adversity – The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

‘A Serious Man’ – Film Review and Analysis

“Above all else, it is a story of a ‘serious’ man who wants to be taken seriously and seems unable to be granted that not only from his teenage children but also from his estranged wife and it seems from religious leaders in his suburban Jewish community.”

Man can be tested again and again but how exactly he deals with life’s challenges and his overall resolve and mettle will be seen as the measure of his true character. If I had to sum up the excellent movie, ‘A Serious Man’, it is a dark comedy but also a human drama regarding fate, fortune, and whether the role of a higher being can ultimately affect our destiny. Above all else, it is a story of a ‘serious’ man who wants to be taken seriously and seems unable to be granted that not only from his teenage children but also from his estranged wife and it seems from religious leaders in his suburban Jewish community.

‘A Serious Man’ (2009) is an excellent modern-day film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, who I would imagine have had a similar childhood to the lead character of Larry Gopnik (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), which is the inspiration for this adapted screenplay, which is brilliantly written and relatable even if you’re not of the Jewish faith. The Coen Brothers both were raised and grew up as Jews in 1960s – 1970s Minnesota near the Twin Cities. It is likely they had to deal with being religious minorities in a mostly goyim (non-Jewish state) as well as with the growing counterculture and changing attitudes towards parental authority, sex, style, personal responsibility, and other societal upheavals including regarding race, gender, and politics.

While the Coen Brothers have had successful movies before and have won Academy Awards for movies such as ‘No Country for Old Men’, this film, ‘A Serious Man’ is quite unique given that it combines both comedic and dramatic elements, usually in the same scene. Overall, it triumphs as a film in doing that and is also laugh-out-loud funny and additionally heart-wrenchingly sad and melancholic. This film was universally praised and as I re-watched the film again after many years, it stands as one of the best films of the 2000s. Not only is the screenplay and writing engaging and insightful but also the acting is top notch thanks to the hard work of Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, among others in the film.

When you consider the main themes of ‘A Serious Man’, you think of several of them that deal with human nature such as upholding your morality under stress, taking care of those closest to you, dealing with adversity and unforeseen hurdles, and how to deal with questions of faith when you feel that you have been abandoned. As I mentioned earlier on, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) wants to be taken seriously given the way he has lived his life and he has strived to do so with his academic and professional accomplishments. Sadly though, he is not only not able to get as much success with his professional pursuits, but he also struggles to hold his personal life together.

Despite how ‘serious’ of a man Larry thinks he is, those in his life can’t help but not take him seriously or choose not to. Instead of reassessing his actions and trying to make some behavioral changes or work on any personal defects he may has in addressing his challenges, Larry instead challenges his faith in God and wonders if the Rabbis of his synagogue will have the answers to the questions God has challenged Larry with.

As the film starts out, Larry appears to be relatively successful as a Physics professor waiting to be tenured. He teaches his classes, does research (albeit has not published anything), and enjoys the work he does. Larry is married with two teenage children and a modest house in the suburbs. Him and his family want for nothing, and it looks like he has everything you could want out of life on the surface.

As appearances can be deceiving, the film breaks down how one man’s life can be turned upside down and inferring what events beyond Larry’s control could have tipped his fortune to be negative, as in a curse, years or centuries ago. It is a series of events that tend to turn Larry’s life upside down even when he has not done anything wrong. A Korean student in his Physics class tries to bribe Larry to get a better grade and leaves before Larry can return the money and punish him for the illegal act.

Larry also comes home to his wife, Judith, who asks him for a divorce and for a ‘gett’ or permission to do so she can remarry within the faith to Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed) who everyone takes seriously as a ‘Serious Man’ except for Larry. Larry is envious of Sy to some degree and feels like he has everything given to him whereas Larry has had to work hard for his success. Suddenly, ‘the domino effect’ of one negative event after another happens including Larry losing his home, access to his bank accounts, his marriage, and even his relationship to his teenage children become estranged.

This string of unfortunate events has Larry looking to cast judgment on God and questioning his faith in Judaism. Larry goes to three different rabbis whose advice and counsel does not help him any further. He cannot relate to what they tell them especially as the eldest, he considers to be too unavailable or unwilling and the youngest rabbi being too inexperienced or immature, who end up wasting his time. The 2^nd and wisest rabbi give him the advice through an allegory, that while fictional, has a good message to it ends up helping Larry the most that God can only provide the questions, but you must find your own answers. The best way the 2^nd rabbi implies to Larry is that he must “help himself by helping others.”

