There are many different ways to gain power.

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Some problems are too big to deal with right away.

When you find yourself facing a problem like that, it's better to run away. A problem so big that it might hurt you is one that needs to be handled carefully. You might need to figure out a strategy for dealing with it that works. Maybe surprise is the best option. If you can find a way to sneak up on someone or something bigger than you, you might be able to deal with it and make it go away. Another strategy might be to find someone else who is bigger or stronger than the problem you have. If you can convince someone who is bigger or stronger than you and the problem you're trying to deal with, they can get rid of them for you instead of you having to confront them yourself. The problem being of course that if you are trying to convince someone bigger and strong to deal with your problem, they might not want to. It's harder to convince someone who doesn't have your problem to deal with your problem.

So running away is probably your best strategy in the moment. The longer you're away the more time you have to find what you're looking for that might save you from it. You might even be able to get stronger and bigger yourself so that you can deal with it yourself. Of course, the problem being that just because you ran away doesn't mean that the problem isn't going to try and follow you. They might find a way to get to you and catch you before you can figure out the best strategy. So you have to be able to continue to escape for as long as possible. Hopefully you're faster than your problem and you get away. This is far from a guarantee when you're alone though.

If however you can find other people who have the same problems as you, they can help you keep one step ahead of the problems you're avoiding. Either because they're smarter or know better hiding places for you to escape to. In the worst case scenario they might sacrifice themselves for you and allow you to get away. The longer you run together though, the better chance you have to deal with your problems together and save not only you but everyone else around you.

Runaways is at its core about finding the best way to avoid your problems. Alex Wilder, Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, Gertrude Yorkes, Chase Stein and Molly Hernandez, as played fantastically by Rhenzy Feliz, Lyrica Okano, Virginia Gardner, Ariela Barer, Gregg Sulkin and Allegra Acosta, have problems too big to handle. Their parents aren't who they said they were. They are actually bad people who are doing their best to look like good ones. Given that they're teenagers, finding a way to fight back against their parents is a problem too big for them to handle. So it's better for them to not deal with their parents and get away.

They need to run away.

Don't run away from watching Runaways as good as you can.

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Runaways is available on Apple TV.

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Author’s Note: For my newer subscribers, here’s the overall piece I wrote on this series.

Murder is bad for relationships.

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We like when other people think good things about us.

It's even better when they not only think those things but they say good things about you. Of course, in order to do that you need to make people like you. They have to know about you and want to know about all the good things you do. So you make the effort to do things that will make people like you. Positive things like giving to charity or helping the less fortunate in some way. People don't like that others struggle and so anything that makes that much less likely is a positive thing. At a certain point though, it only helps so much and more has to be done. Yet the important thing for those who really want to be seen in a positive way is to appear to do good. Which means as long as they keep their reputation the way it is, whether or not people are helped doesn't matter nearly as much. Especially since if you're discovered to know that what you're doing isn't helping people, people will see you negatively.

This is a problem even for people who are in the business of helping others. Charitable causes need to keep their reputation in good standing with the community by at least appearing to help. If it's found out that they aren't doing what they said then people might stop giving money and that can only end badly not just for the people who need help but for the organization as well. Maybe one of the worst things that can happen to an organization is to find out that one of their donors or generous people who give isn't who they say they are. That they've somehow only been using the goodness of the organization for their own ends. Not only does it destroy the organization but everyone who might help them.

Thankfully, there are people whose job it is to make them look good. Someone who goes into the business of making sure that the regular public never hears about the bad things that people do or if they do that they have a good organization to give to as part of their strategy of getting back in the good graces of the public. If they don't, their ability to give might suffer and maybe even lose the money and power they've spent so much time and energy building.

House of Lies is fundamentally about what it means to make sure you look good to the public. Marty Kaan, as played brilliantly by Don Cheadle, is all about making people look good. It's his whole business as a management consultant. He teaches companies who want to be seen as good the best way to do it. Whether or not they actually are doing good isn't nearly as important as the image that they are making the world better. Marty's entire team will do whatever it takes to keep the bad things they're doing secret from the world. So that the good things are the only parts which are seen by anyone.

Except for them.

Manage your image of House of Lies by checking it out as soon as you can.

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House of Lies is available on Paramount Plus as well as Netflix and Hulu.

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Author’s Note: Find real happiness with the balance discount.

We like to think that we can be happy.

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Author’s Note: Don’t be a stranger, upgrade with the balance discount here.

