Wolverine as Template

One of my top 3 comics was actually a short story. 

Not claiming accurate recollection here. 

X-men. 

Wolverine. 

Mutations manifest around high school.

Prof. X has a machine that lets him scan for mutants.

In some very pretty town, a high school kids mutation manifests.

Everyone around dies as his power is make them very, very, very sick.

He is horrified and runs off to hang out in some cave in the hills. 

Wolverine is sent in to deal with it.

His healing factor going to keep him from getting dead. 

He shows up at the cave with a six-pack.
“This is what is happening kid. You are too dangerous. I am going to kill you.”

“This isn’t fair.”
“Nope.”

“I didn’t get to do soooo many things.”

“Yep.”

“And you’re going to kill me.”

“Yep. Want a beer?”

They spend some minutes talking and Wolverine kills him. 

Off-panel, natch. 

And there is Wolverine, walking down the hill from the cave.

The thing I love so much, that resonates so much with me, is, “I will not turn away.”

There is nothing to hide from.

There is nothing that needs to be ignored.

There is nothing that cannot be.

I find it an amazing way to be.

Granted, you may want to take into consideration just what your audience is, how they might deal with your acting from this place.

Granted, you are always working with limited awareness and limited information.

I’m surprised at how many places this showed up in my life.

Saw a lot of stuff being overseas.

Saw a lot of stuff working in medicine.

Saw a lot of stuff working in the ER.

Saw a lot of stuff working as a surgery tech.

Saw a lot of stuff on hallucinogens. 

Saw a lot of stuff doing hospice.

Saw a lot of stuff in nursing homes.

Saw a lot of stuff as a counselor.

Saw a lot of stuff as a coach. 

Saw a lot of stuff as elder caregiver.

Am seeing a lot of stuff as I age.

All of the “stuff” is two-edged.

There is the stuff that I want-to/don’t turn away from.

There is the stuff that the other wants-to/doesn’t turn away from.

My best teachers in this have been people who, from my POV, “should have” just killed themselves, it was “that bad” from my POV.

And they didn’t. 

My best completely un-PC memory of this guy, very close to passing from AIDS, just a ghost of his former self. Still had his sense of irony/humor. Both really dark to the average person. He’s lying there, talking and hanging with me. Looks up at me and in complete seriousness, “Hey, you wouldn’t want to fuck me up the ass right now, would you?” With this look on his face of, “Hell, he might say yes. It’s possible.”

Talk about popping out of one reality and into another. 

Complete shock, then laughter.

“Nope. Not in the slightest.”

“Well, thought I’d give it a try.”

Damn but he was a great guide to other places. 

It’s also very alive for me in my mythology of the samurai. 

“This is what is going to happen. I will not turn away. I will remain as present as I can through the whole thing.”

This is one of the things that Dojo holds out as a strong possibility for me, this “not turning away.”

For Dojo Vets, I think that we can actually be with each other as naked as we can be, not turn from anything that is either up for us or up for someone else. Doesn’t mean that you are in any way “obligated” to engage with anything. There is still choice. There are still personal preferences.

I don’t “have to” hide anything about me from any of you.

I sure as hell may choose to.

I don’t have to turn from anything you bring.
I sure as hell don’t have to engage with that thing.

I think it’s a very different place for humans to relate from. 

We grow up with the awareness that there are things that we’d better damn well hide.

We have been programmed.

We can choose to write new programs.