THE POTENTIAL PARADOX

I want to talk about a friend of mine from when I was younger. Let’s call him Jack. Jack was a great guy. He used to help me out with homework, and he used to pretend I was over at his house so I could stay out just a little longer before I went home after school. Jack, even in his early teens, was the kind of guy you could see running the next Silicon Valley tech startup. He just had that edge. When other kids were experimenting with cheap cider he was experimenting with code and software.

He didn’t let it define him – he still had time for friends and for socialising. He was one of the rare few people I have ever met that had his life sorted before he was even an adult. And I was jealous in some ways because I still hadn’t got it all figured out yet. I had so many questions and doubts about my life.

But Jack?

Jack had so much potential.

When I became Mysterion, I had to leave Jack behind. While I know what I am doing is for the greater good, it wasn’t his battle. I didn’t want him throwing away that potential by getting arrested for something I’d done.

We went our separate ways but I tried to keep an ear to the ground. I heard he’d started a new social media app that was causing a buzz with investors, but it went a little quiet. A few months passed and I’d heard nothing, so I swung by his parents house to see what he was up to. I climbed a tree that had a view into his bedroom, and what I saw shocked me.

Instead of the professional, clean, tidy looking room he had before, there was now an unmade bed, piles of discarded snack packages, cups with mould growing out of them. On the desk that used to house his computer now sat drug paraphernalia. Where his eyes once seemed bright, now they were dead.

Suddenly, and shockingly, all that potential was gone.

Whenever I see you, Zander Zane, I think of Jack. I know you had the world at your feet once. People thought you were the next big rock icon, but though you had enough success that your name was known, did you ever truly reach your potential?

Like the drugs that took Jack away from his destiny, the drink took you from yours, and you became a parody of your former self, and a parody of the addiction-riddled rock slobs that came before you and will continue long after you are in your grave.

And whilst it may seem like you’ve reversed that? Beware. All Xōchipilli has done is takethe high the alcohol gives you and made it stronger. Your star has not risen because of Xōchipilli, no, but you cannot see yet that you remain, just like Jack, a husk of your former self, forever destined for YouTube compilations asking “Whatever happened to that guy?”.

This week, I heard that Jack was dead. Overdose.

You can’t escape your mediocrity.