We have all grown up with stories of gods, heroes, messiahs, kings, knights and how they have protected mankind using their powers and superpowers. Stories like these shape our mindset, but what are they trying to communicate, what is the underlying message? Why do all societies and religions have, at their base, such stories, and why do we want to believe them?


Is it that some will come to protect us in dire situations? Or is it giving you hope that you can accidently acquire such superpowers and thus should be humble about it and defend humanity? Or if you had such wealth you should be a saviour too., etc.? Frankly all of these seem like thoughts of a power hungry dreamer.

Now it’s up to you how you interpret these stories, but I feel that to young minds, such stories are dangerous. For example, in the web series, Lost in Space, the main protagonist is a young boy, who has a super powerful robot at his disposal that only reports to him. When I started watching this web series a few years back, it was such a turn off, I could barely finish the first episode. And now I see that the show is already in its third season, as it must be doing very well, I’m sure kids must be loving it. I hated it so much that I still remember it.

All these DCU/MCU movies, religious epics and kids adventure movies like Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. (almost) in all these main protagonists (heroes) have got their powers by birth or some accident or miracle or they are simply just chosen. As a 40 year old adult, who has been adulting for at least 10 years now, I can take these messages lightly and consider them just entertainment. But I’m also a father, so I'm worried about how my kids will interpret these movies and what message they will take out of them.


The child psychologist inside me tells me that toddlers’ and kids' primary need is security, especially physical security. If you’ve been around young kids, you’d notice they always crave attention, so as to make sure someone dependable, especially their parents, have their eye on them. 


My 3-year old twins constantly do this! Thus as a precautionary measure to protect themselves from any predators that could be around, they constantly or subconsciously make sure to grab my or my wife’s attention from time to time.


I believe god and superhero stories exploit this need of kids, they somehow try to communicate that there’s a protector around for you always. Adults are not that different, we also find many problems so hard in life, some things so beyond our control, that we believe there must be someone better than us who can solve them for us. So even when we grow into adults, we are still looking for these superheroes with superpowers to save us.

However reality is completely the opposite, there is no savior, no superhero or superpowers, or unlimited wealth or resources that's been left behind, for most of us. Many kids and young adults look for an easy way out. They fall for scams that make things sound too good to be true, like offers for a ‘free lunch’. They avoid taking up courses that are too hard, do projects that are too tough, so afraid of failure that they don't even attempt to do something in the real world. 


In most professions, traditionally speaking, young professionals are more hands-on and create things using their technical knowledge or hard skills. Then they rise to the position of managers. However, the MBA culture glorifies management positions like investments, management consultancy, as they’re more highly paid, so most educated youth want to become managers and not technical doers. They try to skip the hands-on doing or making part, skipping directly to the managerial part, which should be “earned” after doing the actual hard part - experience and application.

I learned this lesson the hard way when my wife and I ideated Owlr two years ago. With no software skills to build it, we tried hard to fundraise so we could eventually hire a team of engineers and coders. We spent months, believing that some superhero would come and save us, only to finally realize that nobody was coming. If we wanted to realize our dream, we’d have to rise up to the challenge. My wife finally took computer programming courses and I learned about app deployment, and as you can see, we finally did it!


Message for My Kids

There’s no avoiding these movies, stories from kids in today's age. So what message would I want my kids to take instead of thinking that they may too get divine superpower someday and life would become easy and no one will bully them ever again.


  1. There are no gods or superheroes who will come to save you, your god is within you and you need to fight your enemies yourself.
  2. There are no superpowers that will come to you just like that. Superpowers need to be earned by learning hard skills like finance, coding, engineering, etc. not by soft skills like management, talking, etc.
  3. What matters is doing and learning from failures. If you haven't failed in life, you wouldn't have done anything worthwhile.
  4. Don't use ChatGPT for your writing, it’s ok to make mistakes, keep it human. AI Bots seem to be producing flawless god like content, but it will just soften your hard earned skill of writing. I was so tempted to use it, but stopped, once I realized that my readers like my articles for their substance, not its grammar and diction. 


You cannot become an entrepreneur (who’s no less than a superhero) by managing your way out, you need to be a maker, creator and doer. Tyler Durden, in ‘Fight Club’, was the only guy on the big screen who tried to tell the truth - “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake”, but his message seems to have been lost, just like what Rancho tried to tell us about our education system in ‘3 Idiots’ - “pursue excellence, and success will follow, pants down!”.