Be Batman : Lessons I've learned !!

I'm a huge fan of BATMAN!!
Yes, I've been told to grow up and that I'm stupid that I let a comic have such a strong influence on me but this post is to all you who think I'm stupid, that I need to grow up. I tried growing up once, It sucked!!
For me Nolan’s Batman movies are more than just action-packed extravaganzas – they’re meditations. Meditations on what it means to be a superhero. Meditations on the nature of civil society and its institutions.

“People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting.”

In Batman Begins, one key aspect of Bruce Wayne’s desire to become Batman is so that he can be a symbol of something. A beacon of hope so that people can aspire to do better. This is a thread that continues through all three films, particularly The Dark Knight Rises, where Batman is honored as the savior of the city, not Bruce Wayne or any one person. Pointedly, Wayne says at the end of the film, “A hero can be anyone.” Indeed, one of the major themes of The Dark Knight Rises is the consequences of the mistake made in The Dark Knight. By holding up Harvey Dent, in particular, as a role model, Batman and Gordon were forced to cover up his crimes committed as Two-Face. That cover-up led to some of the bad things that happened in the third film.
So what do i take from this : Be larger than life in order to move people. Do the grandeur. Be everything that people associate with being Larger than life. Give like you own everything, love like it is insane, live fearlessly, live by ethos, even if it shatters you, go do that which is larger than life.

“It’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.”

This one's a personal favorite, During one memorable scene in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is exiting an expensive restaurant, soaking wet with two supermodels in tow. It’s all part of his act to maintain a  ”playboy” image so that nobody suspects he’s Batman. On his way out, he runs across his childhood friend Rachel Dawes, who looks at him condescendingly as Bruce tries to defend himself. “It’s not who I am underneath.” Rachel’s response is pointed: “Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.”

We often go through life with the best of intentions. One day, we say to ourselves, we’re going to start going to the gym and become a great athlete. One day, we’re going to finish that book. But for whatever reason, we get distracted by the present and lose our focus on the future. We never do go the gym. We never do write that book.

What am I saying here : Nobody remembers what you meant to do. They only remember what you do. Be good, Be the best you can. The harsh truth of life is that it ain't fair. The good does not always win. You do not get what you deserve. So do what it is that needs to be done. Nobody remembers what you intended to do.

“You have been supplied with a false idol to stop you from tearing down this corrupt city. Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent.” 

(Is BANE the coolest or what) At the end of The Dark Knight, Gotham’s District Attorney, Harvey Dent, had gone on a murderous rampage as the supervillain Two-Face. Confronted with this fact, Commissioner Gordon was concerned that the revelation of Dent’s crimes would lead to the people of Gotham losing hope, which would destroy all that he, Dent and Batman had tried to accomplish during the course of the film. Batman agreed, and quickly offered to tell the people of Gotham a lie. Gordon would tell the City that Batman had committed the murders that Dent had. This would allow Dent’s memory to go untarnished. It was upon that memory that the City built up a new Gotham. But not one that truly dealt with crime – one that merely pushed it underground. In The Dark Knight Rises, the truth about Batman and Dent is revealed to be a lie that corroded the foundation of Gotham’s institutions. At the end of the film, a new Gotham is built on a truth – that Batman is a hero. And that “a hero can be anyone.”

You need to know this :  it can be tempting to keep the truth to yourself. Especially if things aren't going well, there’s a fear that telling the truth might incite people to leave or give less than what they’re capable of. It also might mean that you don't trust your people and I can't stress it more that it kills someone so close to you to be felt as an outsider. We all have wolfs within us, that dark side of us that we think might scare off people but that's the beauty of truth. It might sting and sting real hard but sooner than later it'll heal. There is nothing more comforting than the truth. You'll feel liberated.

Love all and let yourself to be loved as well, it is only after this can you truly stop existing and start living.

“You do not fear death. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak …  How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death?”

During the mid-point of The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne is trapped in a hellish prison. It’s a prison made terrible, says his enemy Bane, because it offers hope. There is a pit leading to the surface that the inmates can try to escape from. The only problem? Only one prisoner ever made it – a child. Wayne makes two escape attempts and fails both time at the same point – a point where he has to make a jump that seems impossible for a person to make. In discussing the jump, Wayne reveals to a fellow prisoner that he isn't afraid of death. His fellow prisoner chastises him for this – pointing out that it’s the fear of death that will drive you to “move faster than possible, fight longer than possible.”

Lesson learned, Bruce Wayne makes a third attempt to escape. Only this time, he had no safety harness to catch him if he fell. And with that, he was able to make the leap and climb to freedom.

