The many emotions of Inside Out

(image googled) 

I had just came back from watching Disney's 'Inside Out'. And of course I watched the movie alone,  like I always did and love to do. Watching a movie alone allows you to fully enjoy the story without any interruption (in my case, my siblings/friends asking for the box of popcorn we shared together every once in a while, LOL) and be preoccupied with your own thoughts generated from what you have seen and heard. It's like having an inner monologue with yourself.

I've always been a fan of Disney/Pixar movies. I practically grew up with Disney movies and this of of course, had played a major role in shaping my imagination and so-called creativity. xD

Anyway, before I've decided to watch 'Inside Out', I had been really curious about how the storytellers of Pixar would weave an interesting story about 5 different emotions in the head of an 11 years old girl. It sounds quite scientific and psychological-ish (is there another word I could use to substitute this? Haha). I wonder how they're going to make the story flow, without it being boring and at the same time, educating the viewers on how the brain and emotions work. 

Munching my own box of popcorn, I realized that there was not a single soul found sitting in front, left and right of me (like I intended it to be). I was almost alone, minus one couple who were sitting a few rows behind me. The colourful scenes from the Pixar colour palettes greeted me, and I sat back, relax and began to enjoy the show. 

There was a bonus story about a volcano who is waiting for his true love to appear (from under the sea, literally). Hahaha. The story is pretty cute and the music pretty catchy (as expected of a Pixar production). 

And the story started. We were introduced to the first major emotion that appeared when we we born into this world. That is Joy. 

And later, Joy had new friends, developed over the course of years as we ( or Riley, in this case) grew up. Those new friends/emotions are 'Sadness', 'Fear', 'Disgust' and 'Anger'. 

We learned that apart from Joy; Fear, Disgust and Anger are needed to protect and defend ourselves from any physical or emotional harm.

It's just that I couldn't really fathom why should there be 'Sadness' in the first place. I got angry for the very existence of 'Sadness' and the problems 'Sadness' had caused. Sadness shouldn't exist! 

 All these emotions powered up the Islands of Personality, which include 'The Family Island', 'Friendship Island', 'Goofiness Island', 'Honesty Island' and 'Baseball Island', LOL. 

Riley was pretty happy, and 'Joy' practically filled most of her days. Everyone thought that she will continue being happy, but that isn't the case.   

From Minnesota, Riley and her family moved to a new place; San Francisco. Here, she was forced to adapt with a new surrounding, had to force herself to make new friends. Everything is so new. She felt so sad. This is when 'Sadness' took charge over the 'Emotion Control button'. But Joy and her other friends tried to suppress this feeling of sadness. They began throwing in 'happy memories', 'positive thinkings' into I presume... Riley's 'Amygdala' (which is not mentioned in this movie, but really, Amygdala controls your emotion. Correct me if I'm wrong. My knowledge of Anatomy had become rustier by the days, haha). 

That was when I felt delighted, knowing that in times of sadness, I wasn't really alone. I have friends to help me. 'Friends' in my brain. Whenever I'm sad, my 'friends' in the brain will try to make up for that sadness by triggering back good old memories and reinforcing positive thinking within myself. 

Anyway, Riley broke down. Something happened, that leads to the disappearance of 'Joy' and 'Sadness'. It's now up to Fear, Anger and Disgust to take control over Riley's emotions. We later learned that these 3 didn't really do a good job. LOL. 

Joy and Sadness on the other hand, tried to find their way back to the 'Headquarters', which I assumed, is the Hypothalamus (?). It's not an easy way back, and they came across many sorts of obstacles and difficulties, even exploring new places like the Imagination World (where they met Bing Bong, Riley's childhood imaginary friend). 

Fast forward to the end of the story, I later learned (the same goes with Joy) about the importance of 'Sadness'. 'Sadness' is the essential thing that makes us humans. By experiencing sadness, we feel  more vulnerable, and that we tend to seek comfort in the people we love (for example, our family). It created this feeling of love and being loved. And when we experienced sadness, support and care from others could bring us back up to the place where we had never managed to reach for in the first place. 

I finally get it. We couldn't be happy all the times. Sadness is important too. Sadness is so misunderstood. Poor Sadness. 

And another sad thing I learned from this movie is that, memories do fade away. Not everything is converted by the hippocampus into long-term memory. I don't mind the 'bad memories' fading away and later disappear forever. I feel sad that I might have forgotten some of the good memories I had during my childhood years. But it doesn't matter really. The most important thing is for you to store more good memories and to throw the bad memories away from your entire limbic system. Hehe. 

But eh, bad memories are essentials as well. They taught you to be more careful next time around. 

At the end of the movie, there is another thing that I love about this whole emotions-personality thing. It's that the coexistence of all 5 types of emotions could lead to new 'Islands of Personality' being created, and the expansion of the existing ones. 

I learned that all five emotions need to work together. They need to coexist with each other. What's life is all about if we only experience 'Joy'? What's life if we tend to always express our 'Anger' towards every single thing and person? 'What's life if we are too scared to live due to 'Fear' dominating our emotion?'. And definitely, life would seem meaningless if we tend to succumb too much into 'Sadness'. In fact, the 'togetherness' of these emotions leads to what we later defined 'Emotional Stability'. 

'Emotionally unstable' is a term that you would usually refer to a person who seemed to get angry too much for no reason whatsoever, a person who cried too much and later got depressed, and even those who were too hyper up to the point they got called 'loony' or 'mental' by other people. 

It's nice to see that these 5 emotions would do all they could to ensure our survival in this complex, challenging world. So, the next time you're sad, just tell 'Joy' about it,  and she will throw down some 'positivity orbs' and 'pleasant memories orbs' into your amygdala,  and you will be up and about in no time. :)

This movie features a great deal of stuffs about psychology, which is one of the scientific areas I have interest in (I like to explore people's minds, stalker much? haha), and that it also refreshed my memories of slaving away at my textbook, memorizing every part and function of the human's central nervous system. Seems like my hippocampus is still functioning well huh? Hahaha (Note: Hippocampus converts short term memories into long term memories). And oh, all these, without making the audience bored. Such a good storyline!

I hereby award this movie with 5 out of 5 stars. :)