But breaking can actually increase the need to bend the world. Research on trauma and resilience actually shows that victims commonly have a need to make a difference in the process of meaning-making. Breaking makes you care about solving problems. It makes you less afraid because you’ve already been broken and you think you can take it.

Maybe breaking makes you care about yourself less to the point of being willing to sacrifice everything to bend the world. Generally wars have started because people broke and decided they’d bend the world. Right? Broken people are potentially powerful because they have nothing to lose. Maybe it is all about ego. But if you break someone, don’t you threaten their dignity and value as a human? How far will they go to get that back?

Every superhero story starts with someone breaking and ends with that person bending the world. Sure, superheroes are fictional, but why do we tell these stories if there isn’t some truth to them?