Disney and Christmas

‎"...It's not the days in life you remember, it's the moments." WALT DISNEY
A truth that could only come from genius, humbleness and an amazing capacity of appreciation. Xmas is the precious moment that the whole 365 days of the year culminate, like a constant rebirth of Jesus, the moment when transcendence and generosity became one.

Disney Universal Heart

The universal heart loves, like you and me,
The universal heart speaks to all other hearts,
The universal heart is creativity, for creativity is undiscriminating givingness,
The universal heart transcends, for it is beyond yours and mine,
The universal heart is essence; what is beyond every particular heart,
The universal heart is timeless; it is never forgotten, it is always around,
The universal heart quenches different tastes, soothes all ages, inspires all races
Walt Disneys had a universal heart

Disney Essence

    










       Walt Disney remade himself, the Disney studio and Disney entertainment so many times, keeping, through all change, the Disney essence intact, like someone who, through disappointment, contingencies and randomness, is capable of finding the truth within. (Disneyssence)

Thank You Walt Disney!

Beyond entertainment, Walt gave us magic.
Beyond laughter, he gave us healing;
Beyond delight, he gave us fantasy,
Beyond reality, he gave us awe;
Beyond everydayness, he gave us dream;
Beyond rationality, he gave us Faith;
Beyond appreciation, he taught us thankfulness and, with the storytelling Disney rides,
Beyond participation, he gave us contemplative experience; much
Beyond "escape", he gave us overcoming.
Thank you Walt Disney!
(Disneyssence)

Complete Disney

       Walt Disney had the spontaneity of nature,
       The discipline of rationality,

       And the Freedom of art.

Happy Birthday Walt Disney!

110 years ago, Walt "landed" on this planet, all the way from, perhaps Mars... to Marceline (actually, to Chicago first). With his magic wand, Walt turned Marceline unique, like he did everywhere he went, for he always took the high road in the situations life presented to him. To take the high road may, after all, concern this power of seeing the uniqueness of a situation; to see it as a source of creativeness.

Wherever Walt Disney is, gotta be a happy place, even if for his just being in it....

Disney Heroism

    Jobs, like Walt Disney,  was a hero, for heroes triumph over gratuitousness: whether dying or not, a hero is a hero for fulfilling a task, for "connecting the dots". 
    Heroes don't beat death, but its definitiveness. 
 The transcendence of heroism is to render gratuitousness worse 
than death : 
to show that if death is not 
the worst of all things, 
it cannot be final. 
Heroism is the simultaneous assertion of eternity and meaningfulness. 

Mystical Disney

     Mystical is he who sees meaning in mere action, mission in just living, soul in personality and his own, true will in what he discovers to be the will of God.

Disney Meaning

 

Walt Disney joined past and future
Artifice and Nature
Technology and Fantasy
Unpredictability and Planning
Passion and Control
Pungency and Fun
Physical World and Soul
Disney animation is the power of turning meaning, that which is abstract, into visibility

Disney Charisma

    The inspiration Walt gave his team was courage; the right to be oneself.
           Charisma is the power to inspire, in others, the right to be themselves.

Disney Decency

Walt Disney's search for excellence was the unforgiving effort of constant self-overcoming.
    Walt Disney's search was the eternal fight to  keep his heart clean.

What Disney really gave the world was his measuring up to himself.
       

Disney Universality

           

                    Disney animation, a reinvention of the physical element and its laws , discloses a world in which movement only happens as an expression of the story steps and shapes equally represent this all emcompassing meaning. It shows a physical visual rendering of thought: a world impregnated with mind. Thought and sight at the same time and in the same measure, it extends one's mind in physicality, and one's body in thought, like Like the world of toddlerhood, it thus offers  an immediate and organic  prolonging of the viewer himself, appealing, therefore,  to anyone regardless of understanding, age and culture. Disney animation reverts to the common essence between what is seen, felt with the skin and lived with the heart; an essence that only infants naturally coexist with, but which is in the depths of the universal heart.

