Can I be real with you for a moment? Over the last two weeks I’ve written hundreds of words (researched and fact-checked even!) on the importance of Superman in particular and storytelling more broadly in staying resilient through difficult times. The essay’s…fine. But I’ll probably never show it to anyone for two reasons:
1) It’s self-indulgent to the point of parody. While I started that piece quite literally just to share images of Superman punching Hitler. The image came to mind, I looked it up, and that sent me down a few rabbit holes including which superheroes have punched Hitler and other fascists, how comics and other stories complement muckraking journalism, all of which led me to consider writing something to show solidarity in a moment when the world seems to be doing more teetering on the edge than usual. While a great distraction from the news for me, every time I tried to pivot all that nerdery to something AT ALL related to career development, it felt hollow and disingenuous. Because …
2) I don’t really know what to say these days. I’m not a scholar, poet, or prophet. I’m just a guy that wants to leave the world a little better because I was in it, and I take solace in that particular brand of simplicity and try to bring that to my work. I appreciate film, literature, comics, and other media because they similarly reduce complicated ideas to an understandable scale. But with everything going on, does the world really need another LinkedIn think-piece connecting kitchen sink idea A and Thought Leader Drivel™ B in the name of Content? Not really. I’m happy with what I wrote, but that belongs on LiveJournal.
So why am I sparing you from thousands of words by sharing hundreds? Simply to share in the overall confusion about what the heck to do and say these days, both as a professional and as a person, something echoed in every client conversation I’ve had for months and taking new urgency now. Some have spent their careers at companies whose values don’t align with their own, some feel wary applying to places that have reversed policies they find important, and yet others are considering switching industries altogether to find something more compatible with their current priorities. There’s anxiety over economic uncertainty, professional uncertainty, and societal uncertainty and what all of those could mean for their life, career, and family. Big stuff, and I am in no way equipped to help with all of it (here’s your first reminder in 2025 that I remain not a therapist).
What I am equipped to do is to listen. To commiserate. To ask hard questions and easy ones. To respond. To brainstorm. To (hopefully) inspire. And generally, to help. That’s what I learned from Superman. I think those lessons can apply to you too.
(If you want to dive deep into the world of superheroes and what they mean, I highly recommend Supergods by Grant Morrison. If you want a great Superman story, I recommend the self-contained All Star Superman, also by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely. There’s a animated adaptation that’s fine enough, but the graphic novel is a near-perfect distillation of the Superman mythos.)
Oh, and since I already have the images and I am fine with at least *some* self-indulgence, here are some pics of superheroes battling Nazis and fascists.