comic book mind

.
Skimming here and there on Internet bulletin boards concerned with Buddhism, I ran across one topic that addressed the "trap of meaninglessness" and another that speculated about a "world without men." And these two topics flowed like rivulets off the mountain into a stream of recollection, one that called up a time when, as a kid, I had an enormous stack of comic books.

For adults, comic books can excite a head-patting indulgence, a kind of forgiveness for childish things. Since comic books did no particular harm and since, in that time, pretty much every kid enjoyed them ... well "aren't kids cute?"

But for a kid, comic books had layers and layers of seriousness. To have a lot of them was a mark of prestige, for one thing. For another, each comic book provided an invitation into a universe of imaginative delight, sometimes funny, sometimes vastly serious as the world faced destruction and some the hero or heroine solved the problem. It was a world filled with complications that a kid could sympathize with. It was a world filled with competence a kid longed to have ... to fly or disappear or stop crime or just provoke laughter ... the kind of laughter that might be missing in a kid's life.

Comic books were important for a kid ... even as the adults might smile indulgently. They were important because, relative to adults, kids were unimportant and unskilled and uncertain. Adults were the ones, after all, who could make a kid eat broccoli and tell them when to go to bed and punish a wide array of transgressions. Comic books created a universe in which there were clear, powerful and unassailable answers, even when that answer was just a good laugh.

In the same way I had a stack of self-affirming comic books when I was a kid, so later I had a stack of books lining the shelves of wherever I lived. They were companions and color and reassurance and definition and understanding on the walls. I believed (or disbelieved) them. And why not? There were no longer any adults patting me indulgently on the head. Adults (at least in that time) read books, were consoled and informed by books, and recognized fellow book-readers as "my kind of people." In books, the mind could soar or be informed or visit distant places or stretch its current vistas. Books, like comic books, asked and answered the question, "what if...?" There was solace and symmetry, competence and power to be had from books.

And why not? Thinking is a good thing -- a thing that presents possibilities. And the more possibilities anyone can envision, the more likely they are to find rich and perhaps successful directions. The fewer the possibilities, the more likely anyone is to feel trapped and perhaps ground down by circumstance.

The only fly in the ointment, of course, is that there is no end to collecting comic books or books either. No end to "what if's." No end to the desire for some new and improved happiness or power or wealth. Each achievement or book or comic book poses a new "what if?" It is as if life were patting us on the head indulgently ... yes, we were all children once and had child-like habits, but now ... well, hell, I'm an 'adult' now, with 'adult' habits, habits that other adults concur in ... and still I am playing with comic books. Somehow my adult life is littered with childish habits and there is no one to show me how go grow up. About the only benefit to being an 'adult' may be that I no longer have to eat broccoli if I don't feel like it. And yet there may be a simultaneous longing to find that set of circumstances or religion or philosophy which takes the high and powerful ground adults once held: Eat your broccoli, dear.

Naturally we don't call them comic books any more. Now they are clothed in importance and relevance and meaning. Now we know polysyllabic words and indulge in complex thought and excuse each other for our wisdoms. Now we are 'adults' who have set aside comic books ... and yet somehow the comic book mind remains.

What about a world without men? What about the trap of meaninglessness? What about the answers to our questions? What about my comic-book habits?

Comic books are pretty good things, I think. They inspire attention and intention. But attention or intention ... for what? I imagine the answer to that is something like "to be happy, that's what!" But that inspires the question, "how shall I be happy?" And that in turn often leads people back to their comic books and books and religions and philosophies. Around and around it goes ... when all the time the answer was staring us in the face:

Eat your broccoli, dear. It'll make you grow up big and strong.
.