With great power, comes great responsibility: The Choleric

So, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re familiar with Spider-Man as I’m going to use this as an example for my blog post.

So right now at my college, there’s something called the Leadership Seminar.

This event is a month process, where there is a seminar held once a week for a month.

The seminar is intended for all students interested in holding a leadership position for the next school year. (Ministry, Student Ambassadors, Freshmen orientation leaders, and RAs)

One of the things that the seminars touch on are temperaments.

The Ancient Greeks believed that each person had 2 of 4 types of temperaments, where 1 of the 2 are dominant to each other.

As for me, I’m a choleric-sanguine.

What this means is that I’m a person that takes charge and who likes to have fun all the time.

I have one of the most assertive and outgoing temperament combinations.

People with this type of temperament, in particular the choleric temperament, have made themselves great leaders….for good and for bad.

An example is Saint Paul, the apostle and missionary.

Before his conversion to Christianity and to Catholicism, Saint Paul was an avid persecutor of Christians. He was one of the most feared men of his time.

However, on that particular day en route to Demascus, Paul was struck by lightning and soon after converted to Catholicism.

Spider-Man

Just like in the Spider-Man movies, Peter Parker had a great power…maybe he was choleric????

I like the part when his uncle tells him that “with great power, comes great responsibility”

I love this quote!

His uncle couldn’t be more right.

Spider-Man’s abilities were unbelievable! With his talents he could do great good (defeating the evil villians and saving innocent bystanders) or he could do great evil (allowing Venom to control him and become an evil villain himself).

As it was with Saint Paul and with Spider-Man, both possessed great leadership abilities and power, but it was up to them to decide who to fight for.

Venom

We all know the Spider-Man character Venom, right? Well, if you didn’t, Venom’s a villian in the Spider-Man series. He basically looks like an evil Spider-Man in black and white. If you still don’t recognize him, watch the movie, Spider-Man 3, he’s in the movie.

The reason why I bring him up is because we all have a little bit of Venom is each of us. There’s a scene in the movie when Spider-Man (after having Venom become a part of him) has had enough and he’s up in a church tower trying to rip Venom off of his body. Spider-Man struggles and stuggles to get Venom off of him. He succeeds in taking Venom off his arm, but Venom quickly attaches himself to Spider-Man again. This process occurs for a good while until the church bells start ringing. The noise and vibrations of the bells hurt Venom and his grip on Spider-Man weakens. It is here that Spider-Man rips Venom completely off his body and throws Venom down the tower.

As I said, we all have something we stuggle with on a daily basis that we could classify as Venom. For me, it’s depression. I was diagnosed with depression May 2012. I was told that I’ve had it since 9th grade, but it hadn’t revealed itself until now. I used to be sad all the time, but I thought this was normal and that this is the way life is supposed to be. I would live my life on a continual up and down basis, rarely ever having a medium level day. Through counseling and medication, I have gained grips with myself. I no longer have such a radical up and down lifestyle. However, it still hasn’t left me.

Every now and then, I’ll have my “bad days”. There’s certain things that trigger these days and I have to work through it until it passes. When I have my bad days, I feel very lonely inside and I don’t have a desire to do anything. The only desire I have, is to lay in my bed and sleep. I most definitely don’t want to see people either on these days. When I have to go out into the public on my bad days, I have to put on a mask and pretend to be happy and tell people I’m having a great day. I hate doing this because it hurts me emotionally and it just leaves me tired and empty inside.

After a period of loafing around and feeling weak inside, I rise up and turn my computer on and blast the music. Music has always helped set my mood. I’ll blare the heaviest Christian rap I can find on Spotify and I’ll get my mind and self in the zone. I’ll sit there and move my head from side to side and wave my right hand up and down to the beats, listening to the words of God. I’ll push myself outside my shell, outside my venom. I’ll try to rip him off me and go outside in the real world. The music helps, but not for long.

Eventually, venom comes back stronger than ever, not willing to give up. When this happens, I push myself again and try to become happy, telling myself that this emotional state will soon pass. Sometimes it does and other times, I have to continue my battle with Venom’s grip on me.

What frustrates me the most is that when I surge and try to rip Venom off of me, it’s not enough and he just comes back like elastic and attaches to me with a death-grip. It’s here when I’m tempted to yell my lungs out and tell Venom to get off me. I ask God to come down and vanquish my foe, and I give out my warrior cry! Only a few times have I done this, and it felt great! Most times though, I’ll say it to myself in a whisper.

Like I said, we all have Venoms in our life that we have to deal with. Is it ever pleasant? No, not really, but it’s reality. As long as we live on this earth, sin will be present and it’s because of sin that we experience pain in our lives. Thank God for His Son Jesus Christ, Ruler and Redeemer, because it it wasn’t for Him, I would never win my battles over Venom. I hope one day, I will fight my last battle with Venom and the war will finally be over and I’ll no longer have to pretend to be happy and put on a mask!