Once you know strangers are out there, you might see them everywhere.

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Author’s Note: Just FYI, at some point I plan on doing a deeper dive into the original Librarians show, but the original piece can be found here. You can still upgrade with the balance discount too.

There's always more to learn.

No matter how much knowledge you might have, something probably got left out. Either that or something new was discovered that changed what came before. Which means that what you know isn't true anymore or you need to update what you know thanks to the new information. Things are always moving forward and so you never really stop learning. It can sometimes feel like a losing battle for anyone who is looking to get as smart as they can. Someone is always smarter or knows more than you do. Maybe because they've been around longer than you have and so they've got a lot more knowledge. However it can also be thanks to the fact that what you were taught wasn't right in the first place. They could've had a better teacher and so when you tried it out they beat you in the long run. Although for those who are really interested in learning more, this can only push you further.

It can be a reason to know more and to put more effort into what you're looking to understand. You might even be able to fix your knowledge gap in the process. So the next time you meet with the person who knew more, you're the one who has more knowledge and they end up losing. This can be a good thing if the person who you are trying to be smarter than is someone who has bad intentions. Which is unfortunately something that happens with knowledge. Not everyone that wants to use knowledge will do it to make the world a better place. There needs to be someone who is actually looking to help the world in order to stop the bad people from using knowledge in the same way.

What often gets in the way of this though is how the ones who are looking to do bad things will try and keep the knowledge of what they're doing to themselves. So the good people can't always know that bad people are coming. Only when they discover this truth can they find a way around it. Hopefully they have enough knowledge to stop the bad guys from whatever terrible things they're trying to do. This knowledge that someone bad is coming will often push the good people further and give them the edge they need.

The Librarians: The Next Chapter is fundamentally about the ongoing quest for knowledge. Vikram Chamberlain, as played brilliantly by Callum McGowan, is The Librarian. He believes in using knowledge to help people and make things better. To the point that he's fighting back against many different bad people. One of those bad people has moved his operation to the future. Which is only going to end badly for the future. Thankfully in the future, there are already a bunch of good people who are just as interested in helping people. So he has allies which can help him fight the bad people using knowledge for their own gain. They even have all sorts of knowledge he doesn't which he needs to save people.

Allowing him to continue his quest for knowledge.

Gain the knowledge of watching The Librarians: The Next Chapter as soon as you can.

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The Librarians: The Next Chapter is available on Apple TV as well as TNT and Crave and CTV in Canada.

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Hey everyone,

So it’s been a while since I did an update. Recently I noticed that I have a fair number of paid pieces in my drafts and they outnumber my free posts. I have about half the number of free posts. This is probably because I have more free posts per month than paid ones.

With that in mind, I’m going to try and balance out the number of paid posts compared to free posts by posting more paid pieces per month. This will probably start in August for at least a few months while I balance out. Depending on how well that goes, I may just start having more paid posts than free posts going forward.

I’ve already got so many free posts that it feels like I have a whole bunch for new people to check out already. I’m also considering making the early access series permanently for paid subscribers only. I’ll still do the exclusive long form pieces of more controversial topics, it’s just that all my long form content will probably end up being paid subscriber exclusives.

Get 50% off forever

So take advantage of the 50% balance discount for June.

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I look forward to you joining.

It feels good to be comfortable.

That's part of why we go looking for it so much. We do everything we can to avoid being uncomfortable. We make sure that our chairs are comfortable. Not to mention things like our shoes and our clothing. We avoid going out in the rain and the snow wherever possible because it tends to get at the very least uncomfortable if not difficult. Our clothes and anything we're carrying gets damp and may even be ruined. If we don't have a way to take them off and replace them we end up feeling uncomfortable for however long we wear them. At worst we hurt ourselves in the rain or snow by tripping and falling, possibly breaking something. In doing so, we have to go through the uncomfortable process of healing which doesn't allow us to do the things we normally would want to. This can also make the people around you uncomfortable because they have to help us deal with things while you don't have the chance to do them yourself.

So we take every opportunity to avoid feeling anything but comfort. Pretty much all of the things we buy and have are designed to make us feel comfortable. Things like the house we live in can be built around the idea of comfort by having temperature controls whether it's hot or cold outside and food in the fridge for when we're hungry. Like electricity to power lights for when it's dark and televisions and computers and laptops so we can have access to everything we want through things like the internet. Which allows us to talk to anyone and everyone who also has access to it without ever leaving our homes if we don't want to. The internet also allows us to order anything we want from whatever website we want. It's hard not to absolutely love this about the way we live since everything is so comfortable.

