217 - Belittling what other people choose to learn or do because we don't understand it

I'm acquaintances with a guy who I haven't been to school with or spoken with in a while. I think the reason we drifted apart and no longer talk came down to my fondness of contemplating different subject matters in great detail, for long periods of time, while he preferred to keep conversations simple and avoid overthinking the things we talked about. He would complain to me about the work we had to do in class, and ask me why we had to read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy or 500-page Dickens novels, and when I asked him in return why he was having such an awful time, he would tell me that it was because he hated authors who went to great lengths to describe the different sceneries, writers who kept the plot going for far too long with all the twists and turns, and who used old-fashioned and unusual vocabulary and sentence structures, and incorporated themes and symbolism that he couldn't grasp without someone else pointing them out to him.

I respected his way of thinking, I understand the appeal of it, and I wish the world was simple too. The bigger the phenomenon (e.g., love, life and the pursuit of happiness), the simpler I wish it was. But I believe from a very early stage in our lives, we are meant to learn to adapt to the complicated, mazy reality we live in. And one cannot be afraid to expose oneself to knowledge and experience, because otherwise, we will forever be naïve.

A lot of people tell me that they hate science and maths because the concepts are so abstract and dealing with numbers and equations is just too confusing. Some people tell me they don't get art, because it's hard for them to grasp on to the idea of actually reading an artist's expression and finding meaning through their painting or sculpture. One person once told me they disliked economics, because the way economies work most of the time is in a sporadic, seemingly senseless manner - prices rise, productivity falls, import spending increases, but government taxation decreases, consumer spending goes up, then prices go down when they were going up to begin with...

As for me, I find the study of politics and history very complicated. The same goes for music theory. I'm actually afraid to expose myself to theoretical music, because as a kid, I never played any musical instruments and it was just too hard when I finally tried it. Musical theorists and skilled instrument players astound me and I could never do what they do.

On the topic of music, I have another old acquaintance that once said to me he hates music, all forms of it, in all genres. He thinks it's all noise, and he thinks it's stupid that mankind have conceived of 'such aural abuse', as he called it.

It really, really gets on my nerves when people disparage what other people do and know just because it's different. It's definitely not okay to undermine what science, art, economics, politics, history or music does for society, just because it's too complicated in our point of view. Without any academic facet of the humanities, and the sciences, and the arts, our world just wouldn't function properly. Although it is alright to state your disinterest in particular subjects, calling psychology pure crap, or art pupils too stupid to do anything else, or science and maths students too geeky, or the study of philosophy too convoluted, does nothing but demonstrate a great deal of insensitivity and narrow-mindedness.

Without all the other people in the world that don't lead your life, you'd be dead. The world ain't simple, and they make sure it works for you. So, be a bit more acceptant, please.

194 - People who don't like Disney movies

So today, I'm going to talk about the reasons why I think Disney films are great, and the problems with people who dislike them. And when I talk about Disney films, I'm talking about the older stuff, the classical stuff, the better stuff in the earlier days, when the movies were completely composed of heart, fun and fantasy. Not the stuff that's been coming out in the past ten years. Not the films that they've sort of moved on with. I mean, Atlantis, Lilo & Stitch, Bolt and a couple of others have been fairly solid, but they've evolved (in the wrong direction, IMHO) since the good ol' days.

No, I'm talking about the masterpieces of Disney. I'm talking about Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan. They brought you to another world, a whole different reality where caterpillars speak in vowels, pumpkins turn into carriages, and kids can fly with the help of a little fairy dust.

In some films, like The Lion King, Tarzan and Dumbo, the anthropomorphic effect made you appreciate (well, they made me appreciate) animals, and at the time those films were released, I was a kid that would actually learn about the animal kingdom through these films. It even made me learn to appreciate my toys after watching Toy Story, even the furniture in my house after seeing Beauty and the Beast. The scenes, the landscapes that were all drawn by hand made it so beautiful and believable, and I find that with a lot of real-life, in the flesh, movies, it's hard to feel that way because cinematographers are trying to make real filming locations beyond what they really are. With animations, especially the way Disney have done it, it can just be breathtaking, and enthralling, how they make a deer's mother matter so much, or how they make a puppet/boy matter so much. It really makes you wonder, and appreciate how much larger the Circle of Life is outside our own lives, our own modern-day age.

One of the other key reasons I also like Disney, is because they bring us to different places and time periods. From China (Mulan), through India (The Jungle Book), the Arabian deserts (Aladdin), France (Hunchback of Notre Dame), Greece (Hercules), to Native America (Pocahontas), how can it not be amazing to any viewer? How can it not be appealing for a parent to bring their kids to see these movies when they're just so educational and mind-opening, yet fun, for the kids?

The overall underlying theme in Disney works is the moral lessons they subtly include. They don't know shove the moral spectrum of right or wrong in your face - and at times, it can be difficult to tell where the ethics lie. Should Snow White learn to distrust strangers like the evil witch? Then again, should she trust her one and only family member, her stepmother, the Queen? Seeing as the dwarfs are strangers to her as well, was it right for her to trust them?

After the movie is over, though, you take away from it a real story, with complexity in the tale. You can't blame Pinocchio or Tarzan for not knowing what's right and wrong, it makes you think, it makes adults think when they re-watch them years later. How can people not understand how Disney movies are so ingenious?

I think it's because they've got their head too far up their bum. They're so narrow-minded, that they only see beauty in what they find beautiful, they find that their morals are sufficient to live the lives they lead, and they can only be emotionally invested in their own life, not the life of some 'stupid cartoon character', because they're self-centered. From where I stand, Disney movies are used to be beautifully crafted, empathetic, exuberant, compelling, and at times, even haunting, morally thoughtful, and absolutely cultivating for grown-ups, and certainly, any child growing up with parents that want their kid to learn.