In a recent reflection, I named three human superpowers that I’d like to revisit.
The first superpower is curiosity. Most of us began to develop this superpower when we were 4 or 5 years old with the incessant questions we found that we could ask. Curiosity is evoked with every why, how, what, when, and where we can conceive of. Human change and development, insight, knowledge and wisdom all begin with a question. When we stop asking questions, we cease to grow.
The second superpower is our imagination. This is one of our best kept secrets. We have unfortunately cultivated a popular notion that imagination is thin, ethereal and weak. The idea is that we turn to imagination when we have nothing else. The truth is that all great ideas, inventions, movements, and human endeavors–even practical daily solutions–begin with what someone imagines. Imagination is the power of seeing what can be as already done. What remains are simply (and frequently demandingly) the details.
The third superpower is our capacity for empathy. I’ll be honest that sometimes I wonder if empathy is a universal human capability. I don’t have an answer for that, ultimately. Asking ourselves what another being’s experience is like requires the first two superpowers, however, and I am fairly certain that we are all capable of curiosity and imagination. So, what is the kryptonite that hinders some human empathy? I suspect that it is fear. Let someone engage my imagination with questions about what bad things might happen if . . . and I suddenly find myself less able to empathize, less willing to open the door to other beings having different experiences from us.
Fear is, at least for me, the kryptonite that can disable my superpower of empathy. I have to be aware of those things that evoke fear in me: detect, dodge, divert. I want to give place to empathy in me over fear whenever I can, but sometimes, fear sneaks in and undoes me for a while.
Curiosity, imagination and empathy are all capabilities within us that open us to something bigger and beyond us. They are powers of inclusion, and they are transformative both of us as individuals and of us as communities.
How are you using your superpowers? Do you know what your kryptonite is? How are you detecting, dodging and diverting it?
~Bob Patrick