Unfortunately though being comfortable isn't always a good thing. When we're comfortable we don't necessarily focus on what might just be dangerous for us. You can get so comfortable that it feels like there's no danger out there. That's part of what makes being comfortable so good. Not having to worry about what might hurt you or in the worst case kill you. Just because you feel like there's no danger around you doesn't mean it isn't out there. Only that you can't see it because you're feeling so good in this moment. Maybe it will get you when you're not looking.

Margaux is very much about just how dangerous feeling comfortable can be. Hannah, Drew, Clay and Lexi, as played by Madison Pettis, Jedidiah Goodacre, Richard Harmon and Vanessa Morgan, have decided to live in comfort, at least for a little while. For a break from school, they have gone away to a smart house which is designed to make them comfortable. Just because they have so much taken care of for them though by the house doesn't mean that they are safe. A house that can do pretty much anything has its own potential dangers that come along with it. The house itself has its own ideas about what might make someone or something more comfortable.

Which isn't necessarily going to make the people in it all that comfortable.

Enjoy the comfort of a movie that isn't one you're living in by checking out Margaux as soon as you can.

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Margaux is available on Paramount Plus as well as Amazon and Apple TV.

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Eventually, you have to stop.

You might want to go on forever but you just can't. People reach the end of when something is going to happen. The end of a moment, the end of a day and worst of all the end of your life. This is even true of the idea of self improvement. At a certain point you have nothing left to learn or you reach a point that trying to improve can be counter productive. You're better off not trying to improve or do better than you currently are. It's not really worth it for you. Instead you should simply be who you are and use what you know and how well you're doing to be yourself. Trying to improve from this point can seem like an endless loop of working hard only to have things blow up in your face.

Some might even want to completely forget all the progress that you've made up until this point. Largely because making this type of choice will at least allow you to continue improving. Or at least go back to the beginning and start all over again. Because when you were finding ways to make yourself better, it feels like you're making progress. When you reach a point where self improvement becomes a problem, things can be frustrating and make you feel like you have failed in your life. Up until that point in your life, it's been about moving forward and finding ways to improve. Getting to a point where that's no longer your focus or goal means that things are no longer happening. Like your life no longer has any meaning or purpose.

Previously in this space, we've looked at how to start a journey of self improvement, then we explored the idea of working harder to push yourself further. After that we looked at how this requires achieving goals but that in doing so you'll end up having problems facing obstacles on the way. In that we came to understand that we might feel the need to skip steps and how that makes you more determined than ever to get better. This will make you split focus either intentionally or unintentionally and cause problems. Enough that you might need to confront the negative aspects of self improvement and how that can do more harm than good. But that's where it becomes important to recognize the importance of stopping. Of finding a way to end the journey you've been on and be happy. The question is how do you actually do that?

“I want you to have everything.”

“Yeah, I want that for you too Barry. I think it's easier said than done.”

“I know but we just have to trust that just like we're making time for us as a couple now, we'll also continue to help each other grow.”

Barry has been on quite the journey over the whole 9 years he's been doing this. When he started, he didn't really know what he was doing. He made all kinds of mistakes and things didn't necessarily work the way he wanted them to. He couldn't force things to be the way he thought they should be. Over time, he had to come to accept that and choose not to do that. To instead simply allow things to progress the way they want to. He has managed to learn to accept a lot of different things over time. He has learned so much and done so much. In the process he's gone from becoming someone into being someone.

“I wish I knew what my purpose was. It's strange, right now I feel so connected to all living things, and yet so disconnected and alone.”

Now he is left with coming to terms with the idea that he has nowhere else to go. Except perhaps what he knows he's going to do in the future. As Barry has grown in a way that allows him to know some of the outcomes his life is supposed to take. The places he's supposed to go, like having children with Iris and creating the next generation. He knows that his journey is almost complete and so long as he doesn't force it to happen in a way that will make things worse, he will get there and be the hero other people have told him he will be. He no longer has doubt or uncertainty about who he is or what he wants.

“Science is like nature, it can be cruel as well as beautiful. Either way we can't control it. So, I know Caitlin and Frost are gone and we can mourn the flowers that have fallen from the vine, but we can't ask a new bloom to give up its place in exchange. I hope you can accept that. I hope you can accept me because I'd like to live and grow with all of you.”

