Life lessons from Pinnochio.

I like to hear speeches from Jordan Peterson and most of the time he quotes movie scenes and especially Pinnochio. I thought I should give this children's movie a try. 

I watched the movie and it wasn't exhilarating or anything but it has a certain cuteness. The film is released in 1940 and it had too much enjoyment and cute moments like their version of a party is just punching some buttons and dancing, I wish people can be happy like that with just small happiness.

The story is about Metamorphosis, in other words, it is about transformation. Who is transforming? A boy is about to transform and how he is transforming is the story. 

To make this transformation the boy has to make mistakes and learn from them and at last, he is a transformed good boy. 

Initially, 3 conditions were given to the boy to become a good boy,

1. be brave

2. be truthful 

3. be unselfish

and if he did all that he becomes a good boy. 

The boy is told to go to school but he won't go, instead, he will try to become an actor. He becomes a star overnight but later he was forced to act and his freedom is lost. The Philosophy behind this is you should do what you're supposed to do, not be distracted by choosing the easy way. when you're distracted you lose your freedom. 

He tells lies and for the subsequent questions he fabricates lie after lie and he gets caught at the end. You can fool people with your lies for now but one day it will rise and you have to pay the price for lying. 

After that he is misled by pleasure, he wants only enjoyment and a life without any suffering. Jordan Peterson in his book 12 Rules of life explains a phenomenon called "Positive feedback" and he says when this goes beyond control you will lose your life. So what is positive feedback, if a person chases only happiness and always wants to be in the state of happiness, he will go to extremes and it will kill him. Jordan cites the example of a drinker, the drinker doesn't drink every day because he wants to drink but a drinker is addicted to the feeling of happiness and doesn't care for anything and that is the reason for daily drinking. In the end, the drinker while chasing happiness he also dies early. This example of positive feedback can be applied anywhere and not only to the drinking problem. 

In life, you should have responsibilities and pressure that you can handle and you can't be happy all the time, being happy is something that can't be planned or bought with money, it comes like thunder which is rare and you stay happy for a while because of the surprise element and rest of the time it is just normal life. 

The boy in the movie is helped by another character and he comes to his sense and tries to reach his father but his father is captured and it is difficult to save him. Yet finally the boy finds the courage and after all his mistakes he undertook the great pressure of saving his father with some struggle he manages to save his father and at this moment he becomes brave, becomes truthful and he becomes unselfish. And at last, the boy after saving his father transformed into a good boy. 

This movie became interesting to me because Jordan Peterson quoted this for real-life problems and after the movie, I tried to see with philosophical glasses and I got life lessons from a children's movie. 

If you behave like a good boy, life will be good for you.