A local television station here in Omaha is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. As a part of the celebration, they opened a time capsule they created in 1957 in which they asked famous people of that time period to write letters making predictions about what life would be like in their area of expertise fifty years from then.
The station has uploaded the actual letters and you can read them in .pdf format. As I make my way through each letter, I'm finding some absolutely fascinating reading.
Listen to this insight from Walt Disney:
"People will need and demand amusement, refreshment, and pleasant relaxation from daily tasks and frets as much in your day as they have in ours and in all the generations of mankind into the remote past. What the exact nature and implementation of these mass entertainments may be, doesn't make much difference, it seems to me.
"Humanity, as history informs us, changes very slowly in character and basic interests. People need play as much as they need toil. They never cease to be fascinated by their own powers and passions, their base or noble emotions, their faiths and struggles and triumphs against handicap--all the things that make them laugh and weep and comfort one another in love and sacrifice out of the deeps of their being.
"Through historical time--and even among our aboriginal forefathers--all the races of man have been dramatizing these eternal quests and conquests of mind and heart; in arenas, around tribal fires, in temples and theatres. The modes of entertainment have changed through the centuries; the content of public shows, very little..."
Disney had no idea that people would be watching movies on DVD players and iPods. He had no idea that children would grow up watching movies in vehicles. He had no idea that companies like Netflix would one day make movies available to watch "online" on demand. The future mediums were beyond comprehension to him.
And while I'm sure he wondered about the medium, it didn't seem to matter much to him because he knew the power of story. He knew that we would still be dramatizing our "powers and passions" and our "struggles and triumphs" because that's what people have always done.
We need to see the poor man become rich, or at least rich enough to sustain his family. We need to see the sick man become healthy. We need to see the widow find a reason to go on. We need to see the boy get the girl. Because deep down, struggles are universal, and seeing people survive, and sometimes even conquer their demons, gives us hope that we can too.
