Not All Play

I was 6-years-old when I was exposed to the magnificence that was Toy Story. My memory of the story is blurry now, but if there’s a line which echoes clearly to me up to this date, it is the unforgettable line said proudly, without shame, by Buzz Lightyear: “To Infinity and Beyond”

Buzz, in the movie, is merely an action figure, a toy. He doesn’t know this, however, until the point in the movie where he makes an attempt to fly out of the window. Spreading his plastic wings, he jumps to, in his words, infinity and beyond. In the end, he falls flat on his face, to the reality which he never realized was there. The 6-year-old-me was tearing up at this part of the movie, by the way.

In life, I guess many a times just like in the movie, we find ourselves falling flat on our faces. In the past, we may have had illusions of grandiose, vestiges of great destinies waiting to be fulfilled. But then we come across stumbling blocks, seemingly insurmountable odds; we come across “reality”. Be it really lousy grades, disappointments in competition, being shot down when confessing your true feelings, plans not going accordingly, “reality” is really catching up to us.

And it’ll do so with increasing tenacity. As we grow, the day that we leave the shelters of this college will dawn upon us sooner and sooner.

The above-mentioned movie climaxes with Buzz Lightyear strapped to a firecracker, his explosion imminent. Yet, instead of seeing bits of plastic, we see the protagonist flying through the sky, using the firecracker’s explosion to propel himself to the stratosphere.

I guess ultimately, the lesson learnt here is that things do not always come out perfectly for us. Reality presents us with obstacles and adversities which may discourage us from moving forward. But we must know that there are chances too, ripe opportunities which we can use towards our own needs.

“To infinity and beyond,” indeed.