What am I saying here : First a little clarification, I don't fear death, having seen it from close I don't fear it one bit. But I do have my fears. And that's the message.

Fear is a good thing!
using the cliche line " if the optimistic built the plane then the fear of death drove the pessimist to make the parachute". Both inventions are equally thanked for by humanity.

Human beings are naturally risk-averse. Indeed, a number of psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to prevent the chance of loss than they are to chase a reward – even if the end result is identical.

I let my fears not take control of me but I control my fear (well okay there's one fear that consumes me every single day, every single moment). I let my fears feed off me and when I need it I get that extra push or extra dash of energy from these fears of mine, The fear of failing, the fear of letting down. they are great slaves never let them be masters.

I fail to understand how people give up. They give excuse that it was the only thing left. I feel sad for them. I for one can never understand failure. To me it only means get up, dust yourself, new strategy, new approach.

So don't let fear consume you but control it and harness it.Sometimes, in order to win, you have a take a risk – even if that means jumping without a safety harness.

This one is very personal to me and I'm still trying to learn and I wish I wouldn't have to but alas it seems I must keep trying.

In the movie Dark Knight, when Harvey Dent and Rachel are both held hostage by joker, Gordan is left with no option but to let Batman go at Joker. Batman then interrogates the Joker in a brutal fashion until the Joker intentionally reveals that Rachel and Dent have been taken to opposite sides of the city, far-enough apart that Batman does not have time to save both of them. Bruce speeds off to save Rachel, while Gordon and the police head after Dent.

This is where Batman is still Bruce Wayne. He couldn't help but go after Rachel. That's the thing about choices. They fuck you up real bad. Choices are not always easy and they don't always end up right. and so unknown to them, the Joker has switched the locations, sending Batman after Dent and Gordon after Rachel. Rachel and Harvey, tied to chairs, are able to communicate through an intercom. The two reassure each other that everything will be okay. The Joker provokes a police-officer to attack him and manages to hold him as a hostage and walk out of the room and into the main lobby. Then, with the help of a pre-planted phone bomb, the Joker escapes with Lau in tow. Rachel tells Dent that she will marry him just as Batman arrives at the location that was supposed to be Rachel’s location and rescues Dent. Then both buildings explode; the left side of Dent's face ignites during the explosion due to the oil he fell into earlier, severely disfiguring that side.

Gordon does not reach Rachel in time; she dies in the explosion. Bruce feels guilty for the death of Rachel and for what has happened to Dent stating he is "Gotham's true hero" and Alfred tells him that Gotham will have to make do with Batman;

The choice took away his Love. If only Bruce wasn't Batman. If only He didn't have the burden. Harvey wanted Rachel to be saved. It was his and Batman's choice but it wasn't to be. It gave rise to Two-Face. 

What am I trying to convey here: Life is all about choices. And you will not get it right every time. Life isn't all black and white, there's also a lot of grey. We are nothing but the choices that we have made over time. let me give you my example so that you know this shit is true. I'm dark colored but I wasn't always like this. It's the result of the choices that I made. I would leave home at the middle of the day when the temperature outside would be upwards of 42 degrees and just wander. I would meet people who were labors, scavengers, would play with kids on sand. I knew more people that fell in the category of people that elders wouldn't want kids to be with but it was a choice that I made. Do i regret it : Hell NO!. I'm whoever I am today because of choices like these.
Accept the choices but know that the consequences of those are also yours and even if you'd wish the outcome to be different you can't control that.   

“And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

One running theme of Nolan’s Batman trilogy is the idea of failing. It first appears at the beginning of Batman Begins, when a young Bruce Wayne falls into a well full of bats. Upon rescuing him, his father simply notes that the reason we fall is “so we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Something that’s echoed by Alfred to an older Bruce Wayne when he’s nearly killed by the League of Shadows. And of course, it’s the entire story of The Dark Knight Rises after Batman’s defeat at the hands of Bane. Rather than destroy himself, Bruce Wayne escapes from the prison that he’s put in and reclaims the mantle of Batman and vanquishes the threat to Gotham.

So here is the thing to note :No matter how hard you try to succeed, it’s inevitable that you’re going to fail at some point in your life. The test, though, is how that failure is handled. Some leaders make excuses. Others try to shift the blame.

True greatness, though, comes with owning and embracing failure. Because only when you accept responsibility for your mistakes can you learn from them, pick yourself up, and come back stronger and better than before. In his famous speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs spoke about firing from Apple. He said this, “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.”

In other words, Steve Jobs learned to pick himself back up.

So did Bruce Wayne. 

And so can you because Such is Life.