Let me contextualize things for a moment. I've been anxiously engaged in trying to meet that goal of making a video for the blog this year and have made a few strides in doing so. Yesterday, May 31, I spent about 8 hours filming, and editing and recording voice over for a video that I had hoped to post up today for you guys. Previously, I had tailored together some shots from a movie to accentuate a point that I was trying to make in an article, and was unable to actually use it. Why have I been plagued with momentary defeats? Primarily, it's because I'm cheap. I had hoped to get the video ball rolling using only free software so that I could practice, gain some experience with different programs, and then make an informed decision about how I would spend my hard earned money. However, navigating the labyrinth of available information about video editing software is laborious, and smoke and mirrors abound. It's surprisingly difficult to get straight answers about the application of applications as they pertain to budding videographers. Also, there's one fatal flaw inherent to any free editing software that I have tried. That flaw is that you can't actually export your video to a usable format once you've finished your project unless you buy the activation code on the spot.
So I put 8 hours into making you guys a wonderful video yesterday only to run face first into that brick wall, and what's more, the program that I used wouldn't even allow me sleep on the decision. As it turns out, as soon as I closed the program in question, it deleted the project file that had been created in conjunction with all of the work that I had done. These are things that would have been nice to have known going into the experience, but I suppose it would just be asking way too much for any corporation to just be upfront about their products and services, and the caveats that exist in testing said things. Perhaps one day, once I've actually gotten the video end of things working, I'll do a review video about some of these 'free' video editing applications that I naively jumped into using and we can all have a good laugh about it. But for now, this is my long-winded way of saying, yes, I'm still working on making a video, no, the latest attempt didn't work, but I remain undeterred.
I suppose I could just have ranted about that for an article, but as my long time readers know, that's not really my style. Inspired by the ultimate televised father figure, I made the last minute decision to channel my frustrations into hopefully providing you with an uplifting piece that will, again hopefully, brighten your day just a little bit. By the way, did you know that Tom Hanks is currently working on a Mr. Rogers biopic film?
Yep, that's totally a thing that's happening. I have pretty high hopes. His last biopic, Sully, was a little heavy handed, but I still enjoyed it, and there have actually been very few Tom Hanks films that I haven't enjoyed. However, that's not slated to be released until October of 2019 so we're just going to have to wait a while on that one.
In the mean time, I inadvertently stumbled upon a decent documentary about Mr. Rogers while browsing Amazon Prime this past week. I'll cut to the chase and just say that while it's worth a watch, and might even make you misty eyed at times, the documentary itself really fails to shine as much as its subject matter. I don't think that's a bad thing when the subject matter is one of the most beloved TV personalities of all time though so pass on that. No, I really couldn't care less about reviewing the actual documentary, but wanted to discuss, in a moment of irony, how watching it made me feel, and specifically about Mr. Rogers. However, if you're interested, or just curious, the documentary is called, Mr. Rogers and Me.
The entire film is just over an hour long, and like I said, there's nothing really groundbreaking going on, but it does manage to capture, in a small way, the profound impact that Mr. Rogers had on those around him while he lived and I think that is a pretty commendable success for the film maker. I'd certainly say it's worth at least one watch if only to stir up the more noble parts of your soul and inspire yourself to do good.
That's really the crux of why we're taking this little diversion from the cold and critical into the warm recesses of my Vulcan heart today. I felt moved by the anecdotal stories that were shared by some of the people who had the privilege of knowing Fred Rogers throughout the years,and I was amazed by the lengths to which Mr. Rogers would go to see the good in people and to help them see the good in themselves. So let's get dig a bit deeper and talk a little bit about that amazing neighbor.
I have to admit that I didn't actually watch a lot of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood growing up. I'd catch the occasional episode on TV while flipping to other things, like GI Joe, or Transformers, but it never really caught my interests as a kid. I have been watching episodes from the very beginning of the show on Amazon Prime, and as of this writing, they're still available to watch, and I noticed one thing right off the bat. It took Fred a few years to really perfect how he presented himself on his show. I'm not trying to be mean spirited here. I'm only saying that like any human being, Mr. Rogers had to grow into the person that he knew that he wanted to be. That's just life. Most of us would consider ourselves lucky to just have a clear idea of what we want to be. Mr. Rogers knew who he wanted to be, and he knew that the person he wanted to be wanted to help others to discover within themselves the means to become.
The documentary points out an incident when Mr. Rogers was about 8 years old where he was chased home from school and bullied by some boys for being overweight. Telling his adult family members about it, they all advised him that if he'd just ignore the boys, or blow off the insults as if they weren't a big deal, then the boys would bore of bullying him and move on. Apparently, this was not what 8 year old Fred Rogers had wanted to hear. In letters, he had told a friend that he had wanted permission at that age to just be angry about the way he was being treated because he was angry about the way he was being treated. Apparently, 8 year old Fred Rogers wanted his feelings to be acknowledged and wanted someone else to understand how he was actually feeling.
