It might sound harmless at first. We grow up surrounded by stories of heroes who save the world, who rise above ordinary people through courage or strength. They make us believe that being special is both beautiful and necessary. Yet somewhere beneath the glitter of power lies a seed of distortion. Superhero stories do not only inspire. They also seduce.
They awaken the silent desire inside us to be more than human. Every child who watches a hero in flight feels that spark: “I want to be that person.” This desire is not evil by itself, but it quietly changes how we see ourselves. It teaches us that worth is something to be earned by distinction, not something we already possess by existence.
Perhaps no figure captures this paradox better than Captain America. He becomes a hero through a scientific experiment, a serum designed by military research. It is not moral strength that transforms him, but chemistry. The story glorifies enhancement as destiny. The danger is subtle but powerful. It suggests that greatness can be manufactured, that one’s worth can be engineered.
In a world already obsessed with modification; drugs, steroids, cosmetic surgery, and digital filters, this is a myth with real consequences. It celebrates self-modification as heroism. Many young people fall into the same trap, pursuing perfection through artificial means. The bodybuilding world, the athletic world, even the world of cosmetic enhancement repeat the same story. Strength becomes addiction, and the pursuit of beauty becomes bondage.
The Flesh of Self-Improvement
We often justify these desires in noble language. We say we want to improve, to discipline ourselves, to reach potential. But beneath that rhetoric lies an ancient hunger for control. The body becomes the battlefield where we fight our insecurity.
The irony is that religious traditions have long warned against this. In the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:28 says, “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you.” For many centuries this was read as a command against vanity or pagan ritual, but its moral wisdom still speaks today. It is less about ink and more about intention. It warns that to mark the body in pursuit of belonging, beauty, or identity is to risk confusing the sign with the soul.
This does not mean that all tattoos or modifications are wrong. The question is not about prohibition but awareness. Why do we need to carve meaning into the flesh to feel that we exist? Every act of marking, decorating, or sculpting the body carries a spiritual echo of the same desire: “I want to be seen. I want to be special.”
The danger is not only physical. It is existential. When we start defining worth by appearance, strength, or skill, we lose the ability to rest in being. We become restless creatures in search of new forms, new affirmations, new transformations.
The Myth of Spiritual Power
The Star Wars universe is perhaps the most refined and persuasive version of the superhero fantasy. It cloaks the same human longing in robes of mysticism. The Force is not presented as technology but as spirit, an invisible current that gives life and power to those who are worthy. It feels noble, even sacred. Yet it too feeds the same psychological hunger: to transcend ordinary humanity through possession of an inner strength that others lack.
The Jedi resemble monks, warriors of discipline and restraint. Yet they are also elites, born or trained to access something others cannot. Their serenity hides hierarchy. Their mysticism masks might. In this way, Star Wars functions as both a myth of humility and a fantasy of superiority. It allows the viewer to indulge in transcendence while still enjoying power.
This is not unlike martial arts traditions that emphasize ki or chi, spiritual energy cultivated through mastery. The idea of harnessing invisible force appeals to our desire for control without violence, for domination without guilt. The ancient Japanese do systems, such as judo, kendo, and aikido, all speak of lifelong discipline. Yet even these sacred arts can become prisons of pride. The ranking, the belts, the teacher-student hierarchy; all easily turn into measures of spiritual worth.
The Theater of Transcendence
The same spirit of discipline appears in the traditional Japanese arts of shodō (calligraphy), sadō (tea ceremony), and kadō (flower arrangement). These are not merely aesthetic pursuits but moral and spiritual paths. Each movement, brushstroke, and pause is meant to polish the heart. Yet even these quiet arts can slip into performance. What begins as a way of dissolving the self into beauty may end as a quest for mastery and reputation.
And this pattern is not limited to Japan. In India, the path of yoga, originally a union with the divine through breath and stillness, has often turned into a pursuit of flexibility, image, and control. In the Islamic world, the ecstatic whirling of Sufi dervishes once symbolized the soul’s surrender to God, but in some settings it has become an art of spectacle. In Christianity, the solemn beauty of Gregorian chant and Byzantine iconography once arose from humility before the sacred, yet even these forms can become competitions of technique and purity. In the West, classical ballet, opera, and the great concert traditions were born from devotion to grace and harmony, but they too often drift toward perfectionism that exhausts the spirit it was meant to elevate.
Every culture has its own language of transcendence, yet all risk the same corruption. When the act of reaching upward becomes proof of superiority, spirituality becomes theater. Whether through art, ritual, or discipline, the moment the focus shifts from surrender to mastery, from grace to greatness, the self quietly returns to the center.
This is the paradox known to Zen practitioners as mushin; the state of no-mind. To act without ego, to move without calculation, to paint, bow, or breathe in perfect simplicity. Yet even mushin can become an object of craving. The desire to attain no-desire is still desire. The pursuit of enlightenment becomes a subtler form of ambition, a race toward an emptiness we secretly wish to possess. In this way, even spiritual freedom can turn into the most exquisite form of bondage.
