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Monday, February 19, 2018

Kung Fu Panda

I don't know if anyone has seen the movies, but the overall story of the Kung Fu Panda movies feature a panda named Po. Po is a humble cook, adoptive son to a goose and noodle chef. In the beginning, he plays with action figures of his favorite martial Arista, those rained by Oogway, a tortoise, and Sheefu, some sort of rodent or primate. Po discovers that he is the chosen one, the Dragon Warrior, the savior of the people who live in their valley. This is confusing to him, as he's aware of his limitations. Pandas aren't known for their grace, speed, or strength. He didn't know his real family. He was in over his head, conflicted, not knowing his destiny, his purpose.

In the climax of the third and final movie, Po it's faced with an enemy, Kai, a warrior who had been in the spirit realm for lifetimes. Unable to discern what he is supposed to do with an overwhelmingly powerful adversary, Po realizes that his whole life, all of the pieces that, until then, seemed to have no relevance to each other actually needed to work together. Was he the son of a goose or the son of a panda? Was he a student or a teacher? He was all of these things. He was, in fact, the Dragon Master.

My take from these kids movies is that we are so much more than the sum of our parts. We are the product of our parts. For those who aren't into math, we are so much more than our experiences all added to and tallied. The super computer in our head does far more than record experiences. It learns from them, takes them all apart, and puts the failure into the program to keep it from happening again. Every experience you have helps you grow, makes you better.

You are all of you, working together as one. You are indespensible.