This is something that many people come up against over time. First it happens in education, when we do things like graduate from public school, then high school and for many it moves on to college or university. People graduate from these institutions and they achieve something. They complete a part of their journey and as a result they stop becoming someone and instead are someone. They are what they set out to be while trying to improve. But then it's about making sure how to be that person. Instead of spending all their time obsessing over becoming a doctor or lawyer or firefighter or artist or whatever it is they want to become, they are those things.

“Everything is changing and I can't stop it.”

Which isn't to say that there isn't more you can learn. Only that the journey they're on has to change. They have to come to the end of one journey and begin another. Stop living with improving yourself and start being the thing you were trying so hard to be. Your life is entirely different. Your needs and ideas about the world have completely changed. Fundamentally, you aren't the same person you were before. Instead of learning about doing the thing, you do the thing. The key is to recognize that this other part of you which has a need to improve has to end. It has to be about something else. So long as you can actually do that, let go.

“That's the thing about destiny. It isn't just one choice. Destiny is the culmination of a lifetime of choices.”

Barry hasn't been able to slow down or come to a stop for most of his journey. It's one thing after another with him. However, the people he's facing now are no longer as difficult to overcome as they used to be. He knows himself and what he can do better than anything he could ever imagine. Even some of the worst people he's come into contact with like Thawne are behind him in terms of a challenge to his abilities. To the point that he doesn't really need to put in effort. People like Red Death are barely a problem for him.

“You left him with little more than a pat on the back. Arrogantly thinking that teaching him your hero's way was enough. It wasn't.”

“I didn't know.”

“Because you didn't care.”

There are those who refuse to stop though. Who will conclude that despite everything there just isn't reason to stop. Especially if stopping means that you have to give up on finding a way to destroy the person you hate the most. Many people will live their whole lives believing that destruction is their only way to live. That in order for them to get anywhere they have to destroy someone else.

“Life is a lot of things Barry, fair isn't on the list.”

It's one of the things which can push people towards the worst instincts and create a force so terrible that it's willing to destroy everything and everyone you love. Although what's ironic is that this can itself be a form of stopping. You can become so focused on a single idea that the world seem to come to a stop around you. The inability to move forward and consider the possibility that you should just let things go keeps you stuck in place.

“If there's one thing I've learned after all these years is you have a gift for bringing out the good in folks. No matter how bad they started out.”

“If that's true I learned it from you.”

“Maybe, either way... I have run out of things that I need to teach you.”

Being able to stop the process and move beyond any need to improve is so much more important under those circumstances. Your life can't be an endless loop of starting new journeys and keeping things going. Especially because at some point you will die. So a final end is coming. The only question is where you find yourself on the journey towards better. Are you the type of person who keeps living in an endless cycle or the kind who is satisfied with where you are and simply accept that you're in a different place now.

“Lately our lives have been all about what's coming and how we can accomplish all these tasks before little Nora gets here but there's nothing for me to accomplish by myself. And I'm just worried that once we become parents...”

“You won't have time.”

One of the worst things that Barry has tried to move forward from in the course of his life's journey to improve is how his mother changed him. Specifically the fact that she died when he was so young and how that changed the course of his life forever. He struggled with such a powerful moment his whole life. First by trying to find and stop his killer without really knowing who or what he was. Then hoping that finally catching him and setting his father free from the murder he didn't commit. All of these parts have made it hard for him to move forward and become the person he's been told for so long that he has to become.

“I used to be a meta criminal, a rogue as they say. I used to hurt people all the time and I enjoyed it.”

“What changed you?”

“Roderick, okay, Roderick.”

“You changed to keep him safe? That's beautiful, but that's not real change, is it? Deciding to change for the person you love doesn't mean you've decided who you want to be. That's a choice you still have to make for yourself, isn't it?”

When he finally does come face to face with the moment where he had to make a choice whether or not to go back to the beginning and change it all so he can start again, Barry makes a different choice. He's had a chance in the past to change things and has done it. Made the wrong choice for him and the people around him. It destroyed him and he had to fix them as a way to set him back on the right course. This time however is when he could do it and ultimately he chose not to do it. He chose to let the tragedy which has held him back happen. Because Barry knows now that he can't keep going around and around with his future improvement. He has to move forward and become a whole new person.

