“The fight is all.”

From: Street Fighter

Genre: Video games

Who said it?: Narration for Ryu’s ending

The story behind the quote: Street Fighter II has a varied cast of fighters you can select. One of these characters is Ryu, a no-nonsense karate expert who travels the world testing his fighting ability. While the other people in the game have different motives for joining the tournament (Guile and Chun-Li wants revenge on M. Bison, the final boss in the game, E. Honda wants to prove the superiority of Sumo to the world), Ryu’s only motive is to test himself against the best fighters in the world.

In Ryu’s ending, a ceremony is being held to congratulate the winners of the tournament. However, Ryu, who has bested all of them, is nowhere to be seen. As the audience wonders where he is, the scene switches over to Ryu walking into the sunset. The narration states that he doesn’t care about the adulation of the crown, the glory of winning, or the prize money. All he was there to do was fight, improve his skills, and “the fight is all.”

Geek wisdom: People nowadays are focused on either the material gain for accomplishing a task or the accolades they’ll get for doing something. A lot of them don’t really enjoy what they’re doing. These are usually the same people that complain about their jobs and they just can’t wait to get paid since that’s the only thing that’ s keeping them there. However, there is a small percentage of people that actually enjoy what they do.

Finding a job that you actually enjoy doing can be difficult. But for those that do, they never really cared for the amount of their salary or the glory of success. Those things are just bonuses to them. Sometimes, its just the act of doing a good job that makes it worthwhile.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

From: Spider-man

Genre: Comics

Who said it?: Uncle Ben

The story behind the quote: Although the quote is usually attributed to Peter Parker/Spider-man’s Uncle Ben, this is actually wasn’t true in the first appearance of  the web-head in Amazing Fantasy #15. In the original version of the story by Stan Lee, this was the moral lesson that Peter Parker took away since he let a mugger get away and this same mugger killed his Uncle Ben. If he only stopped the man earlier, his uncle wouldn’t have died. Also, the original quote was actually “With great power, there also must also come… great responsibility.”

Later versions of Spidey’s origin revised the story. The story now is Uncle Ben would usually tell a young Peter Parker this lesson while he was alive and Peter Parker would remember this. These revisions also shorten the quote to the current version, which comes off as more poetic.

Geek wisdom: A lot of people think that, once they have some form of power, they can usually laud it over people and abuse it. History has a lot of people showing them becoming corrupted because of great power: Napoleon and Hitler are just a couple to name a few. Even in a small scale, we do see powerful people beat down on the weaker ones. Bullies, abusive spouses, and corrupt politicians are just a few examples of the kinds of people we see every day that use their power the wrong way.

“With great power comes great responsibility” has a simple meaning; if you have the ability to do something, make sure that you do it for the good of others. Highly admired people like Ghandi and Ninoy Aquino have done things that follow the spirit of this message. If you can stop something bad from happening, do it. You don’t have to be a superhero to follow those words of geek wisdom. It’s possible to do small actions that have a big impact in the world.

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

From: Back to the Future

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: Doc Brown

The story behind the quote: After repairing the timeline (somewhat) and coming back from 1955, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) is about to go to the lake with his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker (played by Claudia Wells in the first film, then portrayed by Elizabeth Shue in the succeeding films… long story). Before they can leave, however, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) comes racing back in the Delorean time machine.

The Doc tells Marty that he has to come with him to the future since there’s going to be a problem with his and Jennifer’s children. After they all board the Delorean, Marty comments that they won’t have enough road to reach the required 88 mph to travel through time. Doc smiles and states “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads” before converting the vehicle into a flying car and speeding off into the year 2015.

Geek wisdom: It’s difficult to take risks or be different from the pack. There’s always the chance of failure and ridicule from others for doing your own thing. However, a lot of the things we take for granted were due to these risk-takers and different individuals. If it weren’t for creative people like the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs, and other like them, a lot of our modern conveniences wouldn’t be invented. These people did not have any clear trail to follow. They blazed their own.

When we are children, we are taught to be creative and not to be afraid of making mistakes. Even as adults, we’re told to “think outside the box.” Easy in theory, but extremely hard to do in real life. We all have our comfort zones we like to be in and that’s fine. But it is nice to take a step off the safe path once in a while. Its when we get off the road we usually see something different.