Do We Have Any Superpowers?

Your walking on a crowded street one day, and lo and behold, a mischievous little feline has got himself stuck in a tree. Well, that's no problem for you; you grab the trunk of the tree and rip it from the ground with your super strength to the awe of the bystanders who now look at you in shock. The kitty is safely transported back to his owner, and you go on your merry way.

Fine, so we can't crush cars with our bare hands or use our minds to levitate some random cold can of generic soda to our couch. But nevertheless, our fascination with the idea of being superhuman has been around for a very long time. Endless books and Television shows help keep the idea of a human with superpowers in the general imagination. But what most of us don't realize is that we actually DO have some superpowers already. Now before you start stabbing me with those little tranquilizer darts, read on and acknowledge your very own superpowers.

Super Strength

Yes, we all have it. Most people have probably heard of the "fight or flight" response. When confronted with a threat or extreme stress, the body reacts by preparing the body to, well, fight or flee. There have been documented cases of a phenomenon called "hysterical strength", such as the one with a mother pulling a 3500 pound car off her own son. Sounds pretty hero-grade to me. But why can't we do this all the time? Well, some experts say that we normally only use a small percentage of our muscles, and when confronted with a threat, the body simply goes past its "limits". But limits exist for a reason, and with too much Incredible Hulk action, the muscles could gain extensive damage. But hey, technically we can say that we all have this superpower; now you can go save kitties who got stuck on the branches of some tree.

Time Travel

Ok, we are going to rip a hole in the space-time continuum, and dance a jig back to 1979. Well, if you lived back then, you could, considering you have the memories and all. When you think about it, we are "time traveling" in our minds when we remember old memories. I would think that if Time Travel superpowers were real, things would get real funky real fast. What if someone goes back in time, and Dr Pepper isn't invented? Oh, the horror. I wouldn't be able to take that loss. So lets keep the Time Travel in our minds, for Dr Pepper's sake.

Predicting the Future

We can do this too, and you don't need to have psychic superpowers. Using knowledge and rationality, we can make pretty reasonable predictions of the future. Like, if you put your hand on the stove, your going to catch fire and turn into charred-man-on-a-stick. Or, if you spend more than you can afford on those twelve credit cards, bad things happen. Now, if that isn't predicting the future, I don't know what is. If people could actually "see" into the future, would that mean that events were already in a set path? That's a big philosophical discussion that I'll spare us from, lets just go with "Ignorance is Bliss".

Intelligence

Oh you don't think that's a superpower do you? Do you think humanity is the head honcho because of our big beautiful eyes? Our long locks of dead cells we like to call hair? Well golly gee, its because we are all a big bunch of smarty pantses. It's true. Our thoughts can range from the simple to the delightfully abstract. We can make the most primitive tools to the most beautiful works of art. Such is the beauty of the mind. With this superpower, you could make all the other ones come true some day. Oooh guess what? You were born with this, you lucky dog you. Fine, maybe not everyone uses this to their fullest potential, but its there. In fact, I can derive one last superpower from this.

Invention

Birds can soar through the sky, cheetahs can blaze across the savannah, and alligators can bite our heads off. But can a bird build the Eiffel Tower out of Legos? Can a cheetah catch up with a fighter jet? Can an alligator make a scuba tank? For all the amazing abilities that we lack, we just might have the most powerful one of all. Through the power of invention, we can create just about anything. Just look how far humanity has come; it really is amazing. That's a superpower if I ever saw one.

Wow. We are more super than we think. Sure, many of these are a matter of perspective. But isn't everything a matter of perspective? We do have all of those, don't we? I don't think we are ever going to stop wishing that we were more than we are. But the future is unknown. Who really knows what kind of advancements and achievements that we will rack up in the years to come. I guess for now, the only superpowers we'll see shall be on some episode of Heroes.