There are days when I am shocked that I am still alive. Like millions of disabled, chronically ill, and older people, I spend an extraordinary amount… - disability

Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you’re needed by someone.

The origin myths of many superheroes lie in life-altering accidents or bodily mutations. Fans of the genre emphasize that disability, largely unrepresented in other forms of fiction, is part of these characters’ stories. But those stories then go on to wish disability away, via bionic implants and armored suits. “ ‘Disabled’ superheroes aren’t disabled at all,” says Chris Gavaler, author of “On the Origin of Superheroes.”

Of course, the idea that disability begets preternatural abilities is nothing new. The Greek seer Tiresias’ blindness gave him access to the spiritual sphere in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Cycle.” (As students of literature, we associate a similar capability with the blind poet Homer.) And so it goes for our modern mythologies: In “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the blindness of Chirrut Îmwe, played by Donnie Yen, seems to connect him with the Force; Sofia Boutella’s character, Gazelle, likewise wears prosthetics that double as lethal blades in the spy thriller “Kingsman.” But I don’t feel like some “super-crip” — a supernaturally endowed disabled character — on nights when I can’t focus because of muscle spasms, on afternoons when I can’t spend time with friends because they’re playing disc golf, and on mornings when I remember how the nurses would catheterize me six times daily during that month I spent in the hospital, until they taught me to do it myself.