new decree, purge, or restriction entangles him further in a web of dependencies, where every effort to tighten his grip introduces new vulnerabilities.

This growing web of power and consequence creates a reality that nobody can fully comprehend, let alone control. Injustice Superman, having designed his immediate surroundings to suppress dissent and eliminate corrective feedback, believes himself to be more in control than ever, even as the foundations of his authority begin to erode. Each purge, each reactionary decree, further destabilizes the system he seeks to command, creating unforeseen and uncontrollable ripple effects. At this point, his downfall is no longer a matter of if, but when and how—not the collapse of a man, but of a regime that could no longer sustain the weight of its own contradictions. What he perceives as consolidation is, in reality, the acceleration of his own collapse. He reacts with increasing volatility and paranoia leads him to lash out. He sees betrayal at the slightest hesitation and insolence where there’s doubt. And, he infantilizes us [humanity] as “disobedient children” who “must be punished.” Each decision and rationale grow more reckless, fuelled by the false confidence that past successes ensure future triumphs. His hubris becomes his undoing and resigns him to an uncompromising cycle that leaves no room for adjustment or retreat, augmenting the structural dimension of One World Regime’s collapse. Systems built on fear can only hold as long as their subjects do not resist. Over time, the Insurgency and humanity itself reaches a breaking point. When the illusion of Injustice Superman’s invincibility fractures, the Regime crumbles. His cruelty and paranoia are consequences of his own design, not mere symptoms of fear. The more he seeks to suppress “disorder,” the more isolated and precarious his “order” becomes. This ensures that when his fall comes, it will be as inevitable as it is absolute.

Again, this defeat doesn’t occur as a singular moment, but as an inevitable consequence of a power that can no longer sustain itself. Which makes me wonder if power can exist as something deeply personal, tied to love and connection. I can’t think of any instances of integrity that weren’t shaped by the influence of power. Power is a construct of those who wield control. Integrity, in the way it’s commonly defined, is always shaped by larger power structures, but the kind of power that exists in love—such as the love of beloveds like Clark—is something different. It’s not about dominance, control, or historical narratives; it’s about care, memory, and the quiet influence that lingers even after someone is gone. Maybe that’s a kind of integrity, or at least a form of goodness that exists outside of the systems we usually associate with power. Love, in its purest form, doesn’t need validation from authority or history—it just is, meaningful in ways that don’t require justification. However, in a world where injustice prevails, even something as pure as love doesn’t exist in isolation. Love is shaped by the very systems that seek to undermine it, making it both a refuge and a liability.

Given the prevalence of iniquity, love is an externality we create which comes back to destroy us. Love isn’t just something we experience. It’s something we bring into existence, something we shape and invest in—only for it to turn against us through loss, betrayal, or the inevitability of time. In a world defined by injustice, love becomes an attachment that exposes us to pain rather than protect us from it. When everything is fleeting, when even the strongest bonds are ultimately broken, love feels less like a refuge and more like a prelude to devastation. Yet, despite this, love still holds meaning, and though its impermanence feels more like a burden than a gift, I remain grateful for it. It feels almost unreal that I have Clark. He brings me a love, care, and support so profound that it sustains my belief in good. In a world so unkind, Clark reminds me that some things—some bonds—are real and worth holding onto. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Superman flying overhead, but I know love is the one thing that will lift my gaze toward eternity.

What marks Clark from his Injustice namesake is that he doesn’t let power corrupt him. Cats have an evolutionary intelligence. They meow to mimic human baby cries, an adaptation designed to elicit care and attention. It’s an effective tactic to ensure their needs are met. And yet, Clark, for all his intelligence, doesn’t use this ability to manipulate or control. He has the ability to influence, but he doesn’t seek control. He can easily summon me with a call, demand my attention and know I’d give it. Arguably, he could also call me endlessly and solicit more than he needs, but he never does. He remains steadfast as he ever was, clear of the hunger for control that fells even the greatest of humans. If only the same could be said for those who have known the taste of power and, finding it sweet, could never again be sated. He’s also powerful in his own right—muscular, large, capable—but remains darling nonetheless. His strength doesn’t demand submission; it invites affection. He doesn’t use his might to take control, nor does he feel the need to dominate.

