The Illusion of Movie Solutions

In movies, it seems,
The fate of everything
Rests on a handful of brave characters
Or on one character
Who is uniquely placed
Close to the action
Who is uniquely endowed
With the ideal skill-set
The holder of unique knowledge
About how one
Object
Person
Device
Weapon
Is the key to stopping evil and saving us all
And also the holder of unique knowledge
Of how this key may be destroyed
By being dropped in a volcano
Or thrown from a great height
Or carefully un-wired and defused
Or targeted with a photon torpedo

And they succeed
Everything seems to be okay

But it seems we don't live in those stories.
There is not a single
Object
Person
Device
Weapon
We can destroy to make everything right
Because the problems are diffused
Throughout all of us
Entangled and complex
And hard to sort out much less
Drop or throw or defuse or target

And the people closest to the problems
Seem least likely to do anything about them.
And the rest of us or forced to sit and watch

So perhaps the take away
From movies and stories of heroism
Isn't proximity
Or the ability to find that simple solution
That wraps up the plot
In a little over two hours
(Or, if the studio is indulgent, a little under three)
Perhaps the take way
Is to note that in the end
What makes all those heroes
Heroic is not their proximity
Or unique skill or ability to find
The key and destroy it

Perhaps the most important thing heroes do
Is struggle through doubt and despair
Wrestling with their own inner demons
Defeating the enemy within
Before they fight the enemy without
Perhaps the difference between
The hero and the villain
Is a willingness to wrestle with your inner demons
Or indulge them

Perhaps the secret
Isn't finding the
Object
Person
Device
Weapon
And destroying it

Perhaps the secret isn't
To destroy the evil outside us
But first to destroy the evil inside us
And grow the good

Perhaps the secret is for each of us
To be as sure as we can
That we're on the right side
And to find what we
Are uniquely called to do