Why Do We Stay?

“The truth is, only you know why you stay here, why you put up with this place. Or maybe you don’t know. I didn’t know why I came [here] until a little while ago. But standing here today, right now, I can tell you why I love it. I love it because it’s a [place] people come to because they want to become something more than what they are. I used to .. imagine this great person I might one day become. And what I’m saying is, maybe that’s the thing. Maybe that’s why. We come here, to Gotham, because it’s transformative, this place. We come here with our dreams and the city, it looks at us with its unblinking stone eye- an eye that sees all our faults, everything we’re afraid is true about ourselves- and it says: ‘try. I dare you.’ And then Gotham stares you down, doesn’t it? .. It fights you, challenges you to give up, to leave… But you don’t. No. Because deep down you know- you know- that if you stand up to the challenge, if you walk through the fire, you will emerge changed. Burned down to that self you knew was there all along, the one you came here to be.” – Bruce Wayne in Batman: Zero Year #24