Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

The busy work of rescuing the house condition finally ended when the rain subsided slightly during the day. Even Batman sighed with fatigue.

He really started to question the level of other Universe Batmen; how on earth did they train their assistants to be so incompetent?

Not to mention Jason got injured. Dick can't lift or carry anything due to his shoulder. Tim is even worse—can't do any work and still has to give orders, and the most useful throughout this evening's work turned out to be Pamela from his universe, the supervillain Poison Ivy!

Then Batman realized he might have underestimated the complexity of the situation.

When everyone was busy, although they weren't very helpful, at least they were united. But as soon as they finished, they started quarreling with each other.

"…If it weren't for you insisting on fixing that broken car, we could have reinforced the house earlier and this wouldn't have happened!" Harley stood in the center of the living room, hands on hips, not backing down at all.

"That big fool only cares about his broken ice cream machine! That's why he twisted his ankle. You just know how to date your girlfriend. If you took the time you spend gossiping to fix the house, it would have been repaired by now. And aren't you supposed to be smart? How come you can't even tell which part of the house is unstable?!"

"Did you notice it then?" Tim retorted unabashedly.

"But I was the first one to discover it!"

"But you didn't do anything about it!"

The quarreling was giving Batman a headache. He wanted to leave, but with the wind and rain outside, he really didn't know where else he could go.

"Stop arguing!" Batman spoke up, "If you waste all your time on arguing, the house will still be blown down tonight. Now grab some tools and start reinforcing the house."

Finally, he managed to separate them, but then disagreements arose again concerning the distribution of tasks. Some didn't want to do their assigned work and went off to slack. Others went looking for trouble with someone else, and some even suggested that they should just stop working and move away completely.

Batman was merely trading one problem for another.

Originally, he should have just left, but sometimes the life details they mentioned, including parts about Alfred, as well as Selina and Aisha, and the old Wayne Manor life grudges they dug up, couldn't help but draw Batman's attention.

Through these descriptions, Batman roughly sketched out the life scene of Wayne Manor in Bruce's universe.

Three adoptive sons who were always studying and their childhood sweethearts, who became Hollywood stars, and a troublesome but endearing little daughter, along with the always diligent and responsible old housekeeper. They turned the manor upside down every day.

Some life details were actually trivial and boring—someone was late for school today, someone ate two extra pieces of chocolate tomorrow, or someone broke the swing and framed someone else for it, someone bribed another person with football tickets because they didn't want to weed.

Yet Batman was thoroughly engrossed as he listened from the sidelines.

Rather than envisioning the future Wayne Manor, it was more like he was reminiscing about the past Wayne Manor.

When both his parents and the old housekeeper were still around, the atmosphere of the manor was similar, although not as crowded, but the memories were filled with mundane daily details.

When reminiscing about the past and looking forward to the future, people always like to mention a term called "fireworks". Many sometimes fail to understand what "fireworks" mean, or try to sum it up with too abstract symbols.

However, psychologists believe that the human psyche is not a "pillar" structure. The normal human psychic world is not supported by a few lonely pillars. On the contrary, the true appearance of the psychic world is fragmented.

This doesn't mean that human thought processes are broken. Logic is just one component of the psyche. It has both integrity and coherence and does not prove that the human psyche is necessarily integral and coherent.

In fact, the human psyche significantly lacks logical coherence. Not one state necessarily leads to another. It isn't possible to derive a result from a formula directly. It's filled with unpredictable randomness.

So, if one tries to find a main support like personality or logic to use as a base to fix human psychological issues, it's actually very difficult.

You might often hear slogans like "rebuild your personality" or "help you establish logical thinking," but these are really hard to achieve. Because the pillars don't exist, personality and logic are also made up of countless tiny fragments.

People who have visited psychiatrists may have heard suggestions like changing your environment. This advice translates to replacing a part of those fragments. The emphasis is on changing everyday life, social interactions, and work details.

These details are the so-called "fireworks". These microscopic everyday activities largely determine your psychological state.

Major life changes can indeed lead to psychological disorders, but most people rarely encounter such major events that can directly shatter their psyche; it's usually the endless daily life details that erode the psyche.

Changing your lifestyle periodically is like replacing a part of those fragments. Like updating cells, this can greatly improve one's psychological state. For those with depression or anxiety, this is a cost-effective and highly effective treatment method.

