The Wisdom in Kung Fu Panda

Learning to focus is one of the hidden lessons in "Kung Fu Panda." Po's journey allows him to finally reveal to his father his true passion because he learns to focus on his own destiny rather than letting the pressures of the larger society, as represented by his father's expectations, control him.

Jesus said, "who of you by worrying can add one moment to their lifespan?" (or in another saying "...add one inch to their stature?")

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Every-Step-Mindfulness-Everyday...

1. Can I do something about it right now? If so, do it, and stop worrying.

2. Can I do something about it later? If so, wait til later, do it, and stop worrying.

3. There is nothing I can do. If so, there's nothing to worry about because I can't do anything about it.

Worrying clearly has a function, or else we would not have evolved to do so. Worrying motivates action - it is a countervailing force to laziness. Worrying draws conscious and subconscious attention to problems that need solving. It is necessary, like pain. How do you know you can't change something without thinking about it? Why would you think about it if you weren't worried about it?

I charitably interpret all the anti-worrying propaganda as an exhortation to try and maintain worry as a transient state that goes away when you commit to a course, as opposed to an ongoing coping mechanism.

We are more mobile today than at any point in history, to be honest[0]. Indentures servitude has been abolished to a large degree[1] and slavery has been outlawed[2]. Conscripted military service is gone in America and a lot of European countries[3]. Job mobility and the ability to save money is, while not easier than any point in history on a point by point history basis[4], on a macro scale of history - comparing medieval, renaissance or previous Europe and Russian and Chinese wealth distribution, mobility and freedoms of self - rent/mortgage may be due, but you can still break your agreement, sell your house[5], quit your job and be a homeless ascetic if you want. There are dozens of YouTube channels on VanLife you can watch people doing it... not for me, but you can do it. You can join an abbey[6]. You can leave the system and jump off the wheel, you just have to jump off the wheel and stop getting what the wheel gives you.

[0] at least in western European style cultures... for a large portion of the world, this statement might hold true, but to a much lesser degree, if at all

[1] this can be argued, but this is argumentative on the basis of predatory and college loans

[2] again, this can be argued than prison labor is a form of slave labor in states like California when used to fight wildfires, but I'm not sure how much water those arguments hold

[3] though several have mandatory service requirements

[4] the 60's and 80's, I believe were easier... check my math, I might be wrong, there may have been others

[5] there may be a penalty

[6] though, I think you could have always done this... I'm not sure about this

This seems like a minority these days. Most people are just chasing the house ownership hamster wheel.

I think the frustration often arise when we create the illusion of control and unexpected events shatter that idea, bringing ourselves in denial.

A good measure is to keep a buffer for unexpected events and prepare yourself sentimentally.

Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.

More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.

In the 1960's, large numbers of hippies became interested in alternative religions from the world, such as Buddhism and others.

Today, for instance, finding the "Zen" in something is a household concept now, like ordering pizza.

Exactly. You may know the word for 'worry' or 'worries', but you may not know the word for 'no'. And in that moment you could be misinterpreting the intentions and actions/words of a person who only told you 'don't worry'. Meanwhile, you are big worrying.

I guess a better translation is "He isn't that, he is like that." But I agree that English doesn't have a distinction between permanent states vs impermanent states in the "to be" verb.

It's a theme you can encounter in a lot of martial arts contexts. You could say it is the entire lesson of Dragon Ball Z -- Vegeta exemplifies the ambitious hard work guts and glory approach. And it takes him very far. But he's always playing second fiddle to Goku's approach, defined by love, enthusiasm, and play. Likewise, Shifu cannot surpass Oogway.

It's a theme you'll encounter outside of martial arts, too. For example, high level hackers are said to be characterized by playfulness -- you find puns and puzzles and riddles and laughter, devouring of technical manuals like candy. There are rigorous hours of morally disciplined study, but this could not really be said to be the source of their power or the character of their existence. Sure, there's plenty of hard work, and it's unavoidable, but the spirit of love and curiosity and play and enthusiasm will take you much farther than the spirit of discipline and ambition alone.

I have a book about learning electric guitar that repeats the lesson. The author writes (in paraphrase - I don't have it with me at the moment), "In my experience, there are two groups of students of the guitar: those who practice a lot because they want to be good, and those who practice every spare moment because they literally would rather not do anything else. One of these groups gets really, really good -- I'll let you guess which."

Po has that. His authentic enthusiasm leads to a spirit that finds the suffering of practice to be light because he is so overjoyed that he is doing kung fu. It leads to an encyclopedic knowledge of the art because he would literally not rather be reading about anything else. He surpasses Shifu and perhaps eventually Oogway in subsequent films, entirely because this spirit leads him places that mere discipline and ambition never would.