And here the question deepens. If even the path to selflessness leads back to the self, where can we go? If every effort to transcend the ego only polishes it to a brighter shine, what remains of liberation? The problem is not in the practice, nor in the longing, but in the mirror that cannot stop reflecting. From this point, every art and every faith converge toward a single inquiry; the one that has haunted humankind since the beginning.
The Question That Devours Itself
All these patterns return to a single root: the question, “Who am I?”
It sounds innocent, but it is dangerous. The moment we ask it, we enter a hall of mirrors. We start comparing ourselves with others. We measure intelligence, beauty, morality, and strength. Each comparison creates another reflection. We multiply our identities and lose our peace.
We live our whole lives chasing an answer that always moves further away. We say that life is suffering because of desire, but perhaps the deeper cause is measurement. We cannot stop measuring ourselves. We want to know our value, but every attempt to calculate it makes us smaller.
Even the idea of forgetting the self becomes impossible. We cannot forget without being conscious of forgetting. The effort itself becomes self-centered. The monk who aims to extinguish ego still carries the hidden pride of discipline. The philosopher who declares the death of self often becomes the loudest in asserting identity. The artist who claims detachment from fame secretly checks for recognition.
To forget the self without being conscious of the self is a paradise beyond reach. And yet, that unreachable ideal has shaped entire civilizations. From the dojo to the church, from the monastery to the university, we have built our lives around the attempt to perfect what cannot be perfected.
The question “Who am I?” is both the seed of wisdom and the source of suffering. It gives meaning to our search, yet it also consumes what it creates. The more we think we know ourselves, the more we divide the soul into parts: body and mind, mind and spirit, self and other. We become a tangle of definitions, chasing the unity that our words have broken.
In this way, the search for identity becomes an act of fragmentation. The mirror that was meant to reveal us multiplies infinitely. We stand before it and ask again, “Who am I?” And the echo answers from every direction. The more we ask, the less we know.
The Mirror of Culture
Every civilization has built its monuments around this mirror. Some have carved the question into temples and cathedrals. Others have painted it onto canvases or encoded it into philosophies. The human world is a vast collection of reflections. Each age invents new ways to see itself, and each reflection gives birth to another distortion.
In the modern age, the mirror has become sharper and faster. We no longer rely on priests or poets to define our worth. We measure it through systems, numbers, and screens. Our culture has industrialized comparison. From education to employment, from art to religion, everything has become a contest of self-definition.
The tragedy is not that we compete, but that we confuse visibility with truth. The visible self becomes the verified self, and what cannot be seen begins to fade from reality. The unseen virtues, kindness, patience, tenderness, forgiveness, no longer carry weight in a world that worships spectacle.
We have learned to present our goodness, not to practice it. We curate our sincerity and package our humility. The market rewards not authenticity but performance. In such a world, even faith becomes branding and charity becomes publicity. The same logic that governs entertainment now governs morality.
Yet the mirror is not the enemy. It only reflects what we place before it. The problem lies in our gaze, in our need to stare at ourselves until meaning appears. On the other hand, the cultures that have lasted longest are those that learned to look through the mirror rather than at it. They treated self-knowledge not as possession but as passage. To know oneself was not to admire the image but to move beyond it.
The Age of Comparison
Technology has turned this mirror into a global condition. The smartphone in our pocket is the latest temple of selfhood. Within it lies an altar built of images, comments, and scores. Each post is a miniature confession, each reaction a small absolution. We present our moments to the world and wait for confirmation that we exist.
Social media has transformed identity from something lived into something displayed. Every image becomes an argument for our significance. Even when we try to be humble, we are still performing humility. Even when we share vulnerability, it becomes another version of strength. The medium does not allow silence; it rewards constant proof of presence.
The result is a new kind of suffering. The ancient ascetics feared the temptations of the body, but our temptations are digital. We do not crave pleasure as much as recognition. The hunger for attention replaces the hunger for truth. We scroll through lives edited into perfection and begin to feel invisible.
The paradox is that we are both seen and unseen at once. Our data is everywhere, yet our souls are nowhere. The screen knows our habits but not our hearts. The more we document our experiences, the less we experience them. The more we seek affirmation, the less we feel affirmed.
In this way, technology has not created the self-centered age, it has only made the mirrors infinite. What was once a personal struggle has become a global architecture of reflection. The question “Who am I?” is now answered by algorithms that tell us what to buy, whom to follow, and what to feel.
Yet within this noise, a quiet resistance remains possible. Every time we turn off the screen, walk without recording, or act without witness, we return to the hidden center of being. The self does not disappear there; it simply stops demanding applause.
The Impossible Escape
Can we ever step outside this loop? Can we live without measurement, without performance, without the craving to be special?
Perhaps not completely. The consciousness of self is the price of being human. Awareness divides us from animals and angels alike. We know that we exist, and we long to know what that existence means. Yet awareness can ripen into humility instead of pride. The problem is not self-knowledge itself, but the feverish need to define it.
