The Void vs The Sentry

I saw Thunderbolts a while back, the 36th Marvel movie. The movie takes you through how a scrappy tag team of anti heroes come together to save the day. What struck me was the centre of this movie- The Golden Sentry.

There is such a beautiful parallel between life and that superhero. We all have a shadow self and a strong light self. Those two exist to make us whole, human, flawed and finessed at the same time. The kind of duality that this universe was conceived on.

But with everything, nature creates an equal quantum of balance. Our Sentry is our common man battling bipolar disorder- experiencing highs and lows on the emotional spectrum and has had a rough childhood. You see the scars of his past have not left him & have defined him all his life by keeping him in mental prisons of “I am just not good enough”. And then he strikes this gold so to say with this superhuman program. What struck me was that even a man with the power of all the Avengers could be tamed by others since his mind was not strong enough. He did not have his own perspective & his insecurity could be used against him. 

He let others take decisions for him, define him, tell him who he was and what he could do.

The saddest part however was how he let someone else’s void define his own. He shut himself into a corner of his own mind and let it run rampant with loneliness, despair and a distorted sense of reality. That even someone with that level of power, if they struggle, if they feel powerless in their own self, can wipe out an entire planet with their loneliness. 

It hit me- your mind is capable of amplifying any narrative you set for it. It feeds off it and creates this impenetrable fortress of thought that grows stronger and keeps telling you to be small, to be scared, to run, to hide while it grows. It cages you into a corner. And unlike our anti hero, most people get consumed by it. This darkness has the capacity to extinguish every bit of hope or crack your heart space open. What perspective you hold on to is your choice.

I thought of all the great men and women I have read about. About how they went through some of the toughest days of their lives. Losing jobs, loved ones, battling difficult diseases etc. One common thing that they all did - despite the confusion and doubts, they marched on. They did not let confusion or pain define them. It just became something they overcame.

As I too navigate difficult times, this movie was a reminder. You are not alone in your pain, in your loneliness. It's human and natural. You can share your pain but it's impossible to stand with someone and to be able to meet their pain at its emotional depth. One can only imagine but never truly experience.

One very important thing I have experienced and is talked about less often is to grieve your pain. Pain can not be blocked, stored, suffocated into a box. It's like energy, it needs a vessel to flow. It will find its way through you, whether you like it or not and shoving it deep inside will only lead into it exploding like a damn bursting wide open. Grieving, knowing that you went through a hard experience but are still standing, still coping and moving ahead is the bravest thing you can do.

The other thing is to define your anchor- it could be an experience, a memory where you got through a hard day, a hard moment that helps you believe that yes, I can get through this. Just one day at a time. 

The third thing that's important, in my opinion, is your trust in life itself. When you trust that the universe cradles life, that it sent you here for some purpose and that it works for your highest good, it helps to understand the bigger picture in difficult moments. Of course faith without action can not help you but with faith, you try to find grace and kindness in difficult moments.

Pain is not meant to define you. It's meant to be the cocoon of your metamorphosis. The tragedy is we are taught to believe that pain is a bad thing. In the laws of the universe, it's where your true growth happens. It's not meant to be easy. It's meant to help you level up. And it starts when you stop questioning why I went through this and how I can make the most of this.