“After all these years of making Central City my home I can't quite believe that this journey is coming to an end. But, it makes it easier to step away when I know that the city is in such great hands. And not just Barry's, all of yours. I feel so blessed to leave behind such an incredible legacy.”

It's this truth that gives him the power to face his ultimate villain without feeling the guilt he normally would. Eddie was one of his first mistakes and something he often thinks about. Not nearly as much as he feels badly about his mother's murder, but often enough that it gave him pause. That's not a problem for him anymore. The negative speed force can't use Eddie to their advantage anymore and keep Barry from getting better. From moving beyond self improvement and into something more.

“You have been through a lot in nine years, you both have, and I'm very proud of you.”

To believe in the impossible.

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The Flash is available on Netflix.

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Fantasy is a powerful force in people's lives.

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Pretty much everyone wants to be remembered positively.

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Murder doesn’t just destroy you.

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So much of life can feel like a business.

You need a thing and someone else has the thing you need. Which means that in order to get it you need to have something that they want or need themselves which you can give them in exchange for it. This is the core of what business is while also being a major part of life. It's why we get involved in companies that create things we need that pays us for doing whatever they do. As a result we can get what we need and continue to do business with other people. For many people this feels like a bad thing about the way we live our lives. They feel as though we should have higher parts of ourselves that are more important. Yet this is the most basic part of ourselves. Life and business are so close together that we can't be sure where one part of it begins and the other part ends.

It gets to the point that people confuse business and life. They treat each other like people to get things from and not as actual human beings. Relationships are just a means to an end in the business of life and the important thing is that you end up winning in the end. No matter how many of the people you have to use in the process. Winning is all that matters in the end. There's always more people who you can do business with in order to get what you want. You have no reason to keep relationships going for any longer than you absolutely have to. Unfortunately though, that only works if you're good enough at the business you're doing to actually keep building new relationships when the other ones fall apart.

The other problem is that if the job you do in order to make money and do business from is special enough, there are only so many people who can do it. Only a certain number of people can do business with you. Which means if you screw over the people you can do business with, you end up with nothing and no one who can give you what you need. Maybe the best way to find a way beyond this is to be extremely good at your job. People will often forgive someone who screws them over if they're really good at what they do. If they can prove that it's better for them to have you around rather than not.

Industry is fundamentally about what it means to live your life like a business. Harper Stern, as played brilliantly by Myha'la Herrold, is a new employee of Pierpoint. The company deals in stock trading and money management and so a lot of her life revolves around business. So many of the people she meets care more about how much money they're making and getting ahead rather than building long term relationships. Which doesn't mean they don't want to have relationships, it's that this desire usually is secondary to what's more important to them.

Make as much money as possible and do whatever they have to in order to get it.

Get into the business of Industry by watching it as soon as you can.

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Industry is available on Max and Apple TV as well as Crave in Canada.

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Your life is like a car.

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You really have to commit if you’re going to make art.

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Sooner or later we all realize we're going to die.

In our very early years we don't even really know about death or the possibility of it. Even when we do finally become aware of it we tend to think of it as some kind of far off thing that will happen some day but right now we don't have to worry about it. Like it's so far away from where we are now that it would only get in the way of your ability to live life. After all, you're here now and you have a whole life to live, so it doesn't make sense to put time and energy into worrying about something that for all you know, may never happen. Yet the truth is much less certain than that. What's actually true is that you could go at any moment for any reason. You could die crossing the street or sitting in a chair or doing something extremely dangerous because you're not thinking about dying. Over time though, you're faced with the reality that death is for sure going to happen.

People react to this news in all sorts of different ways. Some people get very excited and decide to live their life to the fullest while they still have it. Other people become bitter and resentful of the idea that people around them will live longer and possibly more interesting lives than they will. Many people react with grief and sadness about the idea that they're going to die. They accept the fact that because life is going to end that nothing really matters. Love, happiness, all the great things about life will go away so there's no reason to really start anything new or try and enjoy it since you won't remember it anyway. However at the same time there's no reason to get resentful or angry because whatever you do isn't going with you either. The world just is the way it is.

Just because that's the way they feel doesn't mean the people around them will feel the same way. Your friends and family might get angry or sad or in some cases even happy that someone close to them is going to die. Not necessarily because they want to hurt the person they care about. Simply because the uncertainty of knowing when you're going to die is over. They no longer have to worry that tragedy could strike at any moment. It will, they just don't have to feel so uncertain about it anymore.