Essentially, Larry Gopnik must look beyond his own pain and selfish wants and look to control what he can and do what he can to get his life back on track. Larry can also do ‘mitzvahs’ especially regarding his own family. Larry’s younger brother, Arthur, is homeless and not mentally sound so Larry tries to get him on his feet but struggles to find the money or the resources to help his brother with his many troubles. He still attempts to maintain better relations with his kids, his soon to be ex-wife, and with his work colleagues. Without spoiling the rest of the movie, Larry understands that he must look to help others rather than looking to God to intervene. While ‘The Boss’ is present to give questions, the answers must come from within.

How Larry stands up to challenges and adversity is like the Torah’s stories about men like Job and Jonah who had their lives thrown into upheaval but were able to get over the anguish by holding true to their faith in God but looking inwards in their own strength, knowledge, and belief in morality and good will to make it through on the other side better than before. Life throws challenges at us every day and how we react to them and try to get through it with our God-given wisdom, kindness, compassion, patience, and reasoning will decide how far we can proceed in life to get back to being successful. Fortune is not everlasting, and faith will not provide good fortune. What can provide good fortune is to do your best, help yourself and others around you, and look to your own inner beliefs and values to guide you through the tough times.

‘A Serious Man’ is about a man who considers himself to be serious but has to struggle for others to call him ‘serious.’ In an effort to be taken seriously, Larry does end up struggling to fulfill the other important parts of his life that require his attention. He can forget to be loving and caring to his wife, attentive and helpful to his children, and more involved within the Jewish community including at his son’s Hebrew school. Larry is not a bad man but the cracks in his life cause some bad events to happen including events for which there is no logical explanation. Larry does his best to be a good man and although he is flawed, bad things happen out of nowhere to him.

The test throughout this excellent film is how do you claw back from adversity and try to give yourself the best shot at having good things happen in your life. Even if your family may appear to be cursed or have a string of bad fortune dating back to the shtetls of Eastern Europe, how do you turn it around so your son or your daughter don’t deal with the same tragedies and setbacks? There are no easy answers in ‘A Serious Man’ but the Coen Brothers make it clear that it is not wise to look to God to solve the problems for you or provide the answers.

The central message of this film is not just for Jews but for all people. God may have provided life’s questions for you to answer but it’s up to you alone to answer them throughout your life. While you may lose faith in hose providing counsel or advice or in the religion itself, the film makes clear that you have to believe in yourself, to help yourself pull through the pain and sorrow, and to help other people, especially the family and friends closest to you, who are going through tough times as well, whose aid and assistance you can provide may be able to help you get to the right direction in life again and to lead you to a better place than you were before.

The Boiling Frog Analogy

“Whether you are a frog in a pot of water or a person in a society, you should monitor the temperature around you meaning you have to understand what is going on around you in terms of your surroundings.”

It’s likely you may have heard of the old analogy of a frog who was put in a pot of cold water where it was moving and bouncing around happily. The frog was content with the temperature of the water and was content to be there even though it was constrained by the pot of water it found itself in. However, what the frog doesn’t know but as the analogy describes, the pot of water was controlled by a person who could raise the temperature quite quickly or increase the heat slowly and see the frog’s reaction.

In an experiment related to its own survival, the person experimenting with the frog wanted to see if they were aware of their surroundings enough to survive a test of their mobility and their survival instinct. The analogy describes the person not as cruel but wanting to measure how aware a frog would be of a pot of water in two different scenarios of change. The first scenario is where the temperature of the pot is raised slowly over minutes where the frog would not have a keen enough awareness that it would eventually be too hot for him or her to swim in and jump out before it would be boiled alive. The second scenario involves the pot of water being raised immediately in terms of heat causing the frog to jump out immediately to save itself since it is not accustomed to such a rapid change in temperature causing an abrupt reaction that would be self-preserving like any other creature would do.

