It's a small world after all...

I recall feeling inexplicably unhappy on a visit to Disneyland as a child. My childhood was not an unhappy one - my parents loved and cared for me, provided most things a child would need or should want, and they took me to places that they thought were integral to youth, such as Disneyland. They loved me and always wanted the best for me. Yet, as a child walking around in 'the happiest place on earth', I felt quite despondent.

One of my most vivid memories of that day was of walking out of the "It's a small world..." attraction in an unhappy mood. My mother could not understand the behaviour of her eldest son, and scolded me, "You're in Disneyland, what else could you want? Now don't be throwing a tantrum". She chalked it up to the periodic bratiness of a child and did what any mother would do, put her foot down to snuff out any misbehaviour. But it wasn't my bratty nature coming out. Sometimes I wish it was that simple. In fact, it was a "revelation" that was to blame for my melancholy. As the boat-cart carried my family through the attraction, I realized that the majority of children around the world were not singing and dancing to a silly ear-worm inducing song - most were starving, unclothed, without a roof over their heads, or without parents at all. And most were lucky to live beyond their twelfth year, much less be visiting Disneyland. I knew then that I couldn't be happy with sugar-coated illusion so stilted and parochial that it made a young boy utterly depressed while in the "happiest place on earth". It was then, at that instant, did the world start to come into bold clarity for this relatively sheltered child.

Alot of mistakes made in my childhood, my adolescence, and even my early adult life can be attributed to an inclination towards bratiness. But that moment of depression at Disneyland was not. It was an awakening that I would embrace and push away - one that stayed regardless of the ebb and flow of its intensity. Years later, that clarity has been lost, regained, and hopefully strengthened. Any worthwhile truth is elusive, because any worthy truth cannot be possessed or grasped absolutely. We can only live truthfully with ourselves, with friends and family, and with those whom we have yet to encounter. We must face the world with honesty and conviction and never afraid to be unhappy, because life is at times a tragic affair.