For such a long period of my life, who I am and the role I play was often defined by others outside of myself, and while I have worked so hard to get away from that practice… well, we can still find ourselves fighting against the old ways we are used to.
But as I look at my life now, and how I see myself… I have been working through this concept of villain vs hero.
We all grew up with these ideas in front of us, right? And I think for many of us, we idolized the “heroes” of the story. They were always fighting for “truth, justice and the American way” – right?
I don’t know when I noticed the phenomenon of people rallying behind the villains, but I do distinctly remember more and more people being drawn to Darth Vader in recent movies. And I swear, the Joker in the Dark Night Batman series absolutely spoke to me in so many ways.
Was the villain not such a bad guy after all?
For me, as a younger guy dating, I saw a very distinct difference in dating behind the villains and the heroes. The villains were the guys telling the girls all the things they thought they wanted to hear in order to get laid, and the heroes were the guys that were more relationship minded. That was what I saw as a young man getting into the dating world.
I personally despise someone who will lie to others just to get something from them. You can thank my mom for that one… she was pretty damn hard ass about it. So when I saw what appeared to be a guy using a girl just to get laid, I hated that whole “game.”
It wasn’t until much later in life that I began to realize that women sometimes actually just enjoy having fun too. That they weren’t always just looking to get into a relationship. It was something that wasn’t talked about… it wasn’t even conceivable for many of those in my age group.
But the more and more I see the reality that women can be just as carnal as men, the more and more I noticed women doing some of the same things to men – just to get what they wanted. Hell, it had happened to me a few times even.
So if the ground rules were different than I had known, was I actually being a hero?
At this point… its come back to the concept itself of what a hero is. That the person that works around the clock to save the status quo. To keep the peace, to keep the balance – to keep things as “they should be.” And so often, the heroes had to have these secret identities – and they were always “on call.” Holy hell, that’s a shit ton of stress!
The villain, on the other hand… they challenged the status quo. They worked to change the system. Sometimes in an unsettling way, and sometimes in a way that caused harm to others around. But there were plenty of those who were painted as the villain while not seeking to cause harm, but only to do things differently.
So in many ways, the villain was the one working for change, while the hero wanted to keep things the same – all while getting the “attaboys” along the way.
I don’t care about “attaboys” and honestly… I am loving me some change. Keeping things the same way they have always been usually only favors the ones with the power – at the expense of everyone else. Screw that shit!
So now, I gladly take on that villain role, for myself. Not because others have tried to paint me as such, but because I want to push the status quo off the damn cliff. I will seek to do no harm in many ways, but I am not afraid to upset the norms either.
And if I can have a bit more fun along the way, be less worried about the opinions of others and no longer have to wear a goddamned mask – fucking bonus!
So, yeah… Red’s gonna take on that villain role. He’s gonna push a bit, challenge a bit, and dammit – play a lot! Let’s go.. and have some damn fun along the way!
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