Skills, capacities, talents — these terms sound too bland for what I’d love to trigger in people´s behavior repertoire.
We are trained to move in straight lines — toward goals, toward results, toward a better version of ourselves. Our maps are full of arrows, and every arrow promises progress.
But sometimes, something in us turns slightly aside — a thought, a hesitation, a movement that leaves the route and enters a quieter field.
I asked myself what the caring trickster as a rare untamed trait in people could go for in terms of emotional and mental progress. In my 2022 article, I already outlined the advantages of the trickster capacity in business-link
My mind traveled to the superb term to name this state of consciousness and emotion. And its opponent the super.
Science Fiction is a Superpowers Stirrup Holder
People always dreamed and still dream of human power beyond vulnerability and limitedness. .
In science fiction stories we witness the fictional existence of extraordinary powers outperforming the ordinary. Mostly only available for a few selected people. There are amazing physical capacities mentioned such as laser view to go through materials, super speed to let things and the own body move from one place to the other in a blink of an eye that sometimes is applied as time travelling. As well mental capacities are highly fashionable such as mind reading or power stealing. But most of all invulnerability and immortality seem to be top on the hit list of imagined powers. Addressing the possibility of extreme physical and mental strengths, science fiction imagines us beyond limits of time and space.
Human weaknesses and vulnerability feel erased.
Technological tools such as skin and brain implants, substance injections, gene manipulation, function as vehicles to make the dream come true, without the pain and the discipline needed that is embedded in constant practice and learning by failure.
I mention here a few key projects that transport the smell of superpowers` reality to come true. Radical life extension (biotechnology, cryonics) ; Cognitive enhancement via AI, brain–computer interfaces; Genetic engineering (CRISPR, synthetic biology); Physical augmentation (prosthetics, exoskeletons) ;AI-assisted human decision-making and “superintelligence”
Superb Powers Challenge Superpowers
Superpowers are seen as essentially exceptional talents, for instance in the Emotional Intelligence domain. “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” by Daniel Goleman. (1995) . They are innate, highly developed emotional strengths that give someone an edge in certain behavior advantages.
Which verbal expression could outplay the straight jacket thinking of superpowers? superb came to my mind. Superb powers felt much more sensual to be than superpowers.
I define a superb power as a special personal or collective strength that feels like a quirky magic trick of how your brain and body outdance the ordinary.
A superb power is not about domination or advantage. It’s a kind of quiet brilliance — a personal or shared capacity that feels both ordinary and enchanted. Something like a strange rhythm between body and thought, a coordination that surprises even the one who carries it.
The word super has a moral undertone. It implies an upward movement: being better, faster, more capable, more efficient. It points toward improvement, often at the expense of others or of the self that came before. Super belongs to the language of goals, optimization, and progress.
Superb, however, has a different texture. It is sensorial, almost aesthetic. When we call something superb, we usually mean it delights us, that it vibrates in a certain way. Superb food is not superior food — it’s food that feels alive to the senses. Superb moments don’t demonstrate progress; they reveal intensity.
The superb is not moral but experiential. It doesn’t measure or compare; it simply amplifies. Where the super aims to perfect, the superb invites presence.
In this sense, superb powers are not heroic capacities but subtle ones — the ability to stay attuned, to find meaning in motion, to be both astonished and composed.
The Super builds, corrects, and ascends. The Superb listens, stirs, and deepens.
The unfathomable turn of superb powers lies here: the super strives to perfect the machine, both within and without; the superb revels in the joy of undoing it.
I did put my feelings and reasoning in a poem.
Superb Powers` Charms -a poem
Superb powers are the crooked grins of existence —
personal or collective strengths that feel like
quirky magic tricks of flesh and neurons,
a body-brain tango that outdances the ordinary.
Do not confuse superb with super.
Super marches in a straight line,
sniffing its own moral perfume:
better than the stupid past,
better than the ungifted others,
better than yesterday’s you.
Superb, however—
superb drips with the juice of sensation.
Superb food is not improved food;
it is food that tastes like an event.
Superb doesn’t optimize — it improvises.
It licks the existential spoon and says:
“Ah yes, despair, but seasoned well.”
Super builds towers.
Superb eats clouds.
Super measures progress in productivity.
Superb counts goosebumps and the silence between laughs.
The super wants to win.
The superb wants to feel the loss.
