My Superpower

Weincluded.com, accessed 1/27/2018

 

I have a superpower. It stems from my brain's natural tendency to not be able to push negative thoughts and feelings away as easily as others. Thanks to major depression, I can guess the likelihood of negative events and occurrences with greater accuracy on average. This enables me to see bad things start to happen more reliably and accurately than others, as well as enabling me to be motivated to seek practical, workable solutions to the problems in time, hopefully, for me to stop them from happening, and produce healthier results for all.  The research behind this phenomena is documented for people who, like me, have moderated their depression to a more healthy and functional state.

The key weakness of this power from doing good is that it is dependent on others carrying out the needed actions; people who are not as motivated, people who are more easily able to underestimate the negative things from happening to keep their brains psychologically and physiologically healthy in the present. I can only see and speak. There's very little that I as an individual can do to be effective (the inherent weakness of being only one human). These are people who don't see these things happening, or are not accurately guessing the negativity, which makes it so they are less likely to believe, listen, or credit me. This is before we get into the facts that they are also independent thinkers and feelers, who have their own ideas and interests that may or may not work well in the situation we're in.

The curse that comes with this power, that I have to carefully and constantly work to avoid, is the tendency of things in my head to get so miserable that I feel the need to kill myself and this body. Unfortunately, I have yet to learn how to keep the more accurate perception of the world and avoid the negative feelings at the same time. It is theoretically possible to get used to the effects of the suicidal thoughts and feelings. But this takes time, and practice, and can only get better in time.

With this ability to perceive the world with greater accuracy and awareness than people with "healthy" brains, I am motivated to make the world a much happier, healthier, and more resilient place, chiefly because I also recognize that I live in this world, that that me, this individual, can get caught up in a storm of war, famine, disease, and death thanks to climate change and the poor choices of society and government officials alike. I am trying to communicate that, in addition to being an altruistic and highly risky undertaking that benefits others, it also is something that can greatly improve my own selfish condition as a human being among other human beings. I don't want to fight the pending wars. I don't want to lose access to food, shelter, medicine, and opportunities forward. I would rather die here than go through another apocalypse that's brought on by other people who aren't paying attention, and aren't as kind and aware as most other people living on this planet. I would hope that the rest of innocent humanity would be spared the Right's self-generated nonsense. Unfortunately, if I'm being honest, I don't think that we have much of a choice about that beyond being technically able to remove them and reject their influence in society from here on out. Again, it's up to you, not I, to save the world. I'm just an observer here trying to help.