It's so funny sometimes and unexpected when something small suddenly moves you, stirs a feeling you've never had before or a thought you haven't had in a while.
I'm going to give credit to the Universe rather than the powers of Google algorithms for this one, but out of nowhere during my Youtube session, the music video for Colors of the Wind came up on my recommended list. I loved that song as a kid and Pocahontas was the first Disney movie I saw in theaters. For nostalgia's sake, if nothing else, I clicked on it and let it play in the background whilst I moved onto other tabs and simultaneous chat sessions with friends, as any proper millennial would. Then as if something clicked, I heard the lines,
"But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew"
Having been traveling, exploring a country I'd never been to previously and its cities, the words resonated with me on a visceral level. I'd been trying to sum up some of my thoughts on the last week's travels with little success. It wasn't that nothing had moved me, but that there'd been so much. Lots of it have been little things, quirky observations, and things that are insignificant but make me smile in memory or pause in wonder because I'd never thought about it before. But hearing these two lines, they actually feel like the perfect summary. Certainly far from declaring myself a local, by any means; it's more like I've spent a week peeking behind the curtains, enough so that something formerly foreign feels a little less so, and learning that much more about the things I never knew, I never knew.
And now that I've also replayed the whole song a few times, it hits me, too, that the song in totality has not lost its relevance in society today. All the different verses' sentiments are reminding me of different current events and issues that I've grown to care deeply about in recent years. For example, the lines directly preceding those above,
"You think the only people who are people, Are the people who look and think like you"
In the last few days, I"ve visited the Anne Frank house and then the Corrie Ten Boom House. Their relevant place in history need no further explanations. But I'm further struck by the realization that from the Serbian refugees to the rise of recent reports on minority discrimination in US law enforcement and entertainment industry to the concerns for being marked unfairly as terrorists for religious beliefs in the US during presidential debates—As a society we are still deserving of the rebuke given in those lines.
Furthermore, the lyrics speak of preserving nature and appreciating our environment—these needs are also more dire than ever. I admit I have not been a model citizen in doing my part, but I do care deeply. Global warming is only the tip of the iceberg from rapid depletion of natural resources to the trending growth of human population surpassing that of the planet's total capacity to produce sustenance for such potential population growth.
'Colors of the Wind' has given a lot of food for thought on how I should be thinking more about affecting change and being better. Recently someone had asked me to define "Personal Improvement/Development." Immediately, I'd answered, "Do good but look for ways to be better." I sincerely feel this now, more than ever. It's a promise to myself and my fellow living beings.
I promise to do good but look for ways to be better.
link to full lyrics of Colors of the Wind