The first time I watched "Inside Out", my mind was blown by how insightful the movie really is. I saw myself in a lot of the story, and the portrayal of each emotion was startlingly accurate. The lessons that can be learned from the movie are important, and we should be reminded of them more often. Sometimes a little Disney is just what we need to straighten up and get our lives together. Here are some tidbits that do the trick for me sometimes:
1. Emotions can and should work together
Just because I’m feeling sad doesn’t mean that I can’t be joyful. In fact, in the movie those two particular emotions are the closest. They get sucked out of headquarters and thrown into the winding maze of long-term memories to take a long adventure through the mind of an eleven-year-old. That’s about how I feel sometimes, right down to feeling like I have the emotions of an eleven-year-old. Regardless of the complicated relationships between my emotions, though, they really can get along. The times I’ve felt the saddest are some of the times I’ve felt the most joyful. It’s counterintuitive, but definitely possible.
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2. People are inherently bad.
I know I’m not the only one who noticed that Joy is the only positive emotion out of the five. Joy covers a lot of things, but she falls into her own category, while Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness are all negative emotions. Riley’s emotions balanced out well because Joy was in charge, and Joy did most of the work, but I was fascinated by the fact that 80% of the portrayed emotions were negative. The creators still pulled off a happy ending, and the other four emotions certainly aren’t all bad. This aspect of the movie simultaneously builds up the importance and strength of Joy while emphasizing the overwhelming presence of negative emotions.
3. Imaginary friends can be best friends.
When I was a kid, I had three imaginary friends. Their names were Dunny, Runny, and Pumba (The Lion King definitely stole that from me). I dictated letters to my mother and I made her mail them to my friends (she sent them to my grandparents’ house). Once, my dad and I picked my mom up from the airport, and when we started to drive away, I lost it because no one had put my friends’ seat belts on for them. Anyway, I don’t remember a lot about my early childhood, but I’m pretty sure they were my best friends for a while. Now, fifteen years later, I’m one of the most annoyingly social people you’ll ever meet. I’m loud and obnoxiously friendly, and I have some pretty good--real--friends. Imaginary friends didn’t really seem to mess me up too much, and I’ll always remember them fondly.
4. Sometimes certain emotions aren’t at the forefront of our minds, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them anymore.
I’m a very bold person, and I’m not afraid of much at all. Once I went to an old iron production plant that was rusted from top to bottom. There was a huge set of stairs, maybe three hundred tall, just a straight shot up. I climbed up about halfway up so that I could see out over the city. It was a fantastic view, but that really could have turned out badly. My sense of Fear was very very far in the back of my mind then, but as soon as you put me on a roller coaster, Fear is at the controls. The same can be true for any emotion, but once you have an emotion, it’ll always be around, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.
5. It’s okay to be sad.
This must be the most important lesson that this movie taught me. Our world strives for success and happiness, and Sadness really seems like the opposite of those. Sadness should be something that undermines those things. I think maybe we all realize that Sadness is important, but we leave that idea at the very backs of our minds. What we never consider is that without Sadness, there would be no Joy. How could tall people be tall without short people to compare? How could there be day without night? Life would be so monotonous without bad to break up the good. What would we have to live for if life was already perfect? Joy becomes that much more special when Sadness is present.
I know all of this wisdom only came from ninety-five minutes of Pixar brilliance, but it can be easily applied to life. These are all good things to remember when things get rough. Obviously Pixar isn't going to solve all of your problems--only most of them--but they've certainly given us a start. A little mindless TV is sometimes just what we need, and in this case, it's not so mindless after all. Riley's five emotions have taught us lots about our emotions, too.