This became a running theme in the life of Mr. Rogers in his adult years. Mr. Rogers attempted via his show to teach kids how they might be able to identify their feelings, and in turn express them in constructive ways that might help others to help them resolve their feelings. Rogers taught that the things that could be identified needn't be feared, and that once we understand how we're feeling, we can then begin to work through those feelings constructively. He said, "There's no 'should' or 'should not' when it comes to having feelings. They're part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what we do with those feelings." He understood that to feel was to be human and much like my hero Mr. Spock, we're all learning how to feel and use those feelings here in life.
This is a point that I felt particularly intrigued by while watching the documentary. In our constantly connected world of today, we are nearly constantly bombarded by media that preys on our basic instincts to anger, anxiety, and sadness. We're told all too often that we should feel a certain way about a certain thing be it something political, something material, or something abstract, the media that we're exposed to each day tries extremely hard to guide our emotions in specific ways in order to push their own agendas. Mr. Rogers may not have lived to see these times, but he certainly understood at the core how we as individuals could deal with our current social climate. He once suggested,
"Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. it takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it."
These words of wisdom I think are more applicable today than ever before. As we're bombarded by media of our socially connected world, we might find ourselves faced with the understandable knee jerk anger, or anxiety, or sadness that that thing has probably been carefully engineered to elicit within us. It's up to us to tap into that strength that lies deep within us and take a moment to breathe and to work out why we feel the way we feel, and then try to figure out how to best deal with those feelings in a constructive and positive way. How many hours of pointless arguing, and name calling, and hate spewing could be avoided if only each of us would take a moment to step back from that thing that we saw on the Internet and give ourselves time to cool down before we begin to respond to those feelings?
There are so many ways in which I find Mr. Rogers to be an inspiring figure. Those who met him personally say that he was exceptionally great at making you feel like the center of all his attention when he met with you. He'd put everything else to the side and focus just on you until you indicated that you no longer required his focus. Then he would move to the next thing, and the next thing. He never made anyone feel like they were an afterthought, or that there was anything more important. This demonstration of patience and compassion really made me feel like I could do better with that. It's easy to get distracted by our phone, or the TV, but treating someone decently and focusing our attention and our energy on that person in the moment that they need us can only serve to help that person feel a little better about themselves, and that's pretty cool.
Mr. Rogers taught children to be helpful wherever it was that they found themselves. A story was shared during the documentary about a party that Rogers attended on Nantucket island. The adults were having a fun time and enjoying each other's company, and Fred Rogers had taken a paper plate and some eating utensils and made a clock, and was teaching the only child there how to tell time. It's a lesson that I know I personally need to learn better that there is never an inconvenient time to help others. Rogers even preemptively congratulated us for putting our own wants and needs aside for a short time to enrich those around us when he said, "I hope you're proud of yourself for the times you've said 'yes,' when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else." I wonder how much better I might feel if I tried harder to cast aside myself and devote more time in the service of those around me. I'd like to hope that those who receive the gift of my time might even feel compelled to give the gift of their time to someone else whom they find in need. I feel like that would be a pretty amazing cascading effect of selflessness that would really benefit our tumultuous world right now.
I know that I've been rambling quite a bit, and perhaps you don't feel like I've really accomplished very much today, but I feel like Mr. Rogers was a person that we could all use in our lives to help us have more compassion towards ourselves and also towards those around us. I think it's a wonderful thing that he was able to spend so many years documenting his unique insights so that future generations could benefit from his wisdom. I also feel like if we all tried just a little bit harder to emulate this person, we'd all find the potential to become so much more than we already are, and our world might be a bit less angry and scary. Fred Rogers spent his life going about and doing good. His example inspired me to try and do the same, and I hope that perhaps it can do so for you as well. I'm challenging myself to try and find the good in things and I want to do an experiment this month. There are four Fridays left and I'm going to watch the most awful and reviled films that I can get my hands on and then try to write reviews for them that are nothing by good. So next week, we'll do Ice Pirates, and then I'll be asking for suggestions from there. It's a subject that, unsurprisingly, Mr. Rogers touched on this very principle when he said, "There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth." Challenge accepted.
I want to leave you with one of the more inspiring Mr. Rogers quotes that I was able to find because I would like to leave feeling a little more inspired than when you began reading. First, I would encourage you to look for the quiet and simple things in life. Second, try to realize that behind the words you read online, or really anywhere, there's a person behind them struggling to find a way to deal with their feelings constructively. And last, every person we run across in our lives has value. We may not immediately see it, but it's our duty to look for it and to try and grow that value. One final quote that I think sums it all up quite well, "As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has--or ever will have--something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression."
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