As a child, my eyes would always be glued to Disney Channel or to Cartoon Network; Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Mr. Bean, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes and countless other programmes with similar wacky names. But, even in this exhaustive list, I will never be able to forget an episode of a programme called, ‘Dibo the Gift Dragon’. The show wasn’t a hit and didn’t survive for too long on TV; but one episode, just one episode that they telecasted left a huge impact on me.
Though the main motive of this post is to discuss the impact left by that one particular episode, it is important that I first enlighten all of you on the contents of that particular episode, or if you already know, then let us take a walk down memory lane. Shall we? Alright then, without further ado, let us commence with the fairy-tale opening. ‘Once upon a time in a land far far away’, there lived (and thrived) only five creatures (mind you, exactly five). My hypothesis is that there probably was a drought or a famine or a war or maybe a mass extinction. Who knows, maybe there existed some selfish species who exploited the land endlessly until it leads to their own ruin, as well as that of others around them. However, funnily enough, five creatures of five extremely different species survived. Yay for them! Although, I do wonder about its ill effects on the possibility of sexual reproduction.
Ironically, the five creatures were very contented and joyous by their own, and this could mostly be attributed to Dibo who happened to be a wish-granting dragon; hence the name ‘Dibo the Gift Dragon’. I know what’s running in your head: every story with a wish granting creature as the protagonist or supporting character, always ends as a catastrophe. However, that is not the case in this narration (as you will soon see). I would love to say ‘they all lived happily ever after’, but since it is a TV show that will never be considered as a scenario. There will always arise some or the other complication, if not, they will create one to keep the show running; but since it is a children’s TV show the complication will be resolved in the most unrealistic and bizarre way possible (which apparently, makes the targeted audience happy).
Apologies from my side, but Athena can’t help but be opinionated about everything under the sun and outside of this earth as well.
My dearest Athena, I suggest that you continue with the story before we lose any more viewers.
One fine day arrives in this fairyland, when an obnoxious pink bunny, conveniently named Bunny, decides to get into a verbal brawl with everyone and is eventually disgusted and tired of them. Driven to insanity, she yearns for the entire fairyland to be composed of only replicas of herself, and luckily for her, this yearning materializes with the help of Dibo. Initially, the wish works out great for her and the fairyland is filled with cute, little, obnoxious bunnies all in various shades of pink (50 shades of pink?), but slowly as the episode progresses, the pink bunnies just can’t seem to stand each other’s detestable and infuriating demeanor. They never realized how irksome their attitude was, until they got a taste of their own medicine. They had to be on the receiving end to realize the amount of damage that was caused by their lack of emotional affinity. This will soon lead the audience to witness various rounds of verbal brawls, which soon escalates to physical brawls. Though this might sound like a Bourne film, thankfully they didn’t complicate the story further.
Though a narration is never complete without an ending, I will be leaving the narration here, as I still haven’t managed to comprehend the ending myself. (As I have mentioned before, the complication will be resolved in the most unrealistic way possible by defying the laws of science, maths and all other laws that do happen to exist so far.)
Superficially, this story might seem like any other episode to feature as part of a children’s TV show, but I have managed to learn a very big life lesson from this; perhaps the most important one that I have ever learned. If you still haven’t managed to figure out what I am talking about; then sit back and relax as you will soon be receiving a front row ticket to what I consider a very important counsel.
RUN! Run for your lives...
I am pretty sure that all have us have felt like the pink bunny, at least once in our life (if not more times, unless you are a saint; of course). We have all felt repulsed and exasperated by others, wishing with all our hearts (but, probably not our minds) for them to be like us. “Oh my god! Why can’t he be like me, neat and clean? I can’t stand his filthy habits.” “Why can’t my boss share my views? Why doesn’t he understand my situation?”;” Why can’t my husband think in my shoes? Why can’t he be as loving and caring as me?” ;“ Why can’t my friends be more outgoing” “. Why can’t my parents be more open-minded and free?”
Though these are just thoughts, it is surprising to see how these thoughts manifest in our lives. Before I talk about that, let me lay down the same rudimentary concepts to ensure that we are all on the same page. We, as a species Homo sapiens are considered to be the most evolved beings on this planet. Though, this might be attributed to various reasons, the most prominent one is our brain capacity, or rather the efficiency with which we are able to use our brains. This when interpreted in layman’s terms, gives the simple fact that we are the most intelligent species on this planet. The ability to efficiently use our brains has given each one of us a unique identity consisting of different thoughts, ideas, beliefs, rationales, values and so on. From all of this, we reach a very fundamental reality that no two individuals are exactly the same. We all look different, speak differently, think differently and even live differently. Though this might seem like a very trivial reality to talk about, its prominence will soon become very evident.
Now that I have managed to establish this fundamental reality, let me move on to the subject matter itself. ‘Human beings are social animals. We were social before we were human’ ~ Peter Singer. We cannot separate the concept of society from human beings. Human beings always have, are and will continue to exist as a society and though, each of us may have different definitions for a society, I think all of us can reach the inevitable conclusion that the very fundamental foundation for a society is communication. Words are singularly the most powerful tool available to humanity. We communicate to express our thoughts, ideas, feelings, values and so on. But what we don’t realize is that during this process of transmission, we actually hold the expectation that people will agree with us. Though this feeling is very subtle, we actually hope that other people around us are ‘like’ us. We hope that they have the same mental reasoning as us and we look forward to interacting with such people; people who have identical thoughts, values and ideas. So, what happens in a scenario when we don’t encounter people with the same ideologies? We do the next best thing; we try to convince them of our ideologies. We try to convince them of our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. In the process, we are subtly attempting to get other people to be on par with our principles. When we backtrack a little, we realize that all of this stems from our initial expectation; the expectation of other people having similar ideologies as us.
It’s a funny world, isn’t it? We have all accepted the fact that we are all essentially very disparate when it comes to our principles, but we still, in every single possible scenario, hope that people are similar to us; and what’s worse is that we try to make them think identical to us. Though they could be many possible reasons for this, the one I would like to emphasize on, is validation. We, as a society love validation and hope for validation at every single juncture of our life. As mentioned before, we would like to surmise that we are right and we look forward to people agreeing with us; as this provides us with the very much ‘needed’ validation. But, we tend to forget that not everything is black and white in this world. The word ‘right’ is very subjective and can’t be defined such that it satisfies every single scenario. Even if we could; who are we to determine what is ‘right’ for one person. What may be ‘right’ for one person, may not necessarily hold true for another. We live our entire lives thinking we are ‘right’, but what we don’t realize is that along the journey we lose many precious opportunities of actually discovering other people’s ideas and tenets.
Before I get myself into any more trouble (more than you already have?), I would urge all of you to just think about it. Would you really wish to be in a similar situation as Bunny?: Be in a world filled with replicas of you? Encounter people with the same ideologies? Live your entire life convincing others of your principles and awaiting validation? Where’s the fun in that? Instead of spending our entire lives in a futile attempt to define what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, we can choose to learn from the 7 billion minds around us; and maybe there is a small possibility that one day we will start to accept people the way they are, in place of who we expect them to be. As someone great once said, ‘A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions’.
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