The first scenario of this analogy means how easily a frog or even a person can be lulled into a false sense of security before it’s too late to change their surroundings. When things decline or worsen, you can rationalize it away or just be ignorant of the changes enough so you can be too complacent causing your own success or survival to be jeopardized. A rapid change of any kind will jolt us awake or spur us into action right away especially if left unaddressed could be fatal. When the temperature is continually raised by 5 degrees, we don’t really notice especially if it is done over a long enough period, causing us to adapt but not realize when the temperature is not going back down or being at a comfortable number again.

However, when you push the temperature or the pressure by 25 degrees right away, that will be enough warming to cause a change of behavior to preserve a sense of normalcy and safety. A frog will jump out of that pot of water with a 25-degree temperature rise but will probably stick around much longer when the temperature increases 5 degrees each hour until those 25 degrees may be too hot but by then it would be too late. Why use this boiling frog analogy and what does it matter to the person reading this? Well, it is an important reminder to not let things get out of control in your life or in the society that you live in before it is too late. Having constant vigilance and a keen sense of societal awareness is extremely important especially when you at least want to have some sense of control over a rapidly changing world. Whether it is having some survival skills, being able to take care of basic needs when disaster strikes or knowing how to get yourself out of potentially bad situations without any consequences, these are vitally important abilities to not overlook but to rather embrace for the rest of your life.

Whether you are a frog in a pot of water or a person in a society, you should monitor the temperature around you meaning you have to understand what is going on around you in terms of your surroundings. If things are getting steadily worse, you may have to make an adjustment to your life such as quitting that job, moving to another city, or even changing your habits. You can’t control external factors on your life, but you should be actively managing them. You shouldn’t be in risky situations or put yourself unnecessarily at risk. To use an idiomatic expression, if you do not like the way the wind is blowing, don’t go along with the currents. It’s better to be footloose than tied down to a situation that there is no exit from. Similarly, having an exit strategy or a Plan B is especially key to protect you, your family, and your loved ones. Whether it’s a natural disaster caused by climate change, a cyberattack that causes you to lose electricity or water where you live or a global pandemic that shuts down everything leaving you without many resources, you must make sure you prepare for these unlikely yet unfortunate events, which can occur, and to have a serious plan if the worst-case scenario were to occur.

It’s easy to be like your average frog and think that the water is always going to stay the same and you’ll always have that deep sense of security of your surroundings, but life is unfortunately not like that. Life and society itself can go hot or cold slowly and catch you off guard like the boiling frog. When a devastating event happens, it’s hard to not be caught flat footed but if you plan for it in advance, you can avoid the worst. However, if you do not plan at all for its possibility and end up like the frog being completely ignorant of events or situations getting progressively worse over time, you won’t be able to get out of that worst case scenario because you haven’t planned for it at all.

Like the frog jumping out of a big pot of water to survive frigid or scalding hot temperatures, you must be able to do the same if life or society throws you some serious adversity. You may not come out completely unscathed but if you maintain your awareness, plan for different possibilities in advance, and stay informed, vigilant of what’s always going on around you, you should be fine in the end.

Crave Discomfort

The mountain looks intimidating. You’re chilled to the bone as you make the final ascent. You didn’t think you were prepared for this moment but you wanted to push yourself to the physical limit. You made this hike not because it was easy but because it was hard. In order to understand your mentality and physicality better, you had to put yourself to the test.

There’s no other way to know what you are capable of than to test yourself and to do it often. It does not matter if you are cold, you are tired, you are hungry, you are sweaty, or you are sleepy, there are times in life when you must simply crave discomfort because you know deep down that you will be more fulfilled from pushing yourself than from having played it safe.

Imagine being on the side of that same mountain and you are rock climbing to get your way to the top. Each move that you make must be analyzed quickly so you don’t make a mistake. It’s likely that you will have a harness or some kind of restraint to catch you if you fall but that’s not always the case. You’re under a large amount of emotional stress and personal discomfort but you feel invigorated when you successfully climb or hike your way to the top. You’ll never regret those times when you put yourself out of your comfort zone especially when you are able to push yourself past those previously held limits that you thought you had.

There is no such thing as a challenge-free life. Putting yourself out there is going to be uncomfortable and you are going to be vulnerable. However, you may find that you will be the most fulfilled emotionally and physically when you challenge yourself. Discomfort as a concept may seem unappealing but it is in those moments or those times of discomfort where we advance the most.

