The other night, as a lay in bed flipping through channels I came across the new Alice in Wonderland movie. And just like any night, intentions of using the television as a modern day sheep counting mechanism turned into an extra two hours of relentless captivation and intrigue. The last time I revisited the story of Alice in Wonderland she was an animated disney character and I was a mischievous ten year old boy. Twelve years later I begin to understand how deep this rabbit hole goes.
The story brings us to a world of impossibilities. A world of green pigs, flying horses, and talking animals. A world that Alice can only recognize as a dream. This realm is a wonderful and highly symbolic world filled with guiding analogies and metaphors.
Before Wonderland, Alice was walking down a path laid out before her. The dots were all connected by normative reinforcers of ‘this is how it is’ and ‘that is what you should do’. People fashion gaudy apparel, gather at ostentatious estates, and follow the predetermined dance steps of the quadrille. Alice challenges the conventional when she chooses not to wear her stockings and corset. “Who’s to say what is proper? What if someone were to say that wearing a codfish on your head was proper?” Alice’s extreme example gets at a very good point. Are we behaving certain ways, buying certain things, thinking certain thoughts because that is what we should be doing or what we truly want to be doing. The answer is probably yes. We are socially desirable creatures, modern day approval seekers who yearn for acceptance and admiration. But to gain admiration we must have respect, and the only true means of being respected is to be true to yourself.
“From the moment I’ve fallen down that rabbit hole I’ve been told what I must do and who I must be. This is my dream. I make the path.” Life is too short to live out expectations based on the notions set out by others. This world will try and shape you into something you’re not, always. It will lure you in with reward and exchange your creative self for a life you are supposed to want.
"Alice," said the White Queen, "you cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours because when you step out to face that creature, you will step out alone.” It would at first seem a selfish notion to say the universe revolves around you, but it really does. This is your subjective world. We live in a perceiver created reality. This, in turn, means we are responsible for it. If our actions do not come from the heart, then how are we to be guided by it when the motivation of our endeavors is contingent on someone else’s desires. It is our responsibility to choose the life we want to live because you and you alone are going to be the one living it.
Alice’s story is one filled with weirdness. One of it’s heroes is a hatter who has gone mad, a person who is truly bonkers. But being bonkers allowed for the hatter’s success as he tries to make Wonderland right again. And so it seems that Alice’s reassurance to the hatter, that only the best people are crazy, is warranted. That in order to make the world right and good and decent you must be a little crazy yourself.
Nothing could be crazier than consuming growing and shrinking potions, talking to cats, and riding a fearsome Bandersnatch. These things simply are not possible. But this story’s purpose is to entertain the impossible. As Alice gazes upon the massive beast called a Jabberwocky, the one she must slay, doubt begins to manifest. “This is impossible,” she whispered to the hatter. “Only if you believe it is,” he responded. Alice’s father reminds us from the beginning of the story that the only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible. Life is going to be filled with big, scary, ugly fears that will seem impossible. The purpose of this story could very well coincide with your own; entertain the impossible.
Alice says sometimes she believes as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast. Imagine that. With thinking like that then at least a few of those impossible thoughts could come to fruition. What a wonderful practice to think in the impossible. At first, we, as Alice, will probably only recognize it as a dream; but if we take the time to see how deep the rabbit hole goes; if we find our own green pigs, flying horses, and talking animals; if we are as mad as a hatter, perhaps we will come to the realization that this is no more a dream than impossible an obstacle.
