I’m typing this in haste, because in 90 minutes I’ll be sat watching Inside Out 2 at the flicks with my family, and I won’t be able to remember what I thought of the first one!
We watched Inside Out (the first one) again the other night, as a bit of a refresher… interestingly this is now the third time I’ve watched it since it was released, 9 years ago, and each time I’ve had a completely different opinion of it.
I’m sure they haven’t edited the movie in that time, so… what does that say about how we experience the world?
🤔
Anyway, my brief observations from Inside Out (the first one) are thus:
- It’s really good!
- Look what happens when we focus solely on one emotion. You can’t win, because nothing exists in isolation. Look at the arguments all the other emotions had with Joy, when she became so determined for Riley to experience just Joy all of the time. Which leads to…
- All feelings are welcome! Resistance is futile. And counterproductive.
- Who are ‘you’ in all this? The fact that Riley was aware of all the blithering idiots in her head, strongly suggests that she is the observer. But to be an observer means the necessary creation of another character inside the control room of thought: the observer.
Doesn't it?
🤔
For me, this points to one of the easiest pitfalls we can encounter as humans: believing there’s a character that’s actually observing, directing and potentially even controlling all this stuff that’s going on.
And I don’t think there is.
It’s just another (very convincing) trick of the mind. If you go looking for that character within your own experience, systematically, you won’t find it.
Maybe what we are is less noun, and more verb:
Anyway, at the end of the movie, I had that famous Sydney Banks quote ringing in my ears, which sums it up beautifully:
“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.”
Enjoy the show!
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
Jump in the time machine and go read what I thought of Inside Out 2!