All mass murders are terrible to contemplate. The fact that they are so terrible and seemingly without reason leads many to decry mental illness for no sane person could desire to perpetrate such an act but that significantly misrepresents what mental illness is and distances us from the reality of not only the events themselves but also the truth about our own human nature. Blessed and cursed with an active and detailed imagination when these dreadful murders occur I often find myself thinking deeply about what it must have been like, what the events themselves must have felt like to the people trapped in those living nightmares.

The recent, and it’s a sad commentary on our culture and our times that I refer to it as the recent rather than as a singular event, mass murder at the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks California dogs my thoughts more than other recent acts of horrendous evil and it comes down to a single fact, a single person; Telemachus Orfanos.

Telemachus, who was not even thirty years old and who had also served when his country called by enlisted in the United States Navy died along with dozen people when a gunman opened fired at the Borderline Bar but more than the senseless slaughter I am haunted by the fact that Telemachus had survived the Las Vegas a year earlier when scores of people were murdered.

He was not the only person at the Borderline that had also been at the Las Vegas concert. Both events were centered on Country Western music, thousands had attended the massive concert, and the locations were not that terribly distant but the sheer concept that people who had survived one mass slaughter were a year later subjected to another is truly horrifying and for Telemachus to die at the Borderline would seem to underline that horror with a specificity that refuses to release me. At odd times of the day, when mind may wander, I find myself thinking about that night. How must it have felt when those shots first began ringing out, what terrible flashbacks did that prompt, what thoughts if any passed though his mind before he died?

It would hardly be surprising if someone established a foundation in Telemachus’ name. I have written before on the power of individual identity versus an amorphous and intangible number. This undoubtedly is the reason this person’s story refuses to depart from my mind. Eleven other people died that night, each one had a full life with twists, turns, highs and lows, but Telemachus’ story, easily grasped and powerful transcends being woeful statistic and real tragedy is that it shouldn’t be that way. We can’t hold a dozen points of view, a dozen stories, a dozen lives in our heads but we can picture one smiling man, a veteran, and only time will tell if he becomes a symbol.

Yesterday Stan Lee one of the principle architects of Marvel Comics, which left a massive impression on our culture, passed away at age 95. Normally I am not one to write eulogies to passing celebrities. My own relationship to death is complex and idiosyncratic but for Mr. Lee I want to talk about the ideas the man pushed from the very start of his career right up to his final days. He was an entertainer, crafting or assisting in the crafting of dramatic stories filled with action, excitement, and stunning visuals but when the plots have faded away, when the reveals transform into clichés, and the characters melt into history the moral philosophy of his work will endure.

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.”

That bit of knowledge from Spider-Man is perhaps the best known of Mr. Lee’s philosophy but there is more compacted into that simple sentence than the call for heroic action from those capable of heroic deeds. If great power compels great responsibility then any amount power also requires an amount of responsibility and while it is never directly expressed, over and over again throughout the long and continuing run of the Marvel Universe we see the responsibility wielded by those with only a little power. We all have the power to hurt, with cruel words, with casual bigotry, with careless indifference, we have the power to make the world a worse place and therefore we have the responsibility to make it a better one. It in on us to utter kind words, to reject all forms of bigotry, to care about our fellow people both as individuals and collectively. The heroism Stan tried to teach us was not fantastical powers but rather in the ability to care and act. In that way he called on all of us to be the heroes we could be.

No One is Perfect, Heroes Least of all

One of the defining divisions between early Marvel and the competitors is that the characters were flawed. They suffered from doubts, they suffered from egotism, and even as they saved other they needed saving themselves. Without the burden of perfection the lesson is clear, we are all heroes. Heroes make mistakes but they learn and correct, guided by the clear morality of what is right and what is wrong.

In the world of comic books villains wear colorful costumes and make clear and grandiose statement of their intent but Stan helped us recognize the villains among us, even as they hid in disguises, masquerading as concerned leaders while steering us away from our better natures and he taught his that our voices are our power and our responsibility. If we just ‘shut up and sing’ as are standing aside as clearly as Peter Parker did when the robber escaped before killing Uncle Ben. You want honor the man who gave you so much, stand up, speak up, and use that voice as he wanted you to.