SPOILER ALERT!
Avengers: Endgame spoilers ahead.
Much of my life for the past two years has been about convincing myself that I have made the right choices. However, the culmination of all such choices has brought me to where I am today, without a full-time job and slim hopes of pursuing my PhD. I have received rejection email and notifications more than I can care to count, and I have yet to hear back from so many job applications. I fear that I am now experiencing the butterfly effects of not wanting to fast track my Masters to PhD a few years back, or the after effects of carelessly taking a year off studying after my Masters. So much of what I feel today is caused by the lingering guilt of not trying harder, of not trying hard enough, of not trying at all. This feeling of failure was brought with me in my viewing of Avengers: Endgame, where the most unlikely superhero represented my situation perfectly.
Thor had lived 1500 years, slaying enemies amounting to more than double that. Even so, after failing to defeat only one enemy in the form of Thanos, he spirals into a major fit of depression. He forgoes his role as King of Asgard and becomes a recluse, shying away from the grim reality that has materialized from his mistake.
I am Thor in the way that I, too, feel immense despair in not fulfilling my so-called destiny to become a PhD holder or a lecturer or even an employed Masters holder. I had lived 25 years as a success, jumping over hurdle after hurdle, defeating challenge after challenge, conquering fears and inhibitions. But right after my Masters, I had been faced with rejection after rejection, failure after failure. And the severity of my failure is only amplified by the gleaming success of my close peers and colleagues in their studies and jobs.
My only saving grace has been the small opportunities I get to help others in their quest to achieve excellence. Akin to Thor intimidating noobmaster69 in Fornite as a favor for Korg, I have been summoned upon a few times to conduct photoshoots, proofread articles, update online databases, and scan documents. I know that even though it seems like a small thing to do to me, other people are appreciative of the work that I put in to help them. But it is not who I was supposed to be. I was supposed to be King, ruler of a grand nation, protector of the Nine Realms, son of Odin, God of Thunder, Avenger -- not Thor, Fortnite gamer and (broken) cable TV subscriber.
For five years, Thor had been dwelling in his memories of a failed rescue, drowning himself in alcohol and fatty foods, with his once glorious weapon Stormbreaker reduced to a bottle opener. Thor developed anxiety, suffered panic attacks, and could only hold it together for short amounts of time. He could only recall the dark clouds in his past, ignoring the bright skies beyond them. He uses humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism. He is suicidal but disguises it as a selfless sacrifice to snap everyone back into existence. All he wants is to do "one good thing", despite having saved the world countless times before.
I am Thor in the way that I can only see myself as this complete failure because I am not the person I am supposed to be, because I am not doing the things I am supposed to do. All my life, I always knew what I was supposed to be and I had only worked on becoming what I was supposed to be. And in that sense, who I am is the person people need me to be. There is no "me".
Then came a poignant scene that saw Thor see himself through the eyes of the wisest person in Asgard, and his most trusted confidant; a scene that constantly finds itself looping in my mind. In his mother, Thor found comfort and clarity.
"I was just standing there... An idiot with an axe."
"... Idiot? No. A failure? Absolutely... But you know what that makes you? Just like everyone else."
"I'm not supposed to be like anyone else, am I?"
"Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be, Thor. A measure of a person, of a Hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are."
All his life, Thor has only known the path to the throne to be his destiny, paved by the teachings and guidance of his parents. But in a moment of complete vulnerability, his mother tells him that his true path is to be himself, not the one set out for him by others. Thor, grateful for his mother's confidence but not fully convinced that he is still the Hero his mother sees him as, attempts to summon Mjölnir - once a symbol of his worthiness. As his hammer returns to his grasp, Thor realizes that he is still, indeed, worthy.
I am Thor because, despite my failure(s), I am still worthy
I do believe that there is still something out there for me. If it means that I have to endure a few more months of in-game insults towards underage gamers, then so be it.
My struggle right now is to rediscover what it means to be "myself"; to separate who I am supposed to be with who I want to be. Often times I felt as if there really was no need to figure out who I really am because I'll always be able to be the person other people need me to be. But through so many failures of trying to be who I am supposed to be, I figure that it is time I try something else.
Thor's story is one that I never thought I would relate the most. His downward trajectory from being a revered powerful God to being a hopeless no-pack alcoholic is one that (somewhat) parallels my journey from being a Best Postgraduate Student to a part-time employed keyboard key clicker. The time that I have spent wanting to end it all has led to me witnessing a beautiful exchange between a son and a mother in a film mostly remembered for its action scenes during its climax. The least grandiose of scenes has impacted me most and I will never forget how it made me feel.
It is believed that with perseverance and patience, we will someday achieve whatever it is that we set out to achieve. It is, how they say, inevitable.
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