On Inside Out

*Spoilers ahead*

Inside Out is one of the sweetest movies I’ve seen in recent memory. The movie does a beautiful job at simplifying (in a creative manner) the way humans process their own emotions.  There is one scene in particular that stood out and had me thinking hard after the movie was over. The scene where Sadness (a character representing sorrow and grief who was portrayed as predominantly negative until this point) is in conversation with Bing Bong (Riley’s imaginary friend).

        To set the scene, Bing Bong is visibly upset after some old toys that he used to share with Riley get thrown away. These items represent Riley’s memories with her imaginary friend. Upon realizing that Riley might be done with him, Bing Bong falls to the floor in a deep sorrow. Joy (being the exuberant character she is) immediately attempts to cheer him up by trying to make him laugh and distract him from his pain. He is unfazed. Next, Sadness sits by him and (as her name implies) is sad with him. Sadness points out that those things probably meant a lot to Bing Bong. He mentions that the items reminded him of all the adventures the two used to go on and were all he had left of Riley. He begins to cry. It appears that Sadness is making the situation worse and doing nothing but bringing Bing Bong down. However, after Sadness and Bing Bong stop grieving together, he abruptly stands up and claims, “I’m okay now”. Whether that is actually true or not there is a noticeable change in his demeanor.

        I think this scene is beautiful because it displays a vital part of the human experience, empathy. The ability to understand and validate another person’s point of view. Empathy is important because it is one of the fundamental skills designed for human connection. Through empathy, we are able to identify with one’s problems, creating a sense of togetherness. I would consider this feeling to be helpful and almost healing. In order to mentally place yourself in someone else’s frame of mind you must be prepared for the grief that comes with it. Sadness is necessary for empathy. This is a hard concept to grasp, especially for children. However, Inside Out does an incredible job at neither demonizing nor romanticizing sadness.

The emotion is seen both as a pest (which it can be) and a tool for empathy (a predecessor of joy). In conclusion, I am very happy that this movie is out there to serve as an entertaining way to teach kids about emotional intelligence.

5 Things Dungeons and Dragons Taught Me About Life

I've been spending a good bit of time in the mystical land of Faerun. It's a pretty dangerous place. I'm pretty new to the land, but I've encountered my fair share of adventures. I've slaughtered reptilian humanoids in combat, watched a dragon decimate a town, liberated a governor's daughter from nefarious cultists, and gained some gold along the way. Currently the gang of rag-tag adventurers and I are en-route to battle an evil witch.

It's just a game, but it's a problem-solving game. Real life doesn't have these guys, but it does have a whole lot of other problems. Here are a few things that using my imagination and rolling some dice have taught me about the real world.

1. Evaluate the situation

When questing, you investigate everything. How many enemies are there? How far away are they? What's the terrain like? Are those guys wearing armor? How much flame is coming out of that dragon's mouth?
Before taking ANY action at all, you have to know the situation like the back of your hand. If you don't know what's happening, it's impossible to make an educated decision. That's my line of thought when I'm pretending to be a dwarf named Spikit. In real life, I need to be DOUBLE as informed about what's going on. Wrong moves can get you in a predicament in the blink of an eye.

2. Use what you have

You have resources. You have things (a rope, a lantern, a dagger infused with the spirit of a banshee), you have talents (stealth, persuasion, imitation), and you have people. You have friends and allies that will stop at nothing to ensure your survival for the continuation of the quest.
In real life, you have resources; things, talents, family, friends. At any given time, you can use what you have. In DnD, you keep a list of everything you have in your inventory. You can use ANY of these things. If you forget what you have, you'll hit yourself later. You'll realize that a problem could have been solved in a much better way if you had used the resources available to you.

3. Get creative

Sure, you could run up and ambush that group of dragon cultists. You could risk it all with foes that could obliterate you with one swing of their scimitar. Or, you could disguise yourselves in cultist costumes that you looted from previous enemies, approach with confidence, and buy time while someone else steals their weapons.
The point is that more often than not, there's more than one way to approach a problem. Don't rush into something stupid without pausing to consider that there may be a slightly less stupid way to do it.

4. Don't hesitate 

In the first 10 minutes of the quest, we stumbled upon a town being obliterated by a gargantuan dragon. Instead of rushing to the scene (you know, like heroes do), we decided to "play it safe" and "wait it out" and "see if the dragon just goes away or something". When we finally wandered into the town 4 hours later, the destruction was devastating. Could we have taken out the dragon? Probably not. Could we have saved some people? Maybe. Either way, there was nothing to gain by sitting around and waiting for our problems to go away.
The above scenario sounds painfully similar to lots of my own real-life scenarios.

5. Remember what matters

There are so many opportunities to get sidetracked. There are so many opportunities to get caught up in the moment and completely lose sight of what matters. Will you let your rage consume you and make stupid decisions? Will you do something just to look cool that ends up being a setback for the whole team? If your goal isn't constantly on the forefront of your mind, you'll end up losing sight of it. Backtracking is never fun.


Don't lose sight of what matters. What are you questing for? What dragons do you need to slay? Are you going to sit around and wait for them to go away? Whatever you do, don't forget that you're not alone: and don't forget that 30 feet of rope has more uses than you think.

- A

I had to write a paper for my History of Rock class earlier this week and it got me thinking about what makes a song a person's "favorite" song. Is it the beat? The melody? The lyrics? Or just the way you feel when you listen to it? I don't know.

I think trying to break down songs/music to their basic components ruins the intended message. For example,  I've been listening to Kendrick's new song "All the Stars" a lot recently, but I just looked at the lyrics for it tonight and I couldn't really tell what the overarching theme of the song is, but I know I love the song. I wouldn't call it my favorite song or even my favorite Kendrick song (it's "i" simply because of the spoken word section at the beginning), but it's the most streamed Kendrick song on iTunes as of the time of me writing this post. I don't think that's because it's Kendrick's best song, I think it's simply due to it being the most recent Kendrick song to be released.

People are fickle.

Greetings blogosphere!

My name is Zach and this is my introductory blog. I figured the best way to describe myself was to
compile a list of things I like/support and a list of things I do not like/support. Enjoy!

Things I like

1. Hannah

2. When people introduce me to new music and vice versa

3. Love Does by Bob Goff

4. Smiles from strangers

5. When you wake up naturally before your alarm goes off

6. Picnics

7. Gus’s delivery

8. When a ton of birds fly together and the flock looks like a wave in the sky.

9. Baths

10. Playing basketball with friends

Things I do not like

1. Bono

2. Stress from planning

3. When people…..talk….really…..slow….

4. Krystal fast food

5. That feeling when you get sleepy and your eyes feel heavy

6. Simply the idea of The Fast and the Furious movies

7. Hat hair

8. Unnecessary sweating

9. Lag-Deaths in Fortnite

10. The feeling I felt after watching the movie “Half Nelson” starring Ryan Gosling