Having the means of comfort may give short-term happiness but it is definitely unlikely to lead to long-term fulfillment. The only way to achieve satisfaction or fulfillment is to acclimate yourself to dealing with discomfort and being able to overcome it again and again. Being able to handle uncertainty will set you apart from other people and give you a level of maturity that will make you a stronger and more resilient person.

Discomfort does not only show up in the form of physical challenges but also in the realm of mental obstacles. Keeping your mind active by putting it to the test will improve you in numerous ways. Whether it’s reading a 400-page book, writing a research paper, or studying a foreign language, these mental challenges will definitely cause some discomfort and that’s a good thing. These personal projects will be very uncomfortable at first, but you will notice results when you stick with them, little bit by bit, and you’ll realize that the discomfort was worth it because of how far you have advanced with your mental development.

Living a life of ease and pleasure is not going to lead you to be the best person that you can become. Only by overcoming obstacles and meeting challenges will you be able to develop yourself fully. It’s good to kick back every now and then to relax and enjoy life yet that kind of pleasure is temporary. True personal growth lies in craving discomfort in whatever form it may yield the highest rewards for you. Whether it’s running a marathon or climbing a mountain to reach new physical capabilities or to writing a thesis paper for your doctorate or solving a complex physics equation, both our body and our mind need these challenges.

If you are ever feeling lethargic or lost, you should evaluate whether or not you are challenging yourself enough. Giving yourself personal goals to work towards will make you uncomfortable but you will also be able to greater fulfillment and longer lasting happiness. Being able to put yourself out there, use your physical and/or mental abilities, and logically think through and solve problems will get you out of your self-imposed funk.

Having a deeper purpose in life that is fulfilling and meaningful is necessary for everyone to pursue. Everybody will struggle at first to find out what exactly they were meant to do. Instead of doing nothing about it, I think it is best to try out different things that are uncomfortable to find out which challenges make you feel the most engaged and willing to overcome. Doing a bunch of different things to keep yourself active is better than to do nothing at all. Time is limited so it’s best to challenge yourself in a variety of ways first before you settle on the one or two major challenges in life that you want to succeed at.

Craving that discomfort is a necessary part of this part of self-development. Failure is possible and you may not ultimately succeed. However, if you fail, you will learn from having tried your hand at it and you will be the better person for it. Once you try at something, even without ultimate success, you know that you have the ability to take on challenges and eventually you’ll meet them without unease and with greater confidence. It is far better to have failed one hundred times and to have succeeded on your 101^st try, then to have failed only once and then give up entirely without trying again.

Many people today shy away from being uncomfortable at all, even for a minute, but this is much to their detriment. Being in discomfort and going through painful times is part of being human. Without experiencing that pain and that discomfort, you won’t be able to become a stronger person. The person who has been through several trials by fire is the person you want around in times of discomfort and distress. You don’t want to be around a person who only indulges in pleasures and shies away from any pain.

Having physical toughness and mental fortitude to meet challenges head on are traits that you should want to make part of yourself for the rest of your life. Putting your fear and your doubts aside to climb that mountain, write that book, learn that language, or solve that Math problem will give you an advantage over others who deny themselves discomfort. You have to want to engage in the discomforts in life because in today’s day and age, it is easier than ever to avoid discomfort. Those who pursue discomfort will be rewarded long after the challenge(s) you set for yourself have been overcome.

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

Camera: iPhone 8

Location: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site; Washington, District of Columbia, USA

‘Batman Begins’ – Film Review and Analysis

I know what you may be thinking as you read out loud the title of this blog post. You’re probably wondering why I would choose to review and analyze a movie based off a super hero from a comic book series. It may appear to be juvenile but I made this creative choice for a couple of good reasons.

Batman is not just any super hero. He is often ranked as being the most popular and well-known super hero worldwide up there with Superman or the ‘Man of Steel.’
Batman isn’t your traditional super hero to make a movie about due to the fact that he has no super powers, and is an ordinary man who strives to be extraordinary.

A superhero who has been around since the early days of comic books in the early 1930’s, Batman is a popular cultural figure who until the 2000’s came around was never done justice on the silver screen. I remember as a kid watching the overly cartoonish and god-awful early film adaptations such as ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘Batman and Robin.’ The best film up until ‘Batman Begins’ was Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’, released in 1989, and even that movie was a bit goofy and contrived at times. Luckily, Batman on film earned a well-needed revival due to the masterful directing, screenwriting, and casting for Batman Begins, which was released over a decade ago in 2005.

