Realizing Reality

This week, we read a speech given by David Foster Wallace to the graduates of Kenyon College in 2005.  In this speech, he talked about how "the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about."  This reminded me of Tony Stark because he couldn't see that his weapons caused more harm than good until he experienced it himself. 

Before Tony Stark became Iron Man, he was the CEO of Stark Industries, a weapons company.  He designed and created weapons for the U.S. military but his weapons were sold to other countries as well.  Tony only wanted his weapons to be sold to the United States, but he was too involved in his "lens of self" to realize what was going on.  All he cared about was making money and partying.  He was too distracted by his own needs that he never paid attention to what was going on "right in front of [him]."

That all changed when he was kidnapped in Afghanistan after he gave a weapon demonstration to the U.S. soldiers.  While he was there, he realized that the same weapons he created to protect innocent people were also the ones the terrorists were using to hurt them.  He escaped the cave he was held in by creating the iron man suit.  After that, he improved his suit and started using it help people because he finally realized that he is not the "center of the world." The world was suffering because he was being "self-centered" and he wanted to put an end to it.  Tony started to "experience" events in a new way, which is all David Foster Wallace asked for.