The Myth of the Worthy Victim

But heroes were the ones who taught me that the world only cared about the people worth saving.

It was the cruelest curriculum I ever absorbed. Not from a textbook, but from the flickering blue light of a television screen in a lonely childhood living room. The heroes always made a choice. They saved the innocent child over the corrupt politician. They saved the brilliant scientist over the anonymous bystander. They saved the beautiful maiden over the plain one. The narrative was clear, consistent, and devastating: rescue is not a universal right. It is a prize awarded to those who possess sufficient value.

I internalized this logic before I could even articulate it. If the world only cares about the people worth saving, then my primary task was to become worth saving. I had to earn my own rescue. I had to prove, through utility, brilliabeauty, that I deserved to be pulled from the burning building of my own life.

So I became useful. I became the coordinator who could solve any logistical nightmare. I became the trader who could predict market movements. I became the partner who anticipated needs before they were spoken. I stacked my worth like bricks, building a tower high enough to be seen by the passing hero. Look at me, the tower screamed. I am valuable. I am competent. I am worthy of your attention.

But the hero never came.

And when the tower began to crumble under the weight of its own impossible architecture, I didn’t blame the hero. I blamed the bricks. I assumed I hadn’t built high enough. I hadn’t been useful enough. I hadn’t been good enough. The abuse from the teacher wasn’t his cruelty; it was my failure to be the kind of student worth protecting. The bullying from classmates wasn’t their malice; it was my failure to be the kind of child worth defending. The absence of my father wasn’t his neglect; it was my failure to be the kind of son worth staying for.

The myth of the worthy victim turned every act of violence against me into evidence of my own insufficiency. It transformed trauma from something done to me into something earned by me.

It took twenty-three years, a broken NDA, a discarded revolver, and a rainbow-colored explosion of truth to realize that the heroes lied.

The world does not operate on a meritocracy of rescue. People are not saved because they are worthy. They are saved because someone chose to save them. And sometimes, no one chooses. Not because the victim lacked value, but because the bystander lacked courage, or capacity, or awareness. The teacher abused me not because I was unworthy of protection, but because he was broken. My father left not because I was unlovable, but because he was lost. The client threatened me not because I deserved it, but because he was afraid.

Their failures were not my report card.

Worth is not a prerequisite for care. It is an inherent condition of existence. A newborn infant has done nothing to earn its mother’s love, and yet it is loved. A dying elder has lost all utility, and yet they are mourned. A dog with three legs is not "worth less" than a champion show dog; it is simply a different expression of life, deserving of the same warmth.

The heroes taught me a transactional lie: that love is a wage paid for performance. But love is not a wage. It is a gift. And gifts cannot be earned. They can only be received.

I spent my life trying to earn what can only be given. I exhausted myself performing worthiness for an audience that was never keeping score. I mistook exhaustion for virtue and collapse for failure.

Standing in the village now, watching ordinary people live ordinary lives, I see the truth the heroes obscured. The woman sweeping her porch is not being swept because she earned it. The man fixing his bicycle is not being helped because he proved his value. They are simply being. And their being is enough.

I am learning to be enough. Not because I have finally accumulated sufficient merit. But because I have finally stopped believing that merit is required.

The heroes were wrong. The world does not only care about the people worth saving. The world cares about the people who are here. And I am here.

Not as a hero. Not as a victim. Not as a project to be completed or a problem to be solved.

Just as Saransh.

And that, I am finally beginning to believe, is worth everything.