lifeasmission

Batman the Sage

August 23, 2005

If you haven’t seen “Batman Begins” yet, I highly recommend it to you and do so by way of a quote which came home to me yesterday.

As a child, Bruce Wayne falls into a hidden cave in his yard and is met by a flurry of bats which torment him for the reminder of his life. Bruce Wayne’s father asks him, “Why do we fall Bruce?” And he goes on to answer, “So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

This line raced through my mind yesterday immediately after I took a spill on a motorcycle I was learning to ride. I had already made several laps around a large parking lot and was returning to where I started. I was focusing on getting the feel of shifting gears. I shifted down from second into what I thought was neutral only to discover, upon releasing the clutch, that I was in first. Just like cars do, the bike jumped forward and as a result I pulled the throttle with me accelerating the bike’s skid. It went down to the left with me underneath it. We hit the asphalt and skidded into the edge of the grass.

Oddly, I don’t really have and scrapes, gouges, or cuts, but I do feel as though Barry Bonds did some batting practice on my hip and arm. You should have seen me trying to alk yesterday and today! The bike wasn’t all that bad – some scratches and a small crack in one of the panels. Thankfully, Adam, the friend teaching me to ride is one of the coolest people in the world and wasn’t upset at all.

So then this line from Batman startes going through my head and I make up my mind to hop right back on and start riding again. No more mess ups to report. At first I was trying to talk myself into this being a sign that I am not meant to ride a motorcycle and then I wised up to how dumb that idea is.

What if I never rode a bicycle because I fell while learning to ride?

What if I never drove a car after getting in a fender bender?

What if I never trusted people because someone once let me down?

What if I never dared to love anyone because sometimes love isn’t returned?

What if I let the disappointments in life keep me from the joys and ecstasies which can only be appreciated when one knows the lack of them?

Ok, we’ve come a long way from falling over on a motorcycle, but hopefully you see where I’m going. Just about anyone could, if they wanted to, tell the story of their lives based on their failures, disappointments, and let downs. I’d rather hear peoples stories, not to mention live to tell my own, which center around experiences achieved despite or maybe even in light of adversities. These are much more exciting and, in my opinion, better reflect the nature of how we were created.

Posted in: movies, stories