WALL-E Inspired!

Its not everyday that you watch a movie that inspires you to do a post on it, but after I popped in the DVD this evening after work and sat back in my recliner, I had a brainstorm!

Wall-E (pronounced "wally", from Walt Disney Studios and Pixar Animations) tells the story of a trash-compacting robot named Wall-E who hitches a ride onboard a space probe to Axion - a human colony in space. The people at Axion live in an artificial, almost-virtual world having all the comforts of life and more...so much so that they start losing basic human traits such as the ability to walk.

As the plot unfolds however, the Captain of the Axion comes to realize that this colony was originally intended only as a temporary home (some 700 years earlier) and the original plan had been to return back to earth after 5 years...which had been all but forgotten.

And so, begins the quest to return back to the REAL home, against the odds of the resident robots who refuse to leave the comforts of the now-familiar space home.

And thinking about this story, it strikes me strange...

How different are WE from the humans in this movie - who think of the space home as their permanent home and not once even begin to think that this may all be just a temporary stopover for a little while. People who are so involved with their day-to-day activities of work and food and sleep that they forgot the real purpose they were here, and that they had to go back one day.

Do we really think of ourselves as immortals, to inherit the earth forever? Or do we think that we will never die and go on living?

That Space Station was a temporary home for a specific purpose, and so is ours. They had to go back to their real home one day, and so will we.

It is opening your eyes to what lies beyond the obvious, that is the difficult part.