How mundane, but mysterious moments create a thread in our life
Yes, sometimes they occur at Disney
It smelled like 6th grade, which triggered a sensation of being small and insignificant.
“How did I end up back here.” I thought
I didn’t even want to come here as a kid.
It was, after all, the lame park with retro rides and an absence of explosions.
“I guess I can respect the meticulous commitment to hyper-specific details.” I thought as I wondered from country to country, now in my 30’s.
There is something bizarre about seeing all the world’s cultures laid out together in one place.
Even though it’s fake and somewhat generic, seeing them lined up next to each other highlights the distinction between them.
“How in the hell did culture emerge in such weird and specific ways around the world?” I remembered thinking as a 6th grader. How could one species come out so different?
That was the first question I ever asked that created an emotional imprint.
Walt did this on purpose, of course, when he set out to “make magical experiences abound.”
His goal was to transport me to the starting point of another world, so I would take myself into that world.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that question would poke at me, and drive my choices for years to come. It would lead me to study abroad, to go to grad school with 30 people from around the world and to get a job studying people through field studies.
I love culture because I love the complexity and layers.
I love that you can’t ever get it right and it can’t ever be merged into one comprehensive answer.
A new layer will forever be emerging, so we have to surrender our need to define it.
And yet we can still make meaning out of it, find interesting patterns within it and use it to ask new questions.
There are these mysterious moments that somehow create a thread in our lives.
It’s not clear at the time, but these seeds of inspiration and aliveness slowly burn below the surface showing up in odd ways that don’t necessarily connect.
At some point, it’s your job to go digging, find the starting point and plot the connections — because it’s pointing you somewhere that matters.
What’s your underlying question? What’s at the root of what you are trying to figure out? 👇👇
This story was originally published on sillysapiens.com
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