Yes, I ventured to the movies, and watched “Tomorrowland” today. The theme fit right into our recent discussion of the “Hero’s Journey”… world mythology, over the eons, being recreated in terms of each culture’s narratives. icons. superheroes, everyman heroes, and dragons.
If the Hero’s Journey represents a process that releases potential to be “successful in the world” such as we hope to release through DLE for learners in our region, then Tomorrowland offers one version of this narrative for today’s culture. How do we cope with adversity, and get to the “promised land”?
It’s difficult to discuss what people term “spiritual ideas”. We are loyal to our particular religious tradition or adopted faith, and sometimes simply aren’t ready to have a fully open mind about what we “believe”. Joseph Campbell helps us with that challenge, because he drills down to the core narrative that humans all seem to have in common. And that gives us some “neutral ground” upon which we can all feel “safe”.
If that common narrative is in fact “the Hero’s Journey” then we can talk about what works and what doesn’t work, regardless of the spiritual or religious background we bring to the table.
In a time of great change, such as the present, there is great fear of the unknown, and what will happen tomorrow…because we are losing our ability to see far enough ahead to feel we are comfortable what’s coming. Fear can shut humans down. Since every generation’s first job is to adapt and lead the way in coping with the world as it is, and point to some new places to go for “improvement” or “progress”…. learning needs to take place at a rapid and profound pace.
PSA seeks to help enable a state of “learning fast enough” to keep up with change.
Just as learners embark on an adventure or journey for which they can’t be assured of success… and must rely on a certain optimism and belief in oneself in order to activate their individual potentials in each moment…the same is true for a culture or society or nation or a global “thing”.
That’s the message of the movie “Tomorrowland”, and while perhaps a bit platitudinous, it’s a message that DLE need to embody, to release latent learning capabilities. As the movie says, choose the wolf you want to feed… in the case of DLE, the wolf is the potential to learn and thus become the kind of humans we need ourselves to be…given the challenges we face.