Christopher Nolan, who directed Batman Begins, and helped to write the screenplay, did an amazing job in bringing Batman to life again as a superhero that comes from a realistic setting. Compared to The Avengers or X-Men, this is as close to reality as a superhero film can get. Compared to all of the comic book movies I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a good amount, ‘Batman Begins’ is the most realistic. It never gets too fanciful, and it takes itself seriously as a film that falls under the ‘drama’ genre.

For those readers who are unfamiliar with the origins of Batman, ‘Batman Begins’ does a great job of setting up the rise of this super hero from his childhood to his 30^th birthday. You can see how much Bruce Wayne evolves into the role of the masked dark knight due to the painful tragedy that befalls him at an early age.

Bruce Wayne is a boy who grew up with everything a child could ask for: a loving family, a safe home, and a bright future. He has it all taken away from him when his parents are gunned down in front of him by one of the people they were trying to help. The Wayne family comes from immense wealth and they are tied to Gotham City through the generations. The Wayne’s are great benefactors to the city and try to help it out financially so that citizens can gain economic opportunities even during hard times.

The death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is the true beginning of his path to becoming Batman. This film does a great job in showing the phases that Bruce goes through after suffering a trauma such as the loss of his closest family members: his mother and his father. For many years, Bruce turns his deep-seated emotions onto blaming himself to feel the full guilt, the relentless anger, and the deep sadness fully. He is unable to use those powerful emotions, and turn them into constructive action.

An ever-present theme throughout ‘Batman Begins’ is Fear. As a young child, Bruce fell into a deep well near his parents’ mansion, and was unable to get himself out after experiencing a wave of bats surrounding him as they flew away into the sunlight. During an opera performance one night, young Bruce asks his father if they can leave the theater for a little while because he is frightened by the performers pretending to be bats in one of the play’s acts. Because of this fateful decision, for many years, Bruce blames himself completely for his parents’ death because they ended up being shot and killed by the mugger, Joe Chill, after Bruce asked them to leave the theater, and head into the nearby alley.

Bruce seeks out vengeance against the man who killed his parents and wishes to kill Mr. Chill as he leaves the courthouse. He buys a gun one day and wants to take justice into his own hands like a vigilante. Before he is able to do the grisly deed, Joe Chill is killed by one of Carmine Falcone’s men, a Gotham City mob boss. Although Mr. Falcone didn’t kill Bruce’s parents, the corruption befalling the city’s institutions, the unrelenting crime wave, and the lack of a respectable police force have led to more injustice than ever that has left Gotham City a shell of what it used to be.

One of the best scenes of ‘Batman Begins’ highlights the fact that Bruce has more to lose than he knows and should protect the people he cares about. He decides to use Batman as more than just a man flying around in a cape, but more as a symbol to be feared by criminals everywhere, and that anybody can become Batman if they have the will to act. Bruce is wise to use his fear of Bats and turn that fear into a powerful symbol, which criminals will one day fear themselves.

Despite the personal tragedy that befell him, men like Carmine Falcone lecture the young Bruce Wayne regarding his naivety about the world. “You always fear what you don’t understand”, and “people from your world have so much to lose.” Before becoming Batman, Bruce decides to travel the world, learn about the psychology of criminals, train himself in various martial arts, and harness the power of stealth to strike fear into the hearts of Gotham’s underbelly.

In order to learn fully about the evils of the world, Bruce has to go out there himself to experience what actually drives criminals to do what they do. He has to push himself physically and mentally in order to be able to stop them. In order to become Batman, he has to develop a strong moral code so that he can be incorruptible, and more than just a vigilante taking justice into his own hands. In this film, Batman doesn’t kill and he desires to make sure that all criminals face true justice to prove that it’s more than just vengeance for him.

In order to fully develop into Batman, he must complete his training under the tutelage of Henri Ducard (played brilliantly by Liam Neeson). Henri and Bruce have both suffered personal tragedies at the hands of ruthless criminals, but they decide to use their anger and pain to motivate them to strengthen, develop, and confront their adversaries whomever they may be. Bruce becomes Ducard’s best student and excels in different areas of physical and mental training. As Ducard imparts on Wayne, “Your training is nothing, the will is everything. The will to act.”

