I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that many people have attempted telekinesis. Go on, don't be ashamed, you've tried to move things with your mind before, haven't you? Popular literature and film have taught us that telekinesis is pretty darn cool. The two main culprits are Star Wars (as portrayed with The Force) and various comic book characters. I haven't collected or read comics for about a decade; the only one I can remember offhand is Justice, who was in the New Warriors group and I think he had a different name before that (I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of them, I don't think they were a huge part of the Marvel stable). Then you've got stuff like Lord of the Rings; the battle where Sarumon binds Gandalf and has him spinning in the air comes to mind. Sure it's magic rather than telekinesis, but it's pretty much the same thing; the ability to manipulate your environment with your mind.

I tried it a couple times, just to see if I could. On the odd chance it is some latent ability residing in all of us, I guess I wasn't 'in the zone'. Have you ever looked at some of your fantasies, and tried to really ground them in reality? I don't mean believing they are possible, but imagining what it would be really like if they were? What would happen? So what would I do if I suddenly manifested telekinesis? The movies make out that it is really cool, but would it be?

First you would have to establish how it can be used. Is it an extension of your body? Or does it begin as a tiny dot somewhere in your field of vision and expand into the shape you desire? What are the limits? How much force can be applied? Does this 'field' have any other properties; is it affected by light, and thus appears, maybe as a shimmer, or maybe as some semi-transparent hue? Does the creation of this energy generate friction or heat? It's all speculative really. I'm going to go with an invisible field that extends from the body. If you could concentrate on a point and expand it, killing or destroying anything just becomes way too easy in my opinion.

The first thing I would try and do is not die. Really, this would have to be a pretty complex ability we are talking about here. When would it manifest itself? If this was something that you were born with, and the infantile mind is capable of using it (but in all likelihood not controlling it), I'd say your life expectancy is pretty small. If we believed in the 'expand from a central point' theory, you would probably inadvertently create a field somewhere inside your body and expand it, severely damaging some internal organs if not killing yourself almost instantly. Even with the 'extend' theory, without control it would be pretty dangerous.

So I would assume that this sort of ability would not manifest itself until puberty, or at some later stage of human development. But even then, you would still have to learn how it works. And let's face it, if you learned you had developed it (say by knocking a few things over and realising it was you), while you might see the potential, you would also be pretty scared by the lack of knowledge and understanding of how it all worked. One would assume it is much like using other muscles or developing skills; practice makes perfect.

Pat yourself on top of your head. Now imagine you leave your arms by your side, but you 'project' your telekinesis from your hand to pat yourself on top of your head (assuming you can; because this force is a part of you, maybe it would just absorb back into your body; who knows?). I'm going to guess that the use of energy in this case is going to be a lot more than physically patting yourself on your head. Let's take another example; imagine lifting a moderate weight above your head, enough that after a minute you are getting pretty tired and want to put it down. Now imagine projecting telekinesis to grab the same weight a couple of metres in front of you and raise it to the same height. Surely you would have to be using a lot of energy for that, if your body can even manage it. I don't know much about physics, but there would be a lot going on here.

Because ultimately, the energy expended is still going to be required to be drawn from your body. Much as your muscles can only lift a certain weight, I'm sure the further you project, the weaker those upper limits become. So if you want to be supercool and use your telekinesis, your food bill might go sky high. Assuming of course that telekinesis relies on the same energy that physical exertion requires. Maybe we would have to ingest something else. Maybe you discover you have this ability one day, and never see it again, because of some exotic food you ate that was heavy in a certain mineral or something.

Another scary thing to consider is whether this ability is prone to impulse reactions, and I would assume yes. Sometimes in certain situations, instinct takes over. What if you were suddenly scared, and you lashed out at someone with your telekinesis shaped as a sharp object? If I remember correctly, this is what happened to the character Justice; his father was abusive because he was a mutant, they got into a fight, and he lashed out and killed his father, and was convicted of murder. Some people move around when they dream; what if telekinesis manifested during these moments too? Maybe you would wake up to your bed ripped to shreds or you've 'punched' holes in the wall.

Obviously for movies and comics we suspend belief. Let's take a look at Spiderman. He lives in a major city of America, and is in the public eye. Sure, he has some superpowers. But do you really think an American Intelligence Agency couldn't locate and identify him? And do you really think they would be of the opinion "Oh, he's helping fight crime, let's leave him alone"? Hell no. They'd want to capture and study him. Why wouldn't they want to replicate these powers for super soldiers? And spider sense or not, they would have the resources to capture him.

You can bet the same would apply for anyone today if a government caught wind of someone who was actually using telekinesis. I'm sure any country with a modest intelligence agency would be able to track you down. Oh, your abilities might help a little, but I doubt they'd be any match for what they would throw at you. You would end up as either a guinea pig, or dead.

You know, now I think I'd be a little bummed if I found out I had telekinesis.