You know how I said there's probably a blogworthy thought somewhere in Moana's most popular song, How Far I'll Go? Well, I've found one. In this song, Moana wrestles between what she wants to do and what she's supposed to do, however, the situation is more complicated than that.
As far as I understand it, it's not so much that she wants to cross the ocean, it's that she feels compelled to. She mentions trying to avoid the ocean, but feeling herself being drawn back to it. She feels like it's calling out to her, much like any prompting or calling we might receive.
On the other hand, her duty is really more of a tradition. She can't go cross the ocean because she's supposed to stay on the island and take over as village chief, mostly just because she's the current chief's daughter.
This puts her in an interesting moral dilemma. Should she do what she feels she's supposed to do or should she do what she's told she's supposed to do? Should she be true to her passion or to her responsibility? Should she follow her heart or the guidance of her parents? It's a tricky puzzle, and I look forward to learning more about her situation so I could make a better judgement call. In the meantime, I'll try to make the best judgement I can with the information I have.
If I were in her shoes (or lack thereof, as she's one of the few (but by no means only) Disney Princesses who go barefoot for their whole movies), I'd want to figure out how deep inside of me this call to the ocean is. If it's just that I like the ocean and I like the idea of maybe crossing it someday, then I'd try to put those impulsions out of my mind and focus on being a good chief for my village. However, if I felt that the call came from deep down inside of me, if I felt that crossing the ocean was what I was born to do. . . I don't know.
On one hand, I know I could be wrong about what I think I was born to do. I don't know myself very well, and I certainly don't know God's plan or my exact place in it. It's entirely possible for me to think that God wants me to do something, only to learn later that that was just something that I wanted to do.
On the other hand, I also know that my parents could be wrong instead. Just because I was born to a chief doesn't mean I was born to be a chief. If I could be wrong about what I was born to do, so could others. And tradition isn't the best reason to do anything. There are many good traditions, but there are also many bad traditions and traditions that just don't matter.
It would make sense for someone who's born to be a chief to receive chiefing lessons since their early childhood, and it'd make sense to choose as chief someone who had been preparing for that role practically from birth, so if someone is thought to be destined to be chief, they've got good odds of becoming the best person for the job, but that doesn't guarantee that they'll be the best person for the job, and even if they were, that doesn't mean that they should be the one to do it.
For example, let's say that two people, say, Ralph and Felix, are each to be given a job. The two jobs are stacking boxes and painting signs. Let's say that Ralph is better at stacking boxes than Felix is. That suggests that Ralph should stack boxes and Felix should paint signs, but if painting signs is more important than stacking boxes, and if Ralph is also better at painting signs than Felix is, perhaps Ralph should paint the signs and Felix should stack the boxes.
Perhaps Moana would be the best choice for chief, but if crossing the ocean (and subsequently saving the world, or whatever she does in the movie) is more important than having the best possible chief, maybe she should do that instead.
Unfortunately for Moana, she doesn't seem to know why she's supposed to cross the ocean, and while it may feel important, there's no solid evidence to suggest that it actually is. Then again, I also caught glimpses of scenes where the self-described "village crazy lady" says something about a legend and a demigod, and she might have mentioned something about preventing some disaster, and this all sounds pretty important, but how sure are we that any of it is even true?
Again, I'd love to know more about Moana's situation. If I knew how strong the call was or how credible the legend was, I might have an easier time making the decision Moana did, but as it stands, I think that she probably should have stayed. Maybe I put too much faith in my leaders and/or too little faith in my own gut instincts, but if there's any discrepancy between the two of them, I consider it more likely that I'm wrong than that they are. If I had been Moana, that movie might have gone, and ended, very differently. I'm not sure it would have been the right choice to stay, but given what I know about the situation and myself, it's the choice I think I would have made.
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