The ideology behind "Peter Pan" is the remedial drug for society's growing apathy. Luckily for us, after four years of typical "vault" policy, Disney has finally unlocked the doors behind which this classic had been held and has provided us with a quick fix for our lethargic desensitization.
As we all know, "Peter Pan" actually advocates never growing up. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from a nostalgic viewing of our childhood friend.
For example, with the false accusations of pedophilia behind us, we may learn that Michael Jackson should be given the benefit of the doubt. If he wants to be Peter Pan, let him be Peter Pan. In fact, we should all be a little bit more like Peter Pan.
Exaggerated perceptions of dignity actually stifle the ability to experience happiness to its full extent. People confuse expressions of gaiety with indecency, pointing at the relationship between dignity and civility with a rigid finger to prove the importance of propriety.
The issue, however, lies not in whether dignity should be upheld but in where to draw the line between proper and improper behavior. The problem begins when we find ourselves having to think twice before expressing ourselves in rather harmless ways: running through sprinklers, rolling on grass and, my personal favorite, skipping.
The human tendency to yearn for progress - which begets amenities and luxuries - makes the issue worse. Every generation more seriously suffers from desensitization because each century's turn drags humanity further up this invisible steep toward heaven on Earth. Consequently, the little gifts begin to affect us less and less. Nothing completely satisfies us, nothing makes us happy enough.
We are always planning, expecting and dreaming of the future in hopes of finding happiness in such a way that the standard itself keeps inching upward and away from our grasps. Before we know it, we're old and unable to press rewind no matter how badly we wish we could.
Surely, fussing about what's proper and what's improper is only further impeding our never-ceasing quest for God-knows-what.
If we feel like skipping to class, for example, but feel too self-conscious to do so because society deems it "improper," we should attempt to deduce the origins of the stigma before abandoning the idea of skipping. If we cannot find a logical reason for which skipping is deemed negative (for example: posing a threat to our health or being psychologically damaging, etc.) then why not screw what the world thinks and just skip already?
On the other side of things, when we see somebody skipping, we should not give him the evil eye without justification.
For the time being, let us look to "Peter Pan" as an example and embrace the characteristics of youthfulness, whatever our age. Let us laugh and play and dance without checking to make sure nobody's watching, because, even if somebody is, who cares? If such expressions of happiness are so "weird," and "weird" is synonymous with "bad," let's make them orthodoxy.
That way, society won't reject people such as Michael Jackson, forcing them to build their own isolated Never Land apart from the rest of the planet. Let's enjoy the little gifts of life before we're completely incapable of doing so.
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Jean Guerrero is a print journalism freshman from San Diego.