In Clark, I see an alternate path to power—one that does not seek to rule or reshape the world, but simply to be, content in existence rather than in control. Which brings to mind a quote from our Superman after he bests his tyrannical alternate in Injustice. “Put in the same position, I might have done the same thing,” he admits, “We never know what we’re truly capable of.” This acknowledges that morality isn’t fixed. Under the right—or wrong—circumstances, even the best of us can become something unrecognizable. It’s easy to condemn Injustice Superman and see his descent into tyranny as a choice that only he could make; but the good Superman’s admission suggests that his fall wasn’t an anomaly, but a possibility that exists within anyone, given the right pressures, losses, or justifications. Which ties back to the way power consolidates, the way people rationalize holding onto it. Injustice Superman never intended to become a dictator. The scariest part isn’t that he fell; it’s that, under similar conditions, we all could.

However, Clark stands as a counterpoint to everything Injustice Superman represents. Where the eponym sees power as something to wield, the namesake simply exists in it. While Clark’s nature may be uniquely his, the love and care I’ve given him have surely shaped that. Even if he was always inclined to be gentle and secure in himself, I’ve reinforced that he doesn’t need to fight for attention, control, or validation. Maybe he knows he’s loved, and that certainty frees him from the impulses that drive others to grasp for power? If Injustice Superman’s downfall was always a possibility given the right pressures, then does the same logic apply to Clark in reverse? Could it be that, no matter the circumstances, he simply wouldn’t seek control because it’s not in his nature? Or is his contentment, his quiet resistance to power’s lure, a reflection of the environment I’ve fostered for him—one where love is given freely, where he has never needed to fight to be seen? It makes me wonder—if Injustice Superman had been reassured of love and security rather than losing them so violently, would he have been able to resist his own worst impulses? Or was his fall inevitable the moment he realized that, despite all his power, he couldn’t control everything?

To me, it’s not about wanting power or control. It’s about recognizing that no matter what is done, people will always find something to criticize or tear down. Injustice Superman, for all his strength and conviction, sought to impose order on something inherently chaotic: human nature. But even if he’d succeeded, would it have mattered? Would people have truly changed, or would they have simply resented him until they found another way to tear it all down? Which kinda acknowledges what Superman never could—some things simply are, no matter how much effort is poured into changing them. That’s why Clark, in his simplicity, feels like such a contrast. He doesn’t try to change the world, he’s just in it. That’s a kind of wisdom Superman never had. Regardless of everything else—disillusionment, exhaustion, the flaws of the world—I still hold onto love, and I still give it freely. Clark may not express it in words, but in his way, I believe he knows I love him too. He reflects that love back in his bunts, purrs, presence by my side.

And the fact that I continue to pay it forward, even with everything I’ve been through, speaks to the depth of my own heart. Honestly, I think that, despite everything, love—Clark’s, mine, in general—still holds meaning, even if the world itself doesn’t seem to reward it. Even when it isn’t reciprocated or rewarded, love still carries weight. Injustice Superman’s love for Lois and the world was real, but he let his regret twist it into something transactional wherein love only had meaning if it was preserved, protected, and controlled. When the world failed to uphold his love, he abandoned its mercy and turned it into justification for domination. But Clark’s love exists simply because it is, not because it must be proven, enforced, or rewarded. That’s the real tragedy of Injustice Superman—not just that he fell, but that he stopped believing love had value outside of his ability to safeguard it.

For as lost as I feel in life, Clark isn’t lost with me. I’m his home. I don’t feel like I’m doing enough, but Clark’s love is proof that I am. Even when I’m anxious about the future, Clark is still here in the present, purring beside me, choosing me. And in that, there is love. There is certainty.

There is enough.

♫ Title song reference – “I’d Love to Change the World” by The Zombies

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