Bruce decides to spend the family fortune on capes and crime labs and to fritter away his free time fighting crazy criminals. Now that's an out-of-the-box calling. What sort of person makes a life change like that without radical submission? Without that submission, without an understanding that there is something greater out there, the principles of the comic villain look far more reasonable.

Like Batman, all of us hide behind our masks and use them to help define ourselves for others. We all have secret identities of a sort, hidden behind our smiling social-networking profiles or our happy church faces. They're not lies, really. They're just not the whole truth, because we know that most of the people we encounter day-to-day couldn't handle the truth (or perhaps we couldn't handle giving it to them).

Most of us are like those Russian nesting dolls, presenting a slightly different visage to the world depending on which world we're dealing with at the time. The outermost doll isn't a lie; mine still offers part of who I am, but it's not all of who I am. As I get closer to people, the nesting dolls open and the masks change. But it's a rare person whom I allow to see what's at my core: my innermost thoughts and fears, my dreams and desires, my pettiness and peevishness.

Lots of folks would argue that Bruce hides behind his perfectly coiffed hair and ever-easy smile far more than Batman does underneath his cowl.

But the real joy he feels doesn't come in the guise of Bruce the billionaire playboy. It comes as Batman - when he does what he was meant to do. When he follows his purpose.