Loved that this week's episode of This American Life featured John Hodgman's piece on Flight vs. Invisibility:
Flight versus invisibility? This question is only for you. Whichever you pick, you'll be the only person in the world to have that particular superpower. You can't have both. Which do you choose?
I started wondering about this a few years ago. I'd bring it up at parties, dinners, wedding receptions. It was more interesting to ask than where people worked or where they went to school, and clearly more fun to answer. Like a magic word, shazam, flight versus invisibility would instantly change an evening's character, opening passionate conversation and debate.
But what surprised me more was how quickly everyone would choose, as though they'd been thinking about it for a long time. Everyone knew exactly which superpower they wanted and what they would do with it. Their plans weren't always flashy or heroic. In fact, they almost never were.
If I could fly, the first thing I would do is fly into the bar, check out what's going on there, fly back home. I would attach my baby to me and fly to a doctor's appointment at 11:30, fly right back. And then I think I would fly to Atlantic City.
I would imagine, like, if it got around that I had the power of flight and it was a rare type of thing, I mean, there would definitely be flight groupies. I would imagine. So they're going to be just like, oh, yeah, I just slept with the flying dude. You know? People are just like, oh, score.
I'd go into Barney's. I'd pick out the cashmere sweaters that I like. I'd go to the dressing room. The woman says, how many items? I'd say, five. I'd go into the dressing room. I'd put those five sweaters on. And I'd summon my powers of invisibility in the dressing room. I'd turn invisible. I'd walk out, leaving her to wonder why there's a tag hanging from the door that says five, and no person inside.
So you'd become a thief pretty quickly.
Immediately. Until I had all the sweaters that I wanted, and then I would have to think of other things to do.
Typically, this is how it goes. People who turn invisible will sneak into the movies or onto airplanes. People who fly stop taking the bus. Here's one thing that pretty much no one ever says-- I would use my power to fight crime. No one seems to care about crime.
I don't think I would want to spend a lot of time using my power for good. I mean, if I don't have super strength and I'm not invulnerable, then, I mean, it would be very dangerous. If you had to rescue somebody from a burning building or something like that, you might catch on fire.
Just having flight I don't think is necessarily quite enough, because you don't have the super strength.
I'd still be weak when I got there, I guess. I don't fight crime now, and people without superpowers do. Sure, in theory, yes. But you know, I'm not a-- I mean, what can I do with this? Either one of those is, you need a whole package. There's not much you can do with any one thing. I'd go to Paris, I suppose.
That's not being a superhero.
Well, maybe I could be a Going to Paris Man, that sort of a superhero.
Going to Paris Man is not a superhero. And I have to say this drove me crazy a little bit. We are, after all, talking about superpowers. Why not take down organized crime, bring hope to the hopeless, swear vengeance on the underworld, if only a little bit?
I proposed a variety of sample scenarios along these lines, such as, how would you handle a mad genius taking over the Empire State Building, or a group of terrorists hijacking an overseas flight? And what I learned is, some people should simply not be fighting crime.
Well, first thing that occurs to me is, like, I would sneak up behind them very low with a knife that they didn't see and slice their Achilles tendon. Oh, no. I'd somehow shove a sock in their mouth or something like that, and wrap some tape around their mouth, so that they can't yell out. It might not be a sock. It might just be some napkins or something. I can't keep all of this in my head. I'd have to keep a bag full of stuff with me. Knives. Socks. Tape.
Do you think you'd be tempted to enlist a teenage helper?
Um. You know, I think a helper would be good, a helper with a complementary power.
There's no others, anybody else with superpowers.
Oh, it would just be a teenager hanging around me? No.
People who consider invisibility always want to know, do I have to be naked? People who choose flight want to know, how fast? Almost all asked, who would win in a fight, Mr. Invisible or Flying Man?
And so I had to lay down some rules. Invisibility means the power to become transparent at will, including your clothing, but anything you may pick up is visible. Flight means the power to fly at any altitude within the earth's atmosphere at speeds up to 1000 miles per hour.
