I am so excited. Next week, Pixar Studios will be releasing their new movie… “Inside Out” – Meet the Little Voices Inside Your Head. It’s hitting theaters on Friday the 19th… but I am going to a special limited preview on Tuesday the 16th that will even have a tele-conferenced Q&A with writer and director Peter Docter and many of the stars. I can’t wait.
In case you’ve missed all the hype… the film is set in the mind of a young girl, Riley Anderson, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. The personified emotions, Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness live inside Riley’s mind where they help advise her as she and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco.
Yes, it is an animated film for kids. And yes, it’s destined to make ‘Riley’ the new ‘Madison’ when it comes to girl’s names. But as if that’s not enough, ’Inside Out’ is actually a really big evolutionary step in the development of human life on Earth. If only half as many youngsters who watched Frozen and now sing “Let It Go” at every elementary and pre-school talent show learn to step back and pay attention to which emotion is controlling them at any given moment, thanks to Pixar, humanity will have experienced as great an evolutionary shift as took place when we first climbed down out of the trees and started to walk upright.
Think about it. ‘Inside Out’ will allow us to watch emotions in action and know that they are separate from the little girl who is experiencing them. They affect her, of course. But the emotions are not who she is… what she means when she says ‘I’. How evolutionary is that! Most people can’t even separate their ‘I’ from their body, much less their thoughts and emotions.
Personally, as a researcher in consciousness, I can’t wait to find out if Peter Docter knew what he was doing as he was doing it, or was simply the critical instrument through which humanity advanced to its next level of development. Either way, it’s an awesome responsibility.
The clue will be whether, at some point in the movie, Riley can tell that her emotions are separate from her and not who she is. Do they control her or can she learn to control them? We will know that, of course, watching the film from the comfort of our plush stadium seating. But will she? Did Peter Docter? Truthfully, I’m not sure it matters.
The bottom line is that suddenly, Inside and Outside will become buzzwords. Whether they are consciously aware of it or not, people will be open to talking about mind… what is where… which is real… if these are inside me… what is outside me… where and who am “I”?
Inside … Outside… The new consciousness… Time to see things ‘I’ to ‘I’.
I’ll post again after seeing the preview.
peace………..ag