The superb is an unnerving muscle:
half absurd, half sacred,
fully alive.
Five Ways of Directing the Superb
I asked myself how I could illustrate in words the benefits I see in being ready to go for superbness. Five potential applications crossed my mind: the battle call, the sensual cat tree, the glitch school, the existential gymnastics, and the joys of Absurdistan.
The Battle Call
Superbness here is a rebellion against the cult of productivity. The super aims to improve the machine; the superb remembers the pleasure of breaking it.
The Sensual Cat Tree
Superbness here improves behavior by exploring the erotic — not sexual necessarily, but sensory. Every skill, to stay alive, needs a little sensual turbulence. Touch, taste, texture — are about contact, not control.
The Glitch School
Superbness here is the art of the glitch. It trains the human not to be flawless but to stay fluent within breakdowns — to metabolize chaos.
The Existential Gymnastics
Superbness here faces vulnerability and tension including the possibility of collapse.
The Joys of Absurdistan
Superbness here is fearless towards absurdity blurring the line between play and insight.
The Superb Drift (极致的偏航)
How would I describe superb powers in a movement? It´s the drift. The drift in movement captures the paradox where motion occurs without control — where something moves by being moved.
In psychology we witness the attentional drift of the mind - a subtle, often involuntary shift of focus from a primary task to at first sight irrelevant thoughts or stimuli, sometimes associated with mind wandering.
It isn’t a rebellion against direction, but a deeper response to it. Drifting in superb powers` motion is about how life breathes inside its own structures — how potential remembers the play that first gave it shape.
To drift superbly is not thriving to get lost. It is to rediscover movement as experience rather than obligation — to let meaning form through rhythm instead of command. Imagine the artist who pauses before the next stroke, the thinker who trusts uncertainty, the worker who feels time instead of measuring it — all are drifting, not away, but within.
It’s not about slowing down for the sake of slowness or rebelling for the thrill of disobedience. It’s about re-entering the world through sensation rather than through goal.
The superb drift is how the body and mind remember they were never machines. It. teaches that precision and freedom are not opposites. They are two sides of the same dance — the art of staying alive inside direction, valuing the intensity of experience over the clarity of achievement.
Nothing without Mastery
Superb powers have a crucial impact. Yet my fondness for the term superb powers calls for a deeper exploration of its practical meaning. These powers are not mere abstractions — they arise from the integration of awareness, expression, and mastery. Without this triad, their edge dulls, and they fail to ignite the countdown of transformation.
In my exploration, I’ve come to see facets, flairs, and virtuosities as the liberating language particles for describing the ways these powers shape behavior and influence impact.
Behavioral Facets? Multidimensional Awareness
Behavioral facets reflect the human capacity to navigate and harmonize complex challenges, encompassing emotional sophistication and nuanced decision-making.
Without this, even the most charming or skilled actions can be misguided or shallow. That´s making fun of the term input.
Behavioral Flairs? Expressive Resonance
Behavioral flairs showcase an individual’s or group’s unique charm and creative signature, effortlessly transforming presence into subtle, influential impact.
Without flairs, insight and skill remain invisible; impact is muted. That is so different from the term performance.
Behavioral Virtuosities? Transformative Mastery
Behavioral virtuosities cultivate lasting influence, translating inner mastery into transformative action that leaves a profound mark.
Without mastery, awareness and charm may inspire, but they don’t create enduring change. That s in opposition to the term execution.
Think now of the trio as powerful graces of superb powers` suction effect of ringing in a countdown to behavioral evolution.
Self-Reflection
I wish I could escape, through these acts of questioning and word-replacement, from the performance–execution–input language we have been taught to serve. In shaking, bending, and molding my imagination toward a field of meaning, less burdened, less poisoned, I may have glimpsed a first clue to the grammar of the not yet — a language for human potential still in formation.
Was it worth the strain, this stretching of thought through the tight weave of tradition?
Patricia von Papstein
the Dadaist Psychologist with a Fondness for Unruly Mental Health
Other essays of this series
Essay IV Dream Destination Breeding Place
https://www.blisstobusiness.com/2025/12/08/superb-powers-essay-iv-dream-destination-breeding-place/
Essay III Skill Hot Lists the Future will Smile at
Essay II Questioning Behavioral Order Models
Superb Powers Essays Intro
https://www.blisstobusiness.com/2025/12/08/superb-powers-intro