What an appropriate first color to select from my crayon box: “Wild Blue Yonder.” This hue definitely didn’t inhabit the now seemingly limited confines of my 64-count crayon box as a child: it seems Crayola has undergone its own “Manifest Destiny” of sorts and expanded its color borders to the great unknown. With this blog, I, too, am taking on my own expansive journey of sorts and delving into an unknown, exciting, and enticing foreign realm of possibility.
While analyzing this crayon, I noticed something fascinating: Crayola crayons now provide color translations in Spanish and French. Who knew? Is this genuinely a new feature, or was grade-school Katie simply too intent on coloring with emphasis and consequently violently snapping her crayons in half (or thirds…oh, yes: It’s possible…) with the brute force and passion of a budding young artist (question mark?) that she was wholly unaware of these cultural nuances? Siri tells me that the world will never know—she’s a cheeky bugger—, thus I will simply assume this is a new addition to the Crayola family.
Anyway, after I overcame my amazement regarding the existence of a tri-lingual crayon box, I transferred my childlike fascination to the actual translations of “Wild Blue Yonder.” In Spanish, the color reads “azul cielo infinito,”— take that, crayon! You aren’t the only one who knows Spanish! — which directly translates to “infinite blue sky.”
Admission: aside from telling the workers at Panera “I would like the baguette” with my broccoli cheddar soup, I don’t speak French, so I opted to use both Google Translate (Hear that, Siri? You’re dead to me.) and my deductive reasoning skills to discover that “le grand bleu” translates to “the big blue.”
Although I’m no linguist, each of these three translations connotes a slightly different meaning of the same phrase, now turned color, and I find that rather poetic. Whether one seeks to ponder and push the boundaries of “the infinite blue sky,” explore the endless continuation and ensuing possibilities of “the big blue,” or transcend the familiar and comfortable and delve into the “wild blue yonder,” there remains a similar vein of amazement and eager anticipation regarding what lies ahead. In its sheer beauty, magnitude and expansiveness, the “blue” is so enticing and tantalizing that it hooks its beholders on the precept of intrigue and instills an eager hunger to explore, uncover, and understand more.
And, while we, as humans, are so captivated by the idea of pushing our boundaries and naming that which is unknown, sometimes I wonder if we should dedicate this enthusiasm to rethinking and redefining that which we already know. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t value in pursuing progress; that would be wildly unfounded. Rather, I am curious if in our pursuits to constantly push the envelope, we ultimately lose some greater understanding or possibility of that which is already “known” to us.
I suppose you could file this into several different categories, but something that immediately comes to mind is rethinking preconceived notions or stereotypes. Why is this so hard for us? While at the gym a couple of weeks ago, I was watching HGTV— my go-to gym jam! —, and Lego’s new commercial titled “Inspire, Imagine, and Keep Building” came on. If you haven’t yet seen this commercial, check out the link below: It’s phenomenal. Immediately I was intrigued by the concept of empowering young people, especially girls, to transcend the boundaries of what is familiar and to fearlessly create without threat of judgment or failure. But, even more than that, I was palpably inspired—I’m not kidding: goose bumps cropped up all over my arm mid-run— by the simple, hopeful message the young actor relays:
“I don’t always want you to help me. Do you know why? I want to figure it out on my own. Even if it doesn’t turn out the way I want, I know it’s not wrong. Because you taught me how to think. How to dream…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfhV3Q4LJPM
How often, amidst the drive to move forward, do we lose sight of this simple idea? Who wants to take the time to figure things out on their own these days? Instead, we bypass learning opportunities and circumvent the possibilities they might hold—trust me, I’m a teacher: this is my students’ favorite pastime—in order to effortlessly arrive at the answer. But this is not rewarding. This is not sustainable. I would literally do backflips if one of my students spurned my assistive advances and said, “No, Ms. Puszka, I don’t want your help: I want to figure it out on my own.” Yet, sadly, this isn’t a reality for many of our young people today: We want the answers, and we want them now.
And, while I won’t pretend that I am entirely un-intrigued and dissuaded by the allure of immediate understanding, I would also be remiss if I didn’t concede to the unparalleled feeling of excitement and anticipation that comes with self-guided discovery. This is the drive that led me to devour countless novels as a child; to push myself to get into and attend the college of my dreams; to traverse Europe with eager anticipation and passion for discovery; to commit to teaching for two years in a location that seems largely foreign and is so because it is 1,758 miles from home (this depressing tidbit is brought to you by Google Maps); to now undertake this self-imposed blog challenge just “for the heck of it.” There is a certain value and intrigue that exists in the pursuit of knowledge, but we must not let ourselves forget that it is, in fact, a pursuit. There must persist an element of enjoyment, learning, and betterment in the journey itself. “I want to figure it out on my own” because I can, and I have the drive to, and because it will make me a better person, and because, by golly, I WILL!
If we keep this in mind, I think it is entirely impossible to lose sight of the magic and possibility that lies in the vast expanse of the “infinite blue sky,” the “big blue,” the “wild blue yonder.”
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