Running on Empty is very much about realizing the certainty of death. Mortimer Mortinson, as played brilliantly by Keir Gilchrist, no longer has to worry about the uncertainty of when he's going to die. He lives in a world where you can know when your day of death is going to be if you want to know. Something that he's recently decided to find out to create some certainty in his future. He wanted to build a life with someone and so they went and got their death dates. The problem is that he's going to die within the year whereas she won't. Which ironically creates the certainty that she doesn't want to be with him anymore. His death might be certain but his life up until that point no longer is. He's not sure what he's going to do with his life in the time he has left. At least one thing is certain though.

He knows when he's going to die.

Come to terms with the certainty of death by checking out Running on Empty as soon as you can.

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Running on Empty is available on Amazon as well as Apple TV and Crave in Canada.

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People are rarely what they appear to be on the surface.

They have all kinds of layers underneath which you can't see if you're looking at their face. People can smile and laugh and seem like a very happy person on the outside. That doesn't mean this is what's going on inside. Everything that's really in their head doesn't seem obvious unless you're looking for it. Maybe the easiest way to find out what's actually going on is to look in their eyes. No matter how much time and energy they might be putting into looking happy and giving people that impression, often you can see the truth in their eyes. In those moments they're alone or think no one is watching them, the real feelings come out. Only then can you really see them for what they are. Finding a way to get someone to open up enough to allow you to be there in those moments isn't that easy. You have to trust people for something like that.

It's even harder to trust someone when you're in a vulnerable place. The vulnerability people feel can make them want to do everything they can to hide who they really are inside. At the same time, vulnerability is often something people can see. When you find yourself blind, deaf or unable to speak, people can see that right away. They also know that being in a position like that means that no matter how much they might not want to, they will have to trust some people on some level. They can't see the things most people can see. The expression on other people's faces when you say something to them. The way they clench their fists when they're angry but don't want to show it on their faces. A blind person won't see it and so they have to find ways of seeing you in other ways.

Someone who knows enough to make themselves seem better than they are can take advantage of a blind person if they're not careful. Largely thanks to the fact that the way people sound and smell doesn't reveal the truth as well. As a result, people who are blind take extra steps and do more than most other people would. It doesn't always work out in their favour though. Not everyone who sounds right actually is.

Sightless is on the most basic level about the way we see other people. Ellen, as played fantastically by Madelaine Petsch, is recently blind. For whatever reason someone took it upon themselves to blind her out of revenge... or so it would appear. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't have many people she can trust around her. Which means she has to rely on new people who aren't necessarily all that clear in their intentions or ideas. Her neighbours are having problems and doing things which make her worried for them. She can't see exactly what's happening though so she's never quite sure exactly what she's hearing and whether it's real. That doesn't mean it isn't, but it takes a lot of extra time and energy to figure it out.

Especially because they might just be a danger to her too.

Don't be blind to what you can see by checking out Sightless as soon as possible.

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Sightless is available on Netflix in some places and Apple TV.

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A reputation can get you a long way in life.

The ideas people have about you can give you opportunities that you might not otherwise have. If you have a reputation for being good at sports or math or anything else that could be an advantage in some way, people will want you to do more of it. They will give you money and access to those around you who have a similar reputation and might be a little bit further ahead in their career. So exactly what kind of reputation you have will make the world better for you in the long run. As long as you can keep up with the people with that reputation, they will reward you. Yet if you can't measure up, that might just cause you to fail and have to look for another way around. That can be a kind of reputation as well.

Unfortunately, reputations can be both good and bad for people. The more you try the more opportunity you have to fail and get a reputation for failure. That means your failure will follow you around and keep you from success the longer it goes on. People don't want to get involved with people who have a bad reputation. When you're a kid, this reputation isn't really in your control. It's your parents that decide the things you do and how you are seen by other people. For the most part they try to give you the skills and the ability to make the world your own. Things get complicated though when they don't know what the right skills are and who you might need to get to know. So you end up getting a reputation you didn't plan on, which will follow you around completely without you wanting it to be.

High school is the first place where most people get to make decisions for themselves about their reputation. They get to make their own choices and become the people they want to be instead of what other people want them to be. That doesn't mean your reputation in childhood won't still follow you. Just that it's up to you how long what's been created stays around. It's your choice and your job to do what you need to do. Something that often helps is when you find a new place to go where you don't have anyone who knows your reputation. You get to turn your whole life around with an entirely new group of people.