Disney Fulfilment

     
     Much beyond entertainment, Walt Disney fulfilled the universal need of warmth, fantasy, love and sugar: the need  of being mothered and unconditionally welcome. Disney animation is, on the whole, sheer de- powering of hostility or aggressiveness, not just from "villains', but from the environment. When aggressiveness happens in the shorts, it turns into comedy and the aggressors are either ridiculed or redeemed.  In "Raccoon Hunt",  Mickey and Pluto set off to hunt a lovely coon, and the latter, picking up Mickey's coon hat, makes it look like a baby coon, which he then rocks, moving Mickey and Pluto with is feigned maternity. Its important to notice that there is no hinting of the human like coon seeing any tragedy or cruelty neither in his using the hat to save himself, nor in Mickey's wearing something made with his own kind. Everything is both cute and comedic. When aggressiveness happens  in the feature films, the aggressors are simply vanquished. When it comes from the purely physical world,  like in "Mickey Trailer", the "stretching" of physical laws themselves allows for no character to be really hurt. Disney animation on the whole fundamentally means  a message of universal love. (Disneyssence)

Disney Wisdom

    To believe in Happy Endings is not necessarily think that all of one's endeavors will end the way one wants to, 

but to simply know and feel that love is the force most responded to, with no self-interest, by animals, plants and humans!

Disney Depth

Walt Disney went deep into everything he involved himself with. This is called commitment.
Walt Disney was passionate about everything he was committed to. This is called coherence.
Walt Disney was single minded with anything he did. This is called integrity.
Walt Disney literally and metaphorically brought depth to something that was literally and publicly shallow, like animation.

It is one's depth that makes both shallow and substantial  really deep. This is called bliss.

Disney Competition

Walt Disney lived well with competition not just because he was used to it and when things were smooth he felt like the ground could crack under his feet, but because he was naturally a giver and, in competition, one can give one's all, with no self-boicoting, no "I can't do" mantras, no hesitation.

Disney Perfection

It was like the  ballet choreographer said in "The Black Swan":
Perfection is not all about control, but abandonment too!"

Disney Purity

 There is no greater purity than to make the celebration of joy, faith and fantasy one and the same!

Disney Interpretations

I finally watched a talk Gabler gave in 2006, about the biography he wrote of Walt Disney.  Inasmuch as the writer gives much information on Walt, it is sad he has to use the material he learned from to fit his interpretations (or Mis-interpretations) which are in greatly part borrowed from Shickel anyway. Guess everybody knows the "control" explanation regarding the appeal of the parks and to also satisfy Walt's need for "escape". If there was anyone who looked at reality face to face in order to create everything he did, as well as to harmonize all the diversity he had under his lead, it was Walt Disney. To see, know, and handle reality was no easy feat, but no obstacle to him. I simply can't understand the impunity of attributing a mere need to escape to such person. Having control results from escaping reality, for Gabler.  Invert the equation and perhaps one corrects the misinterpretation: Having control is facing reality so as to take the step beyond: artistic freedom, letting go or, the abandonment of fantasy.

Disney Warrior

A warrior is someone who fights to give his best, before fighting against others,

A warrior is someone who competes to overcome himself, before trying to subdue  others,

A warrior is someone whose greatest challenge is the conquering of his own shadow, rather than the power over enemies,

A warrior is someone who sees his adversary as someone to learn from, rather than to just crush,

A warrior sees life as the ultimate challenging and, yet, the biggest reward; the most serious commitment and, yet, the greatest adventure;

A warrior is someone who, like Walt Disney, was always self-improving, instead of just asserting himself!

Disney Example

Walt Disney's curiosity was his being disarmed; his nakedness before life,

Walt Disney's courage was his dignity to fully own up to himself and go ahead with all of his being,

Walt Disney's confidence was his being true to himself, his being whole,

Walt Disney's constancy was his coherence; his capacity for committing,
Walt Disney's four Cs were his very purity!

A Disney New Year

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         Gabler says his book is an attempt to decipher the mystery of Walt Disney. But genius is mystery itself, and if one doesn't resort to the mystical dimension (another mystery) one will not even brush its meaning. Lets start the year by paying homage to genius, and bow our head to mystery. And to continue the year, lets remember that the spirit of adventure and that of creativity, both in the Disney essence, have a common seed to be paid homage to. In creativity and adventure one lets go of fear and, in the nakedness of childhood, becomes able to respond to something beyond one's ego. 

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