Are his kicks as clean as the five? Never. That's not his strength. And to the film's credit, he doesn't skip the discipline and training aspect. But he remains physically a bit sloppy to the end of the series, and I think this is making the point that this is not what strength is. Po's strength is in his spirit, and this is what in the end makes him the greatest master.

I have always found his fight with Tai Lung a little unsatisfying, too. It seems odd that he's immune to nerve attacks. What, because he's fat or furry or something? What does that have to do with excellence? It seems a one off oddity, not a deep lesson. But the film is so philosophically on point that I doubt it's something this dumb. The lesson about the superiority of a spirit of play is so true to life that I have to think there's something here.

The best interpretation I have is this -- what we see with Po and Tai Lung might be metaphorically talking about a real life phenomenon: facing an opponent as overpowering as Tai Lung will absolutely sap the strength from your limbs if your faith is in your body and in your training. You think you're strong? He's stronger. You think you're well trained? Please. There will always be someone better, and when you face them, you will be paralyzed and weak by the knowledge of that fact. But if you are a lover of the art and it's something you cannot turn off, that effect does not work on you. You cannot lose faith because your efforts were never about faith. As hopeless as you may feel about your odds of success (and Po feels hopeless right up until the moment when he wins!), you retain your strength and alertness because to you fighting is not about winning -- it is about being who you are. The situation cannot change who you are.

The good bits of Rick and Morty are very short, maybe 1-minute sections of episodes. Morty's relationship with Planetina was one of the deeper moments of all of season 5, except it is summarized in maybe 90-seconds of story at the most.

And its really not much deeper than "some eco-friendly people turn out to be eco-terrorists", and that's enough to ruin a relationship. Yeah, sucks for Morty, but... its not exactly a particularly deep message (deep in the context of the rest of the show, yes. And I definitely enjoy those kinds of moments. But something needs to be longer than 90-seconds of story for me to call it "deep", especially compared to other things I've seen)

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I dunno, as far as technobabble / nonsense words go, I prefer Evangeleon from that perspective. There's a lot to be said about Shinji's exploration of his depression (caused by Gendo, his father's, obsession over the Human Instrumentality Project).

Rick is just a toxic asshole that the show forces you to watch. Someone like Morty should have run away / cut Rick out of his life a long long time ago. At least in Evangelion, Shinji is actively trying to cut out the entire mecha-project out of his life (running away multiple times), but since Shinji is one of the few candidates who can pilot the mech, he's forced back into the job over-and-over again (unlike Morty who seems to just be this passive guy who is needlessly picked on by Rick for 5 seasons).

If nothing really matters, then Morty could just leave and that's that (and the fact that this hasn't been explored across ~5 seasons shows the limitations of the relatively shallow, episodic format... forcing Rick and Morty to be friends again by the start of the next episode to keep things serialized). What makes Shinji's situation unique is that Shinji's worth as a pilot is more than he gives credit for, and each time he tries to leave, a disaster occurs. Each time Shinji does fight, a disaster also occurs by his hands. So Shinji's confusion and depression is far more understanding.

Ex: Shinji's relationship with Toji evolves over a few episodes, and is deeper than all 5 season's of Morty's development.

Shinji is forced to pilot the mech in episode 1. Shinji's inexperience with the mech causes collateral damage, and Toji's sister gets trapped in the rubble. Toji bullies Shinji until Shinji saves him in the next fight, as Toji didn't realize the issues of being a pilot. The arc culminates as Toji himself becomes a pilot, and Shinji is forced by his father to destroy Toji's mech. Shinji is being forced to follow Gendo (his father's) plans as scripted out by "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (aka: technobabble), but the important thing is that Gendo's ambition for the project is so great, he's willing to traumatize his own son over it. Shinji x Toji's relationship is just one sacrifice Gendo makes, and Shinji's depression goes even deeper because of it.

I agree that its largely ignorable. Actually, the "technobabble" adds a lot of flavor and "coolness" to a lot of situations, so its fine for my reptilian brain.

The issue is that every minute of technobabble on the screen is another wasted minute from a storytelling perspective. When you watch a denser film (like Secret of Kells), that's lacking any of that techno-babble... or even something like Fate/Stay (which largely cuts out the techno-magic babble aside from a few key phrases), the storyline is heavier and denser. More things "happen" because there's less "filler technobabble" going on.

So when we talk about pleasing my "higher-order" brain (as opposed to my reptile brain which is pleased with the technobabble + explosions), my high-order brain enjoys the character interactions and the deeper analogies to the human condition.

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So from the "higher-order" perspective, something like Tokyo Godfathers can tell a fuller story in a shorter amount of time, because there's less technobabble eating up the screentime.