Ochraceous Genuflections

A friend of mine has a little brother who posted a video of himself driving one of his homemade racecars. His Mother secretly began supplementing the “view count.” Several days later he was excitedly telling his sister about all the views that he has got. She decided that the little brother needed a healthy dose of reality. As you might have guessed, he was more than a little bit disappointed to hear that. 

(He’s a smart kid. His genius creations will impress the rest of the world soon enough.)

One of the most popular blogs on the planet… is all about finding the stories behind the story. If you get the chance, check it out: A Grand Unified Theory of Pixar 

                       

 These are some of the reasons for why it has grabbed so much attention:

     -  Most people grow up playing with toys, and most of those people have watched at       least one of the Pixar movies.

    - It’s easier to imagine that everything can work perfectly when it’s being played out in   a fictional world.

    -   We love to see the overarching themes and stories that help to make everything fit     into its place. 

    -  As adults it’s easier to focus on the story when it’s being presented to children           because we have such an  awful habit of convoluting everything else.

Positive attention and affirmation play a crucial role in shaping the way we view ourselves. We’re not all born with good looks and most of us aren’t naturally good at everything. It’s easy to see how saying something to encourage someone else can be incredibly valuable. I’m not saying that it’s right to flatter people needlessly or telling them they’re doing great when they clearly aren’t.

There are millions of workshops and self help books that will tell you to “Just be yourself. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.”  It’s all a load of crap. Certainly there is value in having self-esteem, but what they don’t tell you is that the reason you keep getting back up is because if or when you succeed people will recognize and applaud you for it.

   

It would be nice to think that it works that way, but it doesn’t. People are only interested in other people if they perceive them to be useful to themselves. This is where the Pixar theory gives us a little bit of insight to the human psyche.

Sometimes the things that really matter are far more important than the story that’s being told.  It’s amazing to think that somehow everything fits together, and that your story is my story… and maybe we’re all well on our way to Infinity and Beyond!