But even then, they start looking for loopholes, hidden catches, superpower fine print. They start negotiating their dreams with me.
Now, when you're flying, if you're flying at 1000 miles an hour at 100,000 feet, are you comfortable? Do you get very cold?
Let's say I'm in this room and I'm invisible. And I'm walking around this apartment and I'm invisible. Do I have to be completely quiet, or you guys will, like, hear my footsteps? Because that's a pain in the ass. And also, someone has to let you in.
Can I carry someone? Can somebody go on my back?
Can you carry someone on your back now?
Little people. Little people, yeah.
Then you can carry little people on your back.
This is all part of what I call the five stages of choosing your superpower. Sometimes this process occurs in just moments. For example, subject A, a tallish man with glasses, wedged into a cramped barroom corner, begins as they all do, with stage one, gut reaction.
Initially, I would think perhaps invisibility.
Next comes stage two, practical consideration.
Because you have the ability to walk around work, perhaps show up at one point, and perhaps like go away for a little while, and turn invisible, and then come back and listen to what they say about you. You have the power to spy on your exes. And that would all be enlightening and fun and, in fact, a little bit perverted. And--
You hear that doubt in his voice? That's the beginning of stage three, philosophical reconsideration.
That would-- I believe it would immediately turn into a life of complete depression. You wouldn't be able to really share it with anyone, you know? And I know there'd be some problems with, like, the perversion thing.
Stage four, self-recrimination.
Invisibility leads you-- leads me, as an invisible person, down a dark path, because you're not going to want to miss out, when you're invisible, on-- you know, no matter how many times you've seen a woman naked in the shower, you're going to want to see it again, because there's always a different woman, right? And there's like a lifetime of that. And that's not acceptable behavior, no matter whether you're invisible or not.
And finally, stage five, acceptance.
Yeah, I'd have to go with flight.
So who chooses invisibility and who chooses flight? In my experience, though there are lots of exceptions, men lean towards flying, women to invisibility. And many brood anxiously over their choice, switching from one to the other and back again. And that's because, more than the ability, say, to burst into flame or shoot arrows with uncanny accuracy, flight and invisibility touch a nerve. Actually, they touch two different nerves, speak to very different primal desires and unconscious fears.
My friend Christine chose invisibility.
One superpower is about something that's obvious, and the other is about something that is hidden. I think it indicates your level of shame.
A person who chooses to fly has nothing to hide. A person who chooses to be invisible wants clearly to hide themselves.
Do you feel that you want to hide yourself?
I want to-- I'd like to not-- I'm not going to answer that question.
It all has to do with guile. Wanting to be invisible means that you're a more guileful person. If you want to fly, it means you're guileless. And I think the reason that I'm so conflicted about flying versus invisibility is that I have guile, but I really wish that I didn't.
Flight is the hero-- selfless and confident and unashamed. And invisibility, the villain. Almost everyone I talked to called invisibility the sneakier power.
Flying is for people who want to let it all hang out. Invisibility is for fearful, crouching masturbators.
First of all, I think that a lot of people are going to tell you that they would choose flight, and I think they're lying to you. I think they're saying that because they're trying to sound all mythic and heroic, because the better angels of our nature would tell us that the real thing that we should strive for is flight, and that that's noble and all that kind of stuff.
But I think actually, if everybody were being perfectly honest with you, they would tell you the truth, which is that they all want to be invisible so that they can shoplift, get into movies for free, go to exotic places on airplanes without paying for airline tickets, and watch celebrities have sex.
Anyone faced with this choice, in their heart of hearts, will choose invisibility.
Yes. Or they have this sort of inflated, heroic, mythical concept of themselves, and that, in fact, they're not really giving it very much practical thought.
In the end, it's not a question of what kind of person flies and what kind of person fades. We all do both. Perhaps that's why, when I put the choice to myself, I'm hopelessly, completely stuck. At the heart of this decision, the question I really don't want to face, is this. who do you want to be, the person you hope to be, or the person you fear you actually are? Don't rush into it. Think it over. Which would you choose?
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