Some of you I’ve been applying to scholarships for graduate school. This post is actually for one of my scholarships: TheUberman.com “I AM a superhero” Scholarship. I thought I’d go with something a bit, well, humorous for this. In any case, enjoy:
I am Gauisus, the United Nation’s designated superhero. The problem with being like me is that you’re always the butt of someone’s joke. You see, my name means “happy” in Latin, because I can fabricate happiness out of thin air. And I don’t mean the hearty chuckle variety of happiness, or even the hippy, high-as-a-kite kind. I mean the kind of happiness you find in a laughing child: that pure, innocent, and unimaginable sensation forgotten by adulthood, concentrated into a thick, happy syrup and injected straight into the veins. It’s like an adrenaline shot of happiness, but without the side effects.
I’ve stopped wars by turning grumpy politicians into crying bundles of hugs and apologies; selfish oil barons, isolationists, and xenophobes have turned into environmentally and socially conscious progressives. Everyone I target has an experience, a moment of clarity in which they begin to realize that things really do need to change.
But this is all standard superhero fare. The more interesting stuff occurs at the UN. I’m not welcome there anymore, because the politicians are unable to get riled up, to toss insults or argue relentlessly about things they think are important–distributing happiness like crack to politicians can have that effect. Most of the meetings end in people hugging and some superpower vowing to solve a humanitarian problem–poverty, disease, theft by monkeys, you name it.
My ability doesn’t always work, but that’s life. Injecting happiness into people is at least changing the dynamics of the world, creating new generations of people willing to pay attention, rather than stick their heads in the sand. All the hugs and laughter are making people see the world through someone else’s shoes and bring to reality why it doesn’t matter that we’re all different: because we’re all human beings.
