Losing Neverland

In my quest to entertain myself while avoiding in any way watching the political conventions, I found that I had inadvertently rediscovered something far more important than the next person who sits in the White House. 

You see, people come and go in the job of President of the United States, and that was how it was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Just over 40 men have served in the position, and we have had just about every level of intelligence (or lack of it) possible. We have also been exposed to every noble virtue and every human foible existing in the human condition. So no matter what we end up with at the end of the election this year, we will survive it. 

What I discovered instead while ignoring the nonsense of the conventions was far more important. It was a bit of the sense of magic and wonder, the sense of the ridiculous that allows us in fact to survive such momentous events and the people participating in them. 

Almost without conscious effort, I found myself drawn to "Young Frankenstein" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on DVD. For those of you never exposed to these two movies by the way (possibly because you live under a rock on another planet), I cannot think of two movies that I would recommend more. If there are any films more ridiculous or just flat out funny, I have yet to find them. 

I think perhaps that they opened me up to a little known Johnny Depp movie from 2004 that I finally got around to viewing in its entirety, "Finding Neverland". As the title implies the story has to do with the tale of James Barrie, creator of the character, play, and novel "Peter Pan". It lets us in on how he discovered in this story, the secret of eternal youth. Not in the physical sense of course, but in the truest sense possible, a spirit of youth. 

Far too many of us lose our grasp on the spirit that allows us to imagine what could be, to fantasize about what might be, and to see the world for what we "want" it to be. We get far too wrapped up in our mundane existence and the things that we believe are all but earth shattering to retain the spirit that so inspired us in our youth. In creating the world of Peter Pan, James Barrie told all of us that such spirit can be eternal for any of us; but that the "ticking crocodile" of time is always at our heels, and the villains in our lives (like Captain Hook) are always there to challenge our ability to remain true to that spirit. 

Now that the conventions are over and the parties hope to whip us into a frenzy over their respective choices, I hope that I will be able to maintain a sense of perspective on the nonsense that follows. I hope that I won't soon forget the much more important lesson that I relearned almost by accident during this period. I hope that I can continue to remain true to the spirit of Peter Pan, even while attempting to deal effectively with every one of the mundane and serious aspects of my everyday life. I hope that the wonder and imagination of youth continue to remain a part of my life as the rest of me advances through the coming years. I hope with all of my heart that I never lose the spirit of Neverland. 

I find myself hoping that at the end of my days, that it should be said of me that I had the one described by one of the characters in the film at the debut of the play, Peter Pan. In describing her recently departed husband, Mrs. Stone commented, "He was really just a boy himself you know ... to the very end." I wish the same for each of you ...