Superpower of Choice

I could have easily called this "Invisiblity vs. Flying," but thought this was a more straightforward title.

This week, I've been listening to This American Life during my transcription work at the Digital Projects Lab. Yesterday, I listened to an episode titled "Superpowers." The host, John Hodgman, asked a bunch of random people which superpower they would choose, if they could have just one--either invisibility or flight. The answers were funny and interesting, and brought up an old question I'd discussed with a few of my friends in those amazingly philosophical discussions you tend to get into at 3am your junior year in college (discussions that a lot of adults I know call "silly" instead of "philosophical," but that's just semantics).

So, since I know you're all just dying for my choice, because you actually think reading a blog about my silly life is worthwhile...

I would choose flight, no question. On the show, the host said that most of the time, people debated for awhile between the two and had a hard time choosing--not me. Flight--instally, don't even blink. I mean, to me, unless you want to a) shoplift or b) spy on other people's conversations, there's not a lot that you can do by being invisible. But to be able to fly--think of what you could do! If you were simply bored one afternoon, you could just fly around, for fun. If you wanted to visit your Grandma in Kansas City, you could just get there, no matter where you were at the moment. You could amaze your friends, astound your relatives, and make the evening news on a regular basis.

A lot of people on the show seemed disappointed that other abilities didn't go with it--for instance, super strength. And they seemed to go for the practicality of it in daily life--no more taking the bus to work, no more wondering what the coworkers talked about when you were gone. I think that to fly would be something extraordinary, beyond shortening your daily commute. It's a super power, for heaven's sake, show some imagination!

I called Alex this afternoon to ask him his choice--a cruel thing, since Alex has an aversion to picking "favorites" of anything besides baseball teams--and we ended up talking a lot about invisibility. Alex said he didn't know what he'd pick now, but that as a kid, he would have chosen invisibility. So I told him how I didn't really understand the appeal--he cited how as a kid, "sneaking around" in general seemed fun, which I have to agree was a big kid-time goal--and we instead got sidetracked into a discussion about the limitations of invisibility. For instance, what rules is your invisibility bound by?

In the show, John Hodgman limited the invisibility to yourself and whatever you were wearing, but not objects that you merely touched. We discussed if this seemed logical--if you eminated the invisibility from your skin, were items in contact with your skin only invisible if they touched a certain percentage (for instance, clothing touches you 100%, so it becomes invisible; your purse touches you 10%, and is therefore not invisible)--or would only portions of items you held become invisible? And the old discussion we've had before--if everything you touched became wholly invisible, as it's been explained in numerous TV shows and cartoons--yes, Batman Animated Series Season 1, I'm talking about you--doesn't it logically follow that the floor, or at least the portion of the floor touching your feet, would become invisible? What if you wore shoes? Where does the invisibility power end?

Related to this, the power of flight was also limited, to a certain speed, within Earth's atmosphere, and you could only take someone with you if you were physically capable of holding them. Which led Alex to ask me if I would still want to fly if I could only float around slowly, like a hot air balloon. To which I repy a resounding "YES!" --any kind of flight at all, I believe, would be incredibly fun. Plus, it'd be practical, like a parachute, if you fell from a great height. I could finally jump the railing at the mall and slowly float to the ground, my pathological fear of throwing myself off of heights (not really a fear of heights themselves) permanently aleviated.

So, all of this stirred an idea in the back of my head--one of those ideas that sounds really fun and then you realize it might involve time and work and hey, isn't this all something fun for your spare time? I was thinking maybe I could take short videos--not high quality, maybe even from my phone, to capture a more candid feel--of friends telling which power they'd choose and why. I'm interested, and it seems like something that would be fun to post on a website, and just peruse what your friends' opinions are. So, since some of you reading this blog are some of the people I'd bug to be a part of the project--are you interested? Is it worth me spending 10-20 more minutes a week on something other than school, work, or making dinner?

And feel free to post lengthy, conflicted arguments about invisibility versus flight as a comment. In fact, do so, now--I command you!

I've had a lot of comic-related themes lately--I guess it's that summer-movie comic theme dominating my mind. That, and the fact that everytime I walk into Walmart, I see another awesome Batman shirt I want to buy.