Batman Begins does an excellent job of showing the physical dexterity and the mental will needed to become a hero like Batman. In addition to that, the training scenes are spectacular in highlighting how Bruce must use deception, theatricality, and stealth in order to overcome his enemies with fear. Most similarly, he must play the role of an actual ninja. “In order to manipulate the fear in others, you must first master the fear within yourself.”

Batman is a symbol that cannot be bought off, corrupted, or killed. Ducard reminds Bruce Wayne of the fact, “If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can’t stop you…you become something else entirely…A legend, Mr. Wayne.” However, Ducard and Wayne have a fundamental difference of belief regarding the nature of criminals that puts them on an adversarial footing with each other, which leads to an inevitable confrontation later on. Bruce desires to bring criminals to justice but with the support of the police and the criminal justice system. On a fundamental level, he wants to uphold the institutions of Gotham City to be free of corruption in all of its’ forms.

We find out that Mr. Ducard is no fan of granting any leniency to criminals and wants them to be punished without any hesitation or limits. For Ra’s al-Ghul, Henri Ducard, and the rest of the League of Shadows, an organization that helped train Bruce Wayne to become Batman, crime cannot be tolerated and that criminals thrive when societies indulge themselves by not having them pay the ultimate price of death. Even if the criminal is a despicable murderer, Bruce still believes in the rule of law, wants them to be tried in a fair court, and does not desire to become a singular executioner.

Batman wants to save Gotham City in the right way even though he finds it to be an almost insurmountable task given the lack of allies he has. However, he discovers that he has help with the incorruptible Officer James Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department and his friend, Rachel Dawes, a district attorney who won’t be bought off.

Batman comes up against another villain who desires to strike fear into the heart of Gotham’s citizenry: The Scarecrow (played by Cillian Murphy) who uses fear toxin gas to poison people, and make them do horrible things to each other out of their fear of each other. Bruce Wayne must lead a double life, keep his secret safe, weed out corruption, and be able to combat two villains who use fear to prey on the fearful (Scarecrow and Ra’s al-Ghul).

Instead of using fear against the citizens of Gotham, Batman uses his terrifying appearance to strike fear into the hearts of criminals and villains everywhere. While he understands that justice is never ensured for all criminals, he does not want to be a murderer himself who decides the fate of all those enemies he fights and stops.

‘Batman Begins’ is a deep superhero movie that asks some philosophical and psychological questions regarding the nature of true justice, and how far individuals and a collective society should go in order to stop crime. The film also probes the feeling of ‘fear’ and how a person can master their own fear in order to become mentally and physically stronger.

Christopher Nolan asks the question of how do we control our own fear and keep it from controlling us. Batman is a flawed superhero, but he is able to control his fear to become a legend. His symbolism helps Gotham City to rise up against corruption, crime, and to fight injustice. While he is only just a man without any real superpowers, he is able to inspire others to fight the good fight with his moral example.

In a movie where there’s not much hope, the Batman inspires others to believe in themselves and their city again. He is a regular man, driven into action after going through a terrible tragedy. Instead of being broken by what happened to him at a young age, he uses his pain and sorrow to motivate himself so that others don’t suffer the same kind of tragedy in life of losing a loved one. As a superhero and as a film character, Batman sets himself up as an example to follow for the audience even if it is a fictional story.

Making a super hero film is an extremely difficult process, which is why director Christopher Nolan should be given a lot of credit. Mr. Nolan has directed a lot of great films including Inception and Interstellar. Batman Begins is the first of three movies in the Dark Knight film series, and it may be the most underrated of them all. He and his team did a great job of bringing this character back onto the big screen in a big way.

It’s a realistic take on the Batman, and its’ a film franchise that has produced three excellent, unique films. For myself and many other fans, Batman Begins is more than just a simple superhero movie. It is a morality tale about hope overcoming fear, how to overcome adversity to become a stronger person, and how to set an example for others to follow in your footsteps.

Batman has survived in our popular culture for so long because you get the sense that he is a relatable character for many people despite the fiction behind it. Ultimately, he is a man who has his strengths, his weaknesses, yet he is ultimately fallible. Still though, he is a powerful individual that strives to fight for justice, hope, and wants to bring the best out of others. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to become a superhero like Batman to emulate those characteristics. You just have to do the right thing and be a good person.