The new Pixar film Inside Out, like any good “animated” film, i.e. ostensibly for kids but also appealing to adults, did a fine job introducing children, and likely more than a few adults, to the many voices active inside our psyche — and helping them make sense of it all.
The movie identifies, and personifies, a manageable number of feelings — Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust — but there are more, of course, such as Guilt and Regret, Sadness’ first cousins; Envy; Anxiety; Shame; Excitement; Awe; Hatred (aka Anger on steroids); and the greatest of these, Love.
Emotions make our lives complicated, to say the least. The cacophony of inner voices can be downright confusing, especially when some feelings are “acceptable” and others are not. “Don’t feel that way,” we’re told from an early age.
So many feelings, so many voices within, all vying for attention, some vying for domination. Some of us have a healthy democracy inside. I’ve met a number of people who seem ruled by a tyrannical despot demanding order over everything else, even at the expense of their mental well-being. In others, anarchy prevails and behavior reflects that inner chaos.
The film, about a young girl adjusting emotionally to a major life transition, isn’t limited to “mere” emotion. It probes the deeper geography of the psyche — the realms of the imagination, dreams, and long-term memory. And there are realms deeper still that we are only beginning to understand.
I saw Inside Out on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the theater packed with kids, who audibly loved the beginning (aka Delight) and ending, but they quieted down as the film got darker and showed how vulnerable we are to Really Big Emotions.
Of the five feelings personified, I was a little surprised by the presence of Disgust but decided it was an early form of “Judgmental,” a function of the adult brain. Judgment is certainly an important tool, but if too narrow in focus, it limits and holds us back. It needs to be informed by wider life experience, knowledge and wisdom, but those, too, come later in life.
We are complicated beings to be sure, but I was glad (joyful even) to see that Inside Out focuses on the relationship between Joy and Sadness. They are presented as antagonists, at first, but later discover that they function much more effectively as partners.
We run into trouble when we try to make them mutually exclusive. Joy and Sadness are next-door neighbors on the emotional spectrum, flip sides of the same emotional coin. They inform and extend one another. Joy without Sadness is shallow. Sadness without Joy paralyzes. Joy uplifts, Sadness deepens (hence the term, “sadder but wiser”).
In the film, Sadness teaches Joy about the importance of empathy and understanding. Joy, meanwhile, empowers and energizes Sadness and gives her a sense of direction.
The challenge of integrating joy and sadness is critical even for life’s veterans. For too long I entertained the illusion that it’s possible to have a joyful life without significant sadness. I just had to manage it well, protect myself, insulate, keep sadness at a distance.
But when it inevitably rears its rueful head, and evasive maneuvers fail, many people these days turn to medication. Better to feel nothing at all than to feel sadness. In lieu of inner peace, they settle for neutral. But by deadening ourselves pharmacologically, we forfeit joy as well.
Having lost track of joy, a lot of adults assume it must have been a childish emotion. Naïve, unrealistic. We outgrow it when we “grow up,” they tell themselves. That’s just the way it is. And they feel threatened by adults who stay in touch with joy. What do they know that the rest of us don’t?
They know that joy is our great hidden reservoir, ready to erupt, geyser-like, when we least expect it, when we are most alive. We can’t tap that life force, however, if we don’t learn the lessons of sadness — that it is inescapable but doesn’t eclipse joy. In fact, joy often comes of it, a deeper, truer joy. That, counterintuitively, bad news often leads to good.
Sadness cannot extinguish joy any more than darkness can extinguish light.
As songwriter Leonard Cohen puts it:
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There’s a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
Life goes on in spite of periodic sadness. It takes place where the cracks let in light, where bad news and good news intersect.
We can’t separate the dualities of our world and we shouldn’t try.
To integrate joy and sadness we have to stop looking at them as adversaries and see them as partners.
As the film shows, it’s a lesson you’re never too young to learn.