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Pixar got something right, so very right, when they made the animated movie UP.
*** Plot Spoiler Warning ***
I saw this movie some months ago at the blood platelet donation clinic (they have movies to watch while you donate as the process can take 1.5 hours) and for some reason it popped into my head recently. I enjoyed this movie; yes, thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, to be more accurate, it wasn't the movie so much as certain parts of it. There are two parts in particular. The first is a scene at the beginning where we are given the pre-story and shown the married life of the main character (Carl) and his wife (Ellie) - it's really cute. The main story line takes place after his wife has passed away. In it, Carl undertakes the adventure that the two had always wanted, but weren't able to do. The second great scene takes places closer to the end as Carl realizes that he will not be able to complete the adventure that he has set out on in honour of his deceased wife. Resigned to the fact that their adventure will not happen, thinking himself a failure, he opens his wife's old adventure scrapbook. Here he realizes what Ellie had figured out long before: their life together and the love between them was the adventure. Yes, I almost cried at this point. Actually, I almost jumped out of my seat and cheered (though with that needle and hose sticking out of me that wouldn't have been a smart decision).
We often think that adventure necessarily involves the act of going to a far-off place and undertaking some great physical feat: hiking the wilderness, climbing a mountain, crossing a sea, etc. Sure, these things are adventurous - I'm not trying to say that they aren't - but the greatest adventure is the one that involves the heart. Learning to open yourself up to others, to know and be known, to love and be loved... this is the greatest adventure, this is life in its fullest.
It takes a great amount of courage to love, to be vulnerable and open before others, to trust. But we must learn to love since it is only through loving that life becomes an adventure. Without love it is just a long, arduous journey.
Why merely journey when you can experience the greatest adventure?
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I can't wait to see what you have to say when you speak of the love for your own child. Now that is an unimaginable love (for me anyway). To have something you love with your whole being, running around, vulnerable to the world,experiencing joy and pain...it's intense.
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