Getting Excited about the World!

It may seem obvious to say that the world is a big place, but the past few days, I've encounted some great works of art that have opened my eyes to just how big the world really is.



Movie poster from "Life in a Day" (2011)

The first thing I encountered was a documentary called "Life in a Day." It's a really incredible film that I highly recommend. It was a project put together by National Geographic of life on Earth on the day of July 24, 2010. The many thousands of hours of footage were submitted by thousands of YouTube users from countries all over the world. It was an eye-opening movie, both beautiful and frightening. National Geographic does not pull its punches and simply tells things as they are, which can lead to some graphic imagery. (Viewer discretion is advised- I had to look away at a few points myself.)

However, even the scariest moments in the film were balanced out by the warm-hearted, emotional, and fascinating looks at humanity as a whole. From Asia to Africa, the Americas to Europe, all cultures around the world may look different from the outside, but the emotions inside us all are the same. I saw families of every kind showing their love to each other--and wept openly at how beautiful love is. I saw faces old and young talk about their greatest fears. I saw ways of life I didn't know existed, and I saw majestic, sweeping landscapes that took my breath away. Most of all, I saw how big the world is, and how very little I know about it. I wandered the house in a daze the rest of the afternoon, reeling from the powerful film I had witnessed.


"Click and Drag" (XKCD: 09/19/12)

The next day, I was checking the latest update on one of my favorite webcomics, XKCD. It's a wonderful comic, sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes silly, often very poignant. The newest comic, though, was something else. Creator Randall Munroe has really outdone himself with this one. I think my husband put it best when he said, "This guy's a genius...to take a comic and play with the format to such a degree to inspire such imagination. Seriously, it's like halfway between a comic and a game. It's brilliant."

The comic starts out with a simple 3 panels, but it's in the 4th panel that the comic takes on a life of its own. The user can, as the name suggests, click and drag the comic around to discover a whole other world hidden beyond the edges of the panel. The world goes on and on and on as you drag further and further, discovering little secrets and inside jokes for readers of the comic. Clicking and dragging is a difficult way to navigate something so huge, but I think that's part of the analogy to our own world. Our world is vast, and exploring it all is something that humanity is still working at. It can be a difficult and painful process, but the reward of discovery makes it all worthwhile.

I guess that's what excites me after thinking about these two works of art. There is so much left to be explored in the world, especially since I understand such a small part of it. After clicking my way through XKCD's world, I felt the joy and excitement of discovery all over again. I thought back on "Life in a Day" and thought about all the cultures I saw that I knew nothing about. I was allowed to peek into each person's life for just that one day, for just those few minutes, and I was left with so many questions, so many things to be discovered. Who are you? What's your story? What can you teach me, and what can I teach you?

The world is so big that I can't help but get excited about discovering as much as I can about it!