Of course, some people may think that this is not a low cost. How can one change the environment just by saying so when they have a stable job?

It must be mentioned that daily details can be faked.

Some people like to play games, especially those that have immersive storylines, or simulate life games. Essentially, it is about replacing parts of the spiritual fragments in their psychic battlefield with the life details from the virtual world.

Watching movies and TV shows is the same. Some people always like to put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist, and watching a movie is like experiencing the protagonist's life again. This is also about changing spiritual fragments.

Even the simplest daydreaming, imagining oneself living in a wonderful and happy environment, can replace a small part of spiritual fragments to refresh one's mental state.

However, many depression sufferers have lost the ability to daydream, so they have no choice but to physically change the environment. If the situation is not that severe, often engaging in such imaginations actually helps in strengthening mental stability.

Sometimes, daydreaming is not something that can be rationally controlled; it just starts involuntarily. This is actually the brain sending you signals, telling you that some fragments need to be replaced.

If your imagination is strong enough, then you can daydream right where you are. If not, you can watch movies or TV shows, or play some relaxing games with strong immersion to adjust your mental state promptly.

Batman actually hasn't recalled his past life for a long time. To be precise, he hasn't remembered a complete scene. But hearing the noise in the living room, he couldn't help but recall the interesting things that happened when his parents were still around.

Most memories of Alfred revolve around Wayne Manor. But in reality, Bruce's childhood was quite rich, not confined to just staying at home.

Mr. and Mrs. Wayne often took Little Bruce out to socialize, attend various parties, educational trips, summer camps, and took vacations when work wasn't busy, or simply took him along on business trips to enjoy some leisure time locally.

More and more details emerged in Batman's mind. Although due to Gotham's rainy nature, memories in Gotham always seemed gray, there were many other bright memories in places like Hawaii's summers, autumn in Istanbul, and Sri Lanka's rainy seasons.

Batman's strong memory gave him too many memories to revisit, and by the time he returned to his senses, it was already time for dinner.

What he didn't expect was that these children seemed to have completely forgotten what they had been fighting about, and gathered together excitedly discussing the ice cream machine. They even enthusiastically invited him to join them for dinner.

Harley poured him a glass of soda and said, "Thank you for helping last night, if it gets windy again tonight, we'll be relying on you."

Looking at Harley's shining eyes, Batman found it hard to refuse. Although she looked very much like the Harley Quinn of their universe, she was obviously much younger. Some of her actions were quite childish, making it hard for him to associate her with Harley Quinn.

The three Robins looked at each other, successfully catching Batman's attention with such gestures, and then Tim spoke up: "I can tell from your look that you don't recognize me. I have to introduce myself. Tim Drake, nice to meet you."

He extended his hand and shook Batman's. Batman recalled the surname Drake in his mind, then realized that it belonged to one of the few survivors of the upper-class society after the typhoon.

Would he adopt this boy in the future? But since the Drake family hadn't encountered any trouble, why would he need to become someone else's foster child?

"Well, there's one more thing," Tim said, smiling as he looked around. Dick and Jason theatrically clapped for him.

"Can you help us fix that old ice cream machine? Considering we've also helped you?"

Batman was slightly taken aback as if he understood something. He looked towards the dining table, where everyone's features brightened under the night light, resembling streets washed by rain and then partially dried, emitting a kind of wistful warmth.

"Do you guys really like ice cream?" Batman asked.

"Uh, not really, but that old ice cream machine is really cool, it's hand-cranked. It might be from the period of the great Western development..." The boys chattered.

"Imagine, gold diggers who've been under the sun all day come to the bar at night for a refreshing hand-cranked ice cream. Whiskey bottles with seashells sticking to them. Candles burning inside coconut shells, and seams in the floor filled with sea salt grains that can't be cleaned…" Jason described passionately.

"The essence is in the hand-cranking, those machines where you press a button to get ice cream, how boring. Only enjoying the fruits of one's labor is the most delicious..."

"Alright." Batman's voice dropped like a coin. Everyone immediately looked at him full of anticipation. Then his expression gradually merged with Bruce's, and even the words he spoke were exactly the same.

"But let's set three rules..."

"Oh—" Cheers and laughter immediately transformed into moans.

"After it's fixed, one serving per person, no more," Batman said ruthlessly, "Otherwise, you'll have to go to the dentist for a teeth check-up."

"No!!!"