V is for Vagenda (Part 8 - Fame)

V is for Vagenda (Part 8 - Fame) 

 

Glamour is over-rated. People find the void that should be soundly holding on to self-respect and self-worth, and recognizing the kind of love that should be there, fail to address filling it from an inward source within their own soul. The look elsewhere. Finding a similar emotion externally, from others. They seek that recognition, affirmation, and praise from others. Sometime people don't need a lot. Others find things that they can do to see that sense of retribution that can come through kindness towards others regularly to fill in the fix. I say fix because it is a drug. Some souls naturally need more or less than others. Some get more addicted to it than others.

Some find themselves doing charity work on a regular basis, perhaps a soup kitchen where they can see the thanks and gratitude in person on the faces of the less fortunate. If we blind ourselves to the need of our own we are also feeding through this action, we can spike the fix with a dose of altruism,

The tribes understood in Africa, the anthropological work done on the nature and social structures of early cultures as they spread throughout the Southern Asian continent, and unanimously across Native American cultures - one thing stood out in distinction from the rest of Western Civilization as it spreads throughout the globe, Ethics. We think the moral prime unit is the person. Think of yourself as a thing unique and separate from the world, the main point of concern in moral equations, and then from there, add increasingly less important factors like Family, loves, friends, the community, people in general. One end of the spectrum doesn't really matter, right? This is western culture thinking. The places I just mention inverted this. The good of the world was of prime concern and the prime moral unit, and the sense of self or the concept of property almost didn't register, often it did not - not without the context of the rest. I would go so far as to classify this as correct thinking. Going the other way allows the creation of the void. The one that is so hard to fill.

Genuine passions can have the consequences of having us entangled with those with habits that are not good for us. I discovered the worst kind of drug addiction as a child that nearly tore our family apart on occasion when my brother first starting "making it". There is nothing worse than it. It is a means to over-fill the largest collection of people with the most insatiable hunger for filling the void. Even I love a little flattery, but this is the nuclear dose. It is dangerous.

FAME

In the colonial period, the Japanese sent many to study in Western schools in an attempt to mimic the UK's success in colonizing other nations. The principal lesson learned was that image is more important than reality. I can see why this would be their observation.

I barely survived my first encounter with Doomsday in Smallville. I haven't found Superman since the end where he leapt into the air with Doomsday. Only Doomsday fell back down, like a meteor, through the Kent family barn, The blast radius was a stream of sharp shards of wood and molten metal, flames - a crater left behind to mark the impact zone. I try to imagine myself back in my room in the Watchtower - but it makes me keel over like something inside of my stomach is being torn and bleeding each time I try. Fortunately, all the scrapes and cuts and burns are gone off of me almost instantly. Why is that fortunate?

I need to hitchhike to the nearest teleporter and don't want anyone to see me looking like I hurt. I need to by the happy smiling V people like to be around. So says the void in me.

Why does Japanese culture celebrate something we fight to admit consciously?

I wipe off the bit of dried blood still on me and begin hitchhiking out of here. I let a few cars go by without trying, until I feel I look ok. Then, the next car comes screaming around the corner. I put out my thumb. It's fast. A black Trans-Am, and it is not slowing down at first - getting closer, closer, closer - then starts to scream as the breaks are slammed on. It begins to fishtail. OMG am I going to have to jump in the ditch? Careening, slowly it gets under control a good stretch past me and stops on the side of the road. The driver pushed the passenger door open, his head barely visible as he screams "Run, Run!" desperately.

I run as fast as I can, horrified of what could possibly be wrong - I just had a major battle. I hop in the car and he peels out pulling away, my door still open. I get it shocked scared I'm going to fall out of the car and spin to him "OMG what's the hurry?!!!"

"THIS IS A STOLEN CAR!!!!!" He screams manic.

"Why did you pick me up, then!??" I ask slightly scared now.

"YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU NEEDED A RIDE!!!!" he screams as we hit 85MPH. I sit in silent shock, both impressed and terrified of this beautiful, powerful car. As for the driver - mostly fear. After a few minutes and towns go by, he seems calmer, and asks "So... Where are you going?"

"There is a Ferry Terminal about an hour from here..."

"I know where that is!" he cuts me off, and speeds up a little more. I can't remember if we said anything else. I just remember getting there in slightly over 15 minutes instead of an hour, jumping out in front of the terminals, him doing a few donuts before peeling away again leaving the way we came, then the horror that became turning around as the judgment of the whole scene fell onto my shoulders from all the terminal guards and ticket salesmen and women. The intense judgment - magnified by every set of eyes there on me that all seem to share the same hard stare.

It is nothing short of humiliating, and I'm hoping this is temporary, but to a horror I would learn later the next day, video footage made it to the press. Who the hell was this kid driving the thing? No one. Who knows. An anonymous nobody. But the world sure knew me - and they tried every angle to make the story all about me.

As for this moment, at the Ferry Terminal, I just need to find a phone booth. I did my fight, and fought hard. I did nothing wrong. I just want to go home. My god, get me out of here.

V