The New Guy is fundamentally about trying to create a whole new reputation. Dizzy Harrison, as played by DJ Qualls, is someone with a pretty terrible reputation. He's been bullied at school for years and can't seem to get away from the way people see him. That isn't going to stop him from trying though. So he decides that saving his reputation means getting kicked out of his old school and going to a new school where no one thinks of him that way anymore. His plan comes together and it seems to be working out for him. Except that he's still the guy he used to be and doesn't get it exactly right. Thankfully what's important to the new friends isn't so much who he used to be but who he has been ever since coming to this school.

He has a great reputation with them.

Explore the reputation of The New Guy by checking out as soon as you can.

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The New Guy is available on Amazon and Apple TV.

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Not all self improvement is good.

Some of it is in fact what you might call negative. Along the way you might learn things that you're not supposed to. Maybe even things that are terrible or bad. While people should be able to resist this fact or ignore the bad things, not everyone is going to be able to. They'll be tempted to explore these negative parts of the process and see what they might learn from this. Because there are things you can learn from the bad aspects of yourself and from other people. One of the most obvious ideas you might become aware of is what you don't want, not to mention where you won't want to go. Another thing you can learn though is that you might actually like the bad parts. You can want those negative aspects to end up being a bigger part of yourself. Recognizing this part of yourself will send you down a dark path from which you won't necessarily find a way out of.

It is possible to come back from this problem but you can end up going so far that other people won't want you to return. They might even end up making things worse for you and give you a reason to embrace the worst aspects of yourself. When this happens it causes something of a self reinforcing pattern. You do something wrong, other people see it and don't like you. The more they don't like you, the less reason you have to be good and to improve in the right direction. Like with the good aspects of yourself, you can do the opposite. You can work harder at being negative. You can have negative goals and face obstacles which reinforce your negative feelings. You can want to skip steps and succeed at it. You can be determined about it and split your focus. Every positive has its negative.

Previously in this space, we've looked at how to start a journey of self improvement. Then we explored the difficulty of working harder to push further, before turning to the importance of achieving goals in order to make yourself better. How doing that will cause you to run up against obstacles you have to overcome and the desire to skip steps when you have a good role model. More recently we explored the importance of determination and how that can cause you to split your focus. But that's far from the end of the story. Because each of these ideas have their opposites. We've explored some aspects of the negative through the problems which have come up. But now it's time to go full speed ahead.

“When faced with the very worst, it's our choices that define us. And the choices that we made are why we're all heroes.”

Barry is generally speaking a very positive person and has been all the way through the self improvement journey he's been on. Despite the fact that he's faced many different very dark people in the world. He has managed to keep hope within him and find ways to inspire it in other people when it would be so much easier to just let the darkness and the negativity overcome them. This reality has kept him and the people around him safe for so long. But it's not just limitations and uncertainty which he has to confront. One of the most consistent problems Barry has fought back against is his opposite. Some might call it his reverse.

“Where is the future? Right here. Who's life is this? Mine. What are you going to do with it? Live it by any means necessary. So don't worry, I will honor my promise. I will do whatever is necessary to keep folks alive but remember, when we take away your powers, they are gone... permanently.”

Everything in the world needs balance on some level. You can't just have one side of things without something on the other side. Right hands needs left hands in order to hold things. Not a lot can be held in just one hand. Love requires two people for it to work. Life can't exist without death. Good doesn't work without evil. There are those who would prefer that this balance wasn't necessary. That only good things were true about the world instead of bad things. But it's difficult to know what exactly is a positive unless you can compare it to a negative, or vice versa.

“All the speed in the world can't help you outrun what's coming for you.”

Almost as if it's a force of nature. Something so powerful that it's beyond what any mortal being might be able to achieve. These forces can drive you forward and give you opportunities you never thought are possible. You can't really do anything to destroy them because they exist as a way to make your life worthy of what it might do. When you have such power though, the only thing you can do is try your best to balance it out with the destructive force to match. All to balance things out.

“Crisis and tragedy are like fires Flash. Some are strong enough to endure them, but others are destined to be consumed by them. Soon we'll find out who you are.”

For Barry this balance is created by Thawne. He is the reverse of everything that Barry believes in and even taps into the opposite of what Barry does. While Barry believes in creating hope and positive outlooks, Thawne believes in creating fear, panic and negativity. Barry creates and Thawne destroys. Naturally, what he wants to destroy most is Barry himself. Largely because The Flash gives him a glimpse of who he could be or who he wanted to be at some point. Knowing that he can't be who Barry is becoming makes him want the opposite.

