You know, I didn’t expect Wanted to be such a good movie. I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t expect it to feel so purposeful for me. I don’t know if you’ll see the same things I did, but for me it was very clear. What do you do when the universe speaks to you?

“Insanity is wasting your life as a nothing when you have the blood of a killer flowing in your veins. Insanity is being shit on, beat down, coasting through life in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside and a key to release it.”

Now quit considering this solely in context of the movie and just pay attention for a second.

You are an amazing complex machine—and “machine” doesn’t at all connote just how incredibly perfect you are. You are capable of absurdly amazing things. You can break bonds, divide oceans, move mountains. You can do anything. To forget that is insane. To take your life for granted is insane. To waste your innate potential is horrifying. It’s shameful. It’s… Dude, it makes me want to cry.

You have so much that you can do. There are so many people you can help—there are so many ways in which you can make a difference. Little ways, big ways. Add them up and you can’t even imagine the effect that one person has on the rest of the world. You can’t even guess. Why would you hand that power away? Why would you pretend you’re something else? Something… ordinary?

Why would you let life destroy you without putting up a fight? This is why I dig superhero movies, man. Because they’re fucking real. The story of any superhero is our story, it tells us how we get up off our asses and do something true.

Why would you stand around and be a victim of circumstances when you could be out there changing something?

That’s insane. And it’s sad. And it gets me riled up. It makes me angry. It makes me make faces, gesture wildly, it makes a big question mark appear over my head, ping, this is a Megan who is confused. Because I just don’t understand how any of us can waste ourselves that way.

I just don’t.

I can’t think of a single good reason. I don’t want to hear the same old excuses. But I’d love to know why.

Why, when you have the tools to do something different?

Why did you writhe out of the muck and sprout eyeballs? Why did you eat and grow and defend your little swath of mud and eat and grow some more? Why did you battle encroaching foes and procreate and drag yourself slowly, painfully up the food chain? Why are you here? Why is having arms and legs so grand? What’s the point of your big, complicated brain if you don’t use it?

What are we here for, if not to make things happen?

What are we here for, except that we can?

I feel insanely passionate about making people understand their options—their talents, their strengths, their innate holy-cow-ness—but I mostly think in terms of people who are living the same kind of life I am. People who have a place to live, family and friends, emotional support, access to (sometimes very) basic health information and services, transportation, and food. People who find themselves in scary situations, sure, but people who already have a very decent foundation on which to build a better life for themselves. I had thought some about people without those things before reading The Blue Sweater, but I don’t know if I thought about it enough. My passion for waking people up to their own potential hasn’t changed, but I have to wonder now what one has to do with the other.

What does confidence and purpose and passion and awareness mean if you can’t eat? Can’t keep yourself healthy? Can’t keep a roof over your head? I believe they can make the difference between a person who stays poor and a person who improves their own lot, but there are still missing pieces. If you don’t have a certain basic quality of life, can you even spare energy to consider these things? If I found myself without any resources, maybe I could—because I’ve already done it, I already know how and I’ve seen the results. But it’s hard enough to raise yourself up when you have most of your needs met. I’m having a hard time imagining the same process without family, food and shelter. When I say I’ve had a hard time buying groceries, I mean it—but I will probably always be able to eat somehow, even in the hardest of times. If I couldn’t eat, if I had to live out in the elements… I probably wouldn’t be preaching to you about confidence and purpose and passion and awareness.

I wouldn’t have the guts.

Would I?

Is there something to all of this, even for people who have much graver concerns than I do? Most of the people reading this blog do have their basic needs met, do have some resources to draw on, many of them (I might argue all of them, because I always do) are in an excellent position to mindset+action themselves into the place they want to be. Anyone with access to the internet has a huge array of options at their disposal. “I can’t” means less and less to you and I every single day. But what about everybody else?

I suppose this is one of the reasons the work of Acumen Fund appeals to me—they’re not about hand-outs or charity projects. They’re about giving people the tools to build themselves up. I resonate powerfully with that mission. It’s what I want, too. Teach a man to fish, folks. And maybe it’s just a difference in scale: Teach a man to fish. Teach him to connect with others. Teach him to use the internet. Let him teach others. Help him set up a fish consulting business. Make him the primary source on the web for fish information products. Then he has a fish empire. He’ll be fine.

Nope. I don’t know what it all means yet. But I’d love to hear what you think.