This weekend, I watched two wonderfully stimulating, insightful films (Mom, I promise, there was no homework I was procrastinating on!).
One, I’m sure you’ve heard of, is called Inside Out. It is an animated movie about the personified primary emotions that live inside the brain of a little girl and how her character is developed through life experiences and her reaction to them. While cute and clever, it is incredibly truthful about human psychology and development of emotions.
The other was a foreign film Force Majeure [For reference, ‘force majeure’ is a term in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability when an event beyond their control occurs, sometimes called an ‘act of God’]. While the movie is seemingly the idyllic depiction of a typical family skiing vacation, the plot transitions into a difficult breakdown in familial dynamics. The pivotal scene transpires while the family is eating lunch on the deck of a restaurant on one of the peaks. A controlled avalanche starts rushing down the mountain, and for a few moments, everyone is captivated. However, the avalanche keeps growing in size and rolling ever closer to the restaurant. The fog and suspended snow causes the patrons to believe they will be wiped out by the snow. Just as the fog consumes the deck, the father panics and runs away, leaving his wife and children to be stuck in an impenetrable, dense snow cloud. For the rest of the film, the wife tries to confront his abandonment and manage the betrayal that she is feeling, while the children fearfully consider this to be an end to their parents’ marriage. One action, one thought of self-preservation, tears apart the lives of four people.
After watching these, my brain would not stop moving, like one of those trains in Japan that run at 320 km/hour, asking question after question (for real, it took like four hours to fall asleep):
Why was the father’s first reaction to run and abandon his family? Why did the wife become so enraged but never privately call him out on it?
How could someone’s core memories, which power our personality, be lost or changed? Why was Sadness not allowed to be expressed, when all of our primary emotions are important?
One thought which brought *some* stillness to that restless night was this:
There are a few key moments in our lives which make us who we are. And if we lose those, or forget them, we become different. We become someone other than ourselves. (hey, it’s not highly original, or even profound, but it makes a good deal of sense.)
But then followed more questions:
Just how important are those moments? What are MY key moments?
I’m going to choose the first four I can think of (it probably means that they are the most important to me, but I’m no psychologist!):
The first is my childhood growing up in the Cleveland Metroparks (wonderfully located right behind my home). We didn’t have cable TV or gaming systems. If we wanted to play, we went outside. It was there that I developed my love for nature, flora and fauna, environmentalism, conservation, and ecology.
Secondly, was my first international travel: going to Guatemala with my Aunt Meg. While experiencing the colorful and vibrant culture, my passion for travel, adventure, and other cultures began to bud.
My third core memory occurred while I was in middle school. I went on a field trip to Philips Healthcare (the first engineering company I ever visited) with an advanced female education group called “Finding the Shoe that Fits”. Seeing hundreds of women designing, testing, and producing systems awakened the science-oriented part of me and gave me the desire to become an engineer.
The fourth memory is from the end of my freshman year of college. Although I was brought up attending church with my family, this was the first time I realized just how important Jesus is to my life. I was completely destroyed, humbled to realize that I can’t live a life both satisfying the values of this world and the values of the Kingdom. The part of me that knows I am a daughter of the King and my life must reflect Him and His calling for me was ignited.
Do not be misled- these are the (mostly) good ones, like the golden orbs that occupy the core memories of Riley’s life (the girl from Inside Out). I’m not going to touch on the bad experiences that made me who I am today. At least not right now. Truly, even realizing how the good stuff manifests in my character hasn’t always been good or easy. But I hold each of these in high regard, because…
They have made me.
They have made Alexandra Maria Baratucci.
They have made:
An engineer striving to make environmentally conscious choices for the improvement of humanity.
A fledgling hippie tree-hugger.
A young woman outraged by the political and social state of America, and terrors wrought by the corruption of governments.
A tender heart sensitive to rays of sunshine, beautiful quotes, and a person’s life story.
A wanderer with a huge heart for international peoples, cultures, and foods.
A servant who desires for the aspirations and lives of others to be supported and benefited.
A committed follower of an unconditionally gracious, merciful, provisional, loving Father.
“The idea that we as humans can be multiple selves, an ever-evolving product of conflicting emotions and painfully-gained insights, is readily understandable.”, says screenwriter/professor Paul Gulino in a critique of Inside Out.
And translating that to how we came to be this way, I’ll leave you with one more question:
How incredibly intelligent is our Creator that he meticulously designed our intricate brains that never stop evolving and making us the child He has called us to be?
