You can have one superpower - flight or invisibility. So, what's your decision?

If you could choose between invisibility and flight, which would you choose?

As it turns out, your choice may say a lot more about who you are as a person than you think.

Recently, the hugely successful radio and podcast segment ‘This American Life,’ asked this very question. On it, American author, actor, historian and humorist, John Hodgman asked, “Flight versus invisibility? Whichever you pick, you’ll be the only person in the world to have that particular superpower. You can’t have both. Which do you choose?”

So, which is it? Quick, make your choice before your read on.

Hodgman recently made it his mission to conduct a study of this very issue. And while he wasn’t exactly, well, scientific in his method, we kind of love the outcome.

Hodgman replaced the usual small talk subjects of wedding receptions, elevators and taxi chat with this simple but thought-provoking question — and found that people became instantly engaged in the question and chose almost instantly, as though they’d been thinking about it for a long time.

Weirdly, everyone’s answers seemed to be overwhelming mundane.

Take this flight-envious participant’s answer:

“If I could fly, the first thing I would do is fly into the bar, check out what’s going on there, fly back home. I would attach my baby to me and fly to a doctor’s appointment at 11:30, fly right back. And then I think I would fly to Atlantic City.”

And this invisibility-seeker said:

“I’d go to the dressing room. The woman says, how many items? I’d say, five. I’d put those five sweaters on. And I’d summon my powers of invisibility in the dressing room. I’d turn invisible. I’d walk out, leaving her to wonder why there’s a tag hanging from the door that says five, and no person inside.”

No one adopted the X-Men creed. No one swore to protect a world that hates and fears them.

So, what does this all mean? It’s quite simple really.

Hodgman’s theorises that wanting to fly means you have nothing to hide — in fact it could mean you want to be on display — whereas invisibility means you want to shrink from view, crouch and fade into the shadows (perhaps in a rather creepy or illegal way).

In the more eloquent words of Hodgman, “Flight is the hero– selfless and confident and unashamed — and invisibility, the villain.”

In other words, as one woman Hodgman interviews puts it, flight sounds “all mythic and heroic,” because it’s “noble” in not enabling you to sneak places you shouldn’t be.

“But I think actually, if everybody were being perfectly honest with you, they would tell you the truth, which is that they all want to be invisible so that they can shoplift, get into movies for free, go to exotic places on airplanes without paying for airline tickets, and watch celebrities have sex,” she concludes.

Are you rethinking your choice right about now?

You know what? That’s okay. We all have days where we would like to soar high above the city to fight for truth and justice, and we all have days where we’d quite frankly rather sneak onto a flight without paying for an airline ticket.

Hodgman summarises the crux of this decision brilliantly. He asks: “Who do you want to be, the person you hope to be, or the person you fear you actually are?”

So, which would you choose?

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