It’s Captain America in a turban.

Imagine doing something just like that. Doing something, showing somebody, anybody, that things don’t have to be the way they usually are. That not everything is static–especially us. That we can stretch, and move, and change.

As a Sikh American, Mr. Singh had reason to be nervous about walking the streets of Manhattan in a red, white and blue leotard and… turban. “I’ve grown accustomed to a Pavlovian response to my presence. Stares. Verbal assaults.”

But as the day wore on, on Puerto Rican Day, no less: “Hundreds of strangers came up to me. And we were able to lay to rest any anxieties or inhibitions in those moments — about other people, about the unknown, about ourselves, about violating other people’s personal spaces or not understanding their beliefs. We could simply meet. Say hi.”

He put himself out there. He was earnest. He saved the world.