Pick your super-power

I would love to be fluent in all languages, but in my case, I'm less interested in travel than in being able to read the great literature of all cultures. Yes, I like to travel, but with English (my native language) and Spanish there are lots of places I can go. And while I spend a few weeks of every year traveling, the older I get the harder it is to travel far (I'll probably never go to Asia: the plane rides are just too long). But I read every day, and I'd love to be able to read Chinese and Russian and French for the literature.

 

Totally agree about translations. I once recommended a translation to a book club I belonged to, based on having read the original Spanish. They all came back totally confused. Turned out the translation missed the tone, even though the words were not actually mistranslated, and the result was unintelligible. And another time a book was recommended to me, and I read it in English, and it was dreadfully dull. Years later, after having learned Spanish, I managed to locate a copy of the original, and it was wonderful.

Thanks. That's good to know. They have such a good reputation.

Well, unless I find a bottle with a djinn in it, I'm unlikely ever to get that flying superpower. And since I cannot read or sleep on the plane, ten hours in a plane at my age is just not something I'm willing to endure. Then there's the fact that I don't speak the languages there, which always concerns me. And finally that I'm alone and have nobody to travel with. If I had a girlfriend who wanted to go to Asia, I'd go in a heartbeat: someone to keep me company on the long flights and layovers, and to decide what we'd do while there, because frankly, when I'm in a city I have no idea what to do with myself. I go to the art museum, and after that I'm at a loss. I don't go to bars or nightclubs and I cannot stay awake late enough to go to shows. I don't like cities even here at home. I never go out at night.

Find me a girlfriend and I'll take her to Asia if she wants to go. (She'll have to come hiking in the mountains with me also.) I'd like to go scuba diving in Thailand. But it's not going to happen as long as I'm alone. It's just too far away. I haven't even been to the Caribbean for over two years. Even that's too far for me these days. British Columbia is a half-day's drive away, and Sedona is just one non-stop flight and a two-hour taxi ride.

 

I've tried to find a traveling companion. I've had no success.

I know a lot of people love wandering around new cities. I don't much care for it. I did a lot of that with my South Dakota friends last June when we visited the Canadian maritimes provinces. Also a lot of driving around the countryside. It was a wonderful trip because I got to visit with my friends for a week. But walking around cities does not do it for me. With someone I like, I don't much care what I do. Alone, I don't like cities. And while I'm sure that there are beautiful countrysides in Asia, I can get beautiful countrysides much closer to home. Bottom line: I'll go to Asia when and if I have a girlfriend who wants me to take her there. Probably not otherwise. I probably won't venture farther than North America and the Caribbean again, unless that hypothetical girlfriend wants to go.

 

I just thought of a superpower I'd like even better than any of the ones I listed to begin this thread: I'd like to be impervious to extremes of temperature. (I get cold hands and feet easily in cold weather. I don't think I have Raynaud's Syndrome. Just not great circulation.) Anyway, I'd be able to strap on a pair of snowshoes and traipse all over the mountains of British Columbia all winter long.

 

Actually, my intention was for people to pick one and only one of the three specific superpowers I listed. Then I digressed from my own topic by introducing some other superpowers, tacitly opening the door for others to suggest different superpowers as well.

Anything other than flying, invisibility, or walking through walls is off topic. But since I went off topic myself, anyone else may as well. But you should all first pick one of the three before or in addition to suggesting others.

It hardly seems to me as though farting is a superpower, but it's legitimate as a specified limitation to another superpower, i.e., reading minds but only while farting, etc.

I think it would be more useful, though, to be able to read true emotions than thoughts. Thoughts tend to be all jumbled up, whereas if I could tell, just by looking at her, whether or not a woman has the hots for me, that would be as good as being able to make women fall for me, without the evil coercion involved in the latter.