When I was little, I was really little.

I was the shortest kid in school. They would take class pictures, and you would have to look really hard to find me. “Are you sure you’re in the picture?”

I knew I was short, little, and that’s why Mighty Mouse was my hero.

He was little, but he was Mighty. He was a Hero. He did Mighty things and flew through the air with his little cape and Mighty Mouse suit and the little boots you wear when you’re a Super Hero.

He defended the people who needed it, and punished the bad guys.

I wanted to be like that.

I wanted to fly through the air.

But first, I’d have to learn how to fly.

I decided he could fly because he had the Power. The secret of his Power was that he ate Super Cheese.

I had to find some Super Cheese so I could eat it and have the Power and fly through the air and do good deeds and fight the bad guys.

I found my Super Cheese. It was growing in a vacant lot that had weeds. This one weed plant had big fancy leaves and little seed pods that used to be flowers. The flowers died and dropped off and left the little seed pods that grew up to be kind of plump, and had four little leaf petals that protected them until they were ready. I decided they were ready enough and I picked them and peeled away the four little leaf petals and took the little seed pod like a tiny green pumpkin and popped it in my mouth.

It tasted green and was crunchy, and full of Power. I chewed it up and swallowed it. Now I had eaten Super Cheese and had the Power and could fly.

I walked the rest of the way down to the end of the block from the vacant lot and came to the curb and the street.

I poised myself on the curb, raised my arms, and cried, “Up! Up! and away!”

I jumped up in the air as high as I could.

I landed on my feet in the middle of the street. I hadn’t flown yet.

I walked across the street, stepped up on the curb, walked the next block, came to the curb, raised my arms, yelled, “Up! Up! Away!” jumped as high as I could, and landed in the street.

I didn’t fly. And I knew why.

The second time I tried, it was only half-hearted, because I hadn’t flown the first time. I carried that disappointing knowledge with me, so when I tried again, I already knew I wouldn’t fly.

Even the first time I jumped off, I knew I wouldn’t fly. I knew it was because I didn’t purely believe I could. I knew my belief was corrupted by my experience with gravity. I knew if I could get my belief in my ability to fly to be pure, uncorrupted, then I would fly right up in the air. But my belief was polluted by doubt. If I could get rid of the doubt, to believe I could fly with pure intensity, I would fly.

But I knew I wasn’t ready. Eating Super Cheese wasn’t enough. My doubt had blocked its Power.

I would have to work on my mind, learn to control my thoughts, keep out the distractions of the real world with gravity that was keeping me on the ground. I had to transcend the real world, enter the pure intensity of uncorrupted volition, so I could fly free.

But I knew I wasn’t ready and able, that I was just a small little boy with short legs and little feet, and I couldn’t purge reality from my mind. I decided I would work on it, but I would do it later, not hold my breath, because for now that was just the way it was.

When I told people why I couldn’t fly like Mighty Mouse, they would say, “You’re a sophisticated little bugger, aren’t you?”

I would say, “No, I’m just not ready yet.”

I was sorry, because Mighty Mouse would just have to solve crimes and beat the bad guys without me.

Oh, well.