I was on the plane, listening to music, when "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan started playing. I was happily listening to what is one of my favorite Disney songs, when I started thinking about what makes it so great. Even my little brother, who generally shuns all Disney music for fear of appearing a feminine-movie-lover, loves this song. If he loves this song, EVERYONE must love this song. Which is funny, as I am a girl, and so many people who love this song are girls, and yet we cheerfully sing to each other "BE A MAN!!!" It's just so powerful and inspiring, you know? It's like a call to action for the world at large, to stand up and fight for themselves. If you think I'm taking a song from a cartoon movie too seriously, just wait until you see what conclusion I drew next.
The chorus says, "We must be swift as a coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon." The first three goals make sense. If you're a guy going off to defend your country against the physical manifestation of evil, you want to be fast, forceful, and strong. But mysterious? I guess they were Chinese so maybe they also learned ninja skills. I don't know. Anyway, in my deep, life-altering meditations on the plane, I thought about how maybe we, as a culture, could apply this admonition to our own life. People aren't mysterious anymore. Many, many people, such as yours truly, put their entire lives on the Internet. Facebook, Twitter, blogs...it is so easy to find out information about people these days. The art of being mysterious is nearly dead. Which is a bad thing, because it's exciting to find out stuff about people as you get to know them better. It's also fun to Facebook stalk. But apparently Facebook stalking is bad. Go figure.
Then again, let's look at EVERY SINGLE CLASS I'm in this semester, where at some point the professor has said "Turn to someone you don't know and get to know them!" as if true and lasting friendships always blossom from a three-minute conversation that inevitably goes like this:
"Hi, I'm Emily."
"Hi, I'm a girl who is basically you but taller and with different colored skinny pants."
"Where are you from?"
"Boise. You?"
"Texas."
"Oh! I have a cousin/sister-in-law/long-lost EFY roommate who lives in Keller! Do you know where that is?"
"Yes!" (Silently thinking, Have I heard the name? Yes. Do I have any idea where it's actually located? Nope.) "So what's your major?"
"Exercise science. Yours?"
"Journalism."
"Oh how cool!"
****silence****
"Has it not been three minutes yet?"
"I guess not. Boy am I tired!"
"Oh how crazy, me too!"
Basically your entire identity at BYU, at least when meeting classmates, is confined to three things: Name, hometown, and major. Since my home state tells you almost nothing about me, and my major only a little more, I guess we still maintain a bit of mystery when we're meeting these random people who have to take the same classes as us. For me, the trite and meaningless conversation is much better than the "getting to know you" question of my younger days: "What do you do?"
I DON'T DO ANYTHING! I DON'T PLAY SPORTS OR ANY INSTRUMENTS AND I'VE NEVER CLIMBED MOUNT EVEREST OR WRESTLED WITH A GIANT SQUID!!! I'M JUST ME AND IF THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH YOU CAN LEAVE RIGHT NOW MISTER!
Yes. It's good to be mysterious.
The second thing I reflected on is the American need for space (unless you're in New York.) We stand far apart while talking. We like having our separate couch cushions to sit on (unless you're cramming a ton of people into a tiny apartment to watch a movie.) On an airplane, the middle seat is always left open. I took three separate flights to get back to Utah this year, and I only sat next to someone once. That was because every other aisle and window seat on the plane was filled. We like having a personal bubble. Many of us hate unnecessary touching. If we accidentally brush against somebody while walking, we apologize for the contact. Of course, there's always the odd person who loves being close (physically close) to other people. Like my sister, for instance. When we're watching TV in our media room, she has difficulty keeping her arms and legs and body to herself. Despite the fact that we have two long couches, two big armchairs, and enough pillows to make the floor a beautiful place to sit, she will inevitably choose to sit where someone is already sitting. I don't like being sat on. I don't like it one bit.
Unless it's my cat. My cat can sit on me whenever he wants. Cats don't really have a concept of personal space. But it's okay because they're fluffy and adorable.
Last thing: the toilets in the Las Vegas airport. I noticed something very odd about them. Instead of having one lever or button to flush, there were two. That's right, two buttons. One with a picture of one drop of water, and the other with a picture of three drops of water. After being confused for a minute as to why there were two flushing mechanisms, I suddenly realized that I was looking at a Toilet of the Future. You could choose how much water you wanted to use while flushing! If you wished to conserve water and thus do your part to save the planet, you pushed the button with one drop of water. If you needed to use more water to insure the flushing *ahem* did its job, you pushed the button with the three drops of water. How ingenious! I can't wait to see what they come up with next to give us a more personalized bathroom experience.
Ooh, I heard that in Japan they have toilets you can plug an iPod into. But why not have a row of button along the tank with a set selection of songs? There can be a song for every genre so you can appropriately set the mood for your bathroom experience. Sounds like a winning idea to me.
Now that you've all been so kind as to read the long and rambling thinks I think when I'm traveling by myself, I'll share one last fun insight with you. I've been in school for two weeks, and so you will probably be wondering how my love life is doing. Have I met any cute boys? Will there be a ring in my near future? I could answer these questions, but I know a great song that will do the job better than I ever could. Pay very close attention to the first line.
(There's not an actual music video. Sorry)
Single lady problems. For real.
Thanks for reading!
Emily <3
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