THE DICHOTOMY DISCERNMENT

From the moment you’re born, there is this instant divide. You don’t even get the chance to learn to walk before it is drilled into you.

“No son, don’t do that.”

“Please don’t shove your fingers in the socket!”

As a baby, before you can even UNDERSTAND, they expect you to grasp the difference between right and wrong. Two different faces of the same moral coin. By the time you’re five, you know that pushing someone over in the playground is wrong, according to the rules. By the time you’re ten, you know that cheating at school is wrong, according to the rules. By the time you’re twenty, you know that drugs are wrong, according to the rules.

Left and right. Night and day. Right and wrong.

But what if not everything in the world is a straight dichotomy? Between night and day there is always a dusk and a dawn, and between left and right, there is always the option to go straight forward. What is not straightforward is the line between right and wrong. These rules that bind us from the moment we open our eyes are just a construct. What IS right? What IS wrong?

When I was a superhero, I thought I was doing right. But all I was doing was treading water and pretending I made a difference, when all along nothing I did mattered. Each day I left home and tried to be a goody-two-shoes was another day that could have played out without me. Is that right? Shouldn’t we try and leave a legacy when we leave this world? So I resolved to make my mark, and Mysterion rose from the ashes of that decision. And since I donned this mask I have been told I am doing wrong. I have been told I am EVIL. But all I want is for the world to thrive. If that means there are some casualties then that is a loss that will be worth it in the end.

I was told that this point of view meant I had no soul. No humanity left in me.

Well if causing a few casualties to make the world a better place makes me this bad, then what on earth does that make you. Nightstick?

You’re supposed to be this shining beacon of justice amongst the scum of the earth, but not only did you take that justice into your own murderous hands, but you left a man to burn alive. You didn’t make it quick. You took pleasure from it. Believe me, the only way you make it last is to make yourself feel GOOD about it.

On this false dichotomy of right and wrong, where do you sit, Nightstick?

You sit in the grey. Like any sane human being does.

Left and right? Right and wrong? Good and evil?

Forget all of those labels. Justice doesn’t care about labels at all. We are not inhuman because our morals transcend the boundaries of RULES and REGULATIONS, Nightstick. Death is such a sweet medicine to those who have done us an injustice, sometimes.

Welcome to the club.