“Those who were once good die just as easily.”

This is the tragedy of human beings. They look at people who are doing better than them or have more in some way, either financially or in the love department, and they get jealous. Anger overcomes them and they are willing to do almost anything in order to destroy what is true about their opposite. They can't live with the idea that there's someone better. So they act out and do everything they can to destroy what is the truth. Even the good people can be tempted by the draw of pain and anger towards someone who does terrible things to you.

“Your power has recently accelerated but so too has your ability to descend into madness. Tragedy is coming for your Flash. What remains to be seen isn't whether or not you'll break, it's when.”

Barry has every reason to hate Thawne because of everything he's done to him. Thawne killed his mother and framed his father. He manipulated Barry's entire world to make him do the things he needed to save himself from staying stuck in the current time. What's worse is that Thawne betrayed him after becoming his most trusted ally and friend. Over and over again Thawne has proven how little he cares for Barry and his happiness. Instead Barry has been forced into a situation where people he loves die just to keep himself from giving in to his more negative side. He's had every opportunity to either let Thawne die or kill him, but he refuses to.

“Sometimes blood for blood is the answer.”

One of the biggest things that makes a hero different from a villain is their ability to resist the desire to give in to their worst instincts. Not just the ability to have a positive outlook and to inspire it in other people, but resisting the need to hurt people who do the wrong thing. After all, a hero with an incredible power has just as much of an opportunity to give into the bad. Being that powerful means that anyone who would try to stop them has to be at least as powerful as them if not even more. Which makes them just as likely to do the same.

“You can't just protect the people you think are good, you have to protect everyone. That's what heroes do.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? A hero is not just in the name Barry or in a red suit. It's the choices we make that decide who and what we become. You know that.”

“Dad, we don't have a choice, Thawne isn't giving us one.”

“You always have a choice.”

Naturally, Thawne isn't the only opposite which exists to contend with. Cecile has someone like Top, Caitlin has Frost, and even Firestorm has Deathstorm. The fire of life has a mirror in the cold feeling of death. Because death is so final, it's something that gives so many people a sense of grief and longing. A desire for more of what you lost. To find what has been gone, no matter how long it has been. Coming to terms with this is hard to do and it's one of the things that lets you want to give in to the kind of terrible feelings which the negative can bring to you.

“I know I don't talk about Joe. It's because I think about him every second of every hour of every day. And it's not just my grief that I have to feel Caitlin. Barry and Iris and little Jenna, because of my powers whenever they're near me I feel all of their grief too. It's everything I can do to push it all down just so I can keep moving forward because if I don't, I will drown. And that cannot happen again.”

“I know it's hard but your strength as an empath doesn't come from burying your emotions. It comes from feeling the feelings, even the hard ones.”

Maybe the worst thing that the negative can do to create bad intentions in those who are more inclined towards the good is to pretend to be what's good. Turn themselves into a mirror image of good people in order to corrupt the feelings and ideas people have about the good things. Since being a heroic person is more often tied to truth and being open and honest, negative things embrace the idea of deception and lies. Until it's impossible to tell the difference between what's good and what's evil. They learn to do this just like the positive. The better they are at deception and lies the worse it is for the good people. It gives them even more reason to give in to the bad.

“Sometimes the hardest part about being a leader is letting go and trusting the ones you've trained to make the call themselves. And then you be there for them in the blink of an eye.”

Letting go is incredibly difficult. You have to be willing to let go of some of the most fundamental parts of the human experience. Find a way to let go of anger and frustration, let go of feelings like grief and sadness. If you do these things, it can lead you down a negative path as well. Given that so much of that is sacrificed in the process of becoming a more evil person. Some of the worst people in the world did what they did because they couldn't feel things like grief and anger and compassion for other people.

“You're on a journey, both of you, you're gonna make mistakes and sometimes they can't be undone. But… you can always try to make things better, and that's what you did today.”

There is a point however when you need to stop. Move forward beyond a need to improve and simply accept the way the world is and who you've become. That there's no more of a journey to your life. Yet this too is far from easy.

“No matter how fast you run, life is about the journey.”

But we'll get into that when we explore the final season of The Flash.

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The Flash is available on Netflix.

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