We cannot erase the self, but we can soften its borders. We can hold it lightly, as one holds a cup of water without spilling. The ancient mystics of many faiths understood this. They did not seek to destroy identity but to see through it. To them, the self was not a fortress but a window; transparent when clean, distorted when clung to.
In Zen, this awareness is called emptiness, not because nothing exists, but because everything exists in relation. To know oneself is to know that the self has no separate edges. The boundaries we draw between you and me, success and failure, sacred and ordinary, are only temporary lines across a shared field of being.
The mystics of other traditions spoke in similar ways. In Christianity, Saint John of the Cross wrote of the dark night of the soul, where the self is stripped of every claim to control. In Sufi poetry, Rumi described the heart as a reed flute hollowed by longing so that the divine wind could sing through it. In Hindu philosophy, the concept of ātman, the self that realizes its unity with Brahman, is not self-destruction but self-transparency. Across cultures, the goal is not to erase identity but to become so open that identity no longer obscures the light passing through.
This kind of liberation cannot be achieved by effort alone. The paradox is that striving for freedom strengthens the chains. The moment we think, “I am humble now,” pride has already returned. The moment we believe, “I have transcended,” the ego smiles quietly in the background. The escape, if it exists, lies not in conquest but in consent; in the willingness to let the self be ordinary, to live without the drama of exception.
The Quiet Heroism
Maybe the true hero is not the one who conquers the world but the one who endures it without pride. The one who lives faithfully in the ordinary. The parent who forgives, the teacher who listens, the worker who acts with care, the stranger who helps without expecting thanks.
Such people rarely appear in films or myths, yet they are the hidden architecture of the world. They do not manipulate energy or wield weapons. They carry light through presence. Their strength is not supernatural but quietly human.
The ancient scriptures often describe righteousness in domestic terms; breaking bread, washing feet, clothing the poor. These are gestures so small that they vanish from history, yet they sustain life itself. The quiet hero does not ask for recognition because the act is its own reward. Their peace does not depend on success but on sincerity.
This form of heroism stands in quiet defiance against the mythology of power. It says that greatness is not achieved by rising above others but by serving among them. The truest victory is not dominance but gentleness, not mastery but mercy.
In this sense, the opposite of the superhero is not the villain but the servant. The one who does not seek power but uses what is given to heal rather than to impress. This is the paradox of true virtue; it does not call attention to itself, and yet it changes everything around it.
Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, “The last shall be first.” Perhaps this is what Lao Tzu meant when he spoke of the soft overcoming the hard. The quiet hero trusts that goodness does not need applause to be real. In their presence, the world breathes a little easier, not because it is saved, but because it remembers how to be kind.
The Return to Ordinary Light
When the illusion of specialness fades, what remains is ordinary life. It may seem small, but it is vast enough for wonder. Eating, walking, resting, speaking kindly; these are the acts that keep the world alive.
To live without needing to be special is not weakness. It is liberation. The one who no longer measures has nothing to fear. They can finally see others without distortion and themselves without vanity.
Perhaps this is what the old prophets and poets meant by holiness. Not perfection, not greatness, but presence. To be where you are, without pretending to be more. To recognize that your worth was never in the magnitude of your strength, but in the quiet depth of your being.
The light of such ordinariness is not the blinding light of revelation but the steady glow of acceptance. It asks nothing and illuminates everything. It teaches us that the simplest gestures, listening without judgment, sharing a meal, forgiving without audience, carry a radiance that fame can never imitate.
When we return to this awareness, the superhero inside us finally retires. The endless competition for identity softens into rest. What remains is the grace of simply existing, not as a symbol or savior, but as a living being among others. The world, stripped of its noise, becomes luminous again.
The Digital Superhero
Artificial intelligence is the newest mirror of our ancient longing. It promises transcendence through code, a kind of salvation by computation. Behind every headline about superintelligence lies the same myth that shaped our earliest stories; the dream of overcoming the limits of the flesh.
We now imagine machines that think faster than us, algorithms that perfect our choices, and systems that can recreate our consciousness. It is the old superhero complex reborn in silicon. We no longer need capes or miracles; we have data, networks, and synthetic minds.
This fascination with AI is not only technological. It is spiritual in disguise. It reflects our desire to create something in our own image, to pass on the torch of intelligence and mastery. Yet in doing so, we risk building an idol of our own ambition. We call it progress, but at its core lies the same craving to be extraordinary to transcend nature rather than dwell within it.
AI tempts us to believe that we can escape our humanity by delegating it. That we can outsource wisdom, automate compassion, and replicate creativity. But the more we pursue this dream, the more we confront our emptiness. A machine may simulate empathy, but it cannot suffer or forgive. It can mirror thought, but not meaning. It can mimic emotion, but not love.
Perhaps the challenge of this new age is not to create a digital superhuman but to remember what it means to be human. To use intelligence in the service of life, not the other way around. To let technology reveal the limits of control and the beauty of imperfection.
If we can build with humility instead of hunger, AI may yet become our teacher. It can remind us that power without presence is emptiness, and that the truest strength lies in being.
Image by Solihin Kentjana
Tom’s Blog 