Sometimes when I think of the many ways we can teach our children to be better humans, I wonder how translatable it is to adults and society at large. And then I think that maybe telling a story through the eyes of a child could help create empathy for adults. Maybe?
I have this (I believe) awesome idea for a short film, featuring a child with his lego enterprise. We watch how he got started, perhaps he inherited his legos. Or maybe his family sacrificed so he could own legos. In either case, there was generosity involved so that he would receive this gift. And his lego world continues to get bigger and bigger.
We then watch the interactions with other children playing near him with their own legos. Building their own homes – just having barely enough pieces to finish a house. Occasionally trading or borrowing pieces from others. Initially, the main character loans his, but eventually he takes them back when they don’t have enough “collateral” (in the form of legos they didn’t need for their homes). We watch the relationships evolve, and his oppressive behavior as other children lose legos to him and their worlds get smaller and smaller as his continues to grow. He slowly takes all the legos away from other children who were minding their own business, playing together and alone.
Now each child barely has any legos left, some left with 2 or 3 legos to connect, and they are all sad or crying. But this child is too busy playing to notice or care. (Sidebar: do the other kids band together and create a sparse community where they are happy with less?)
How is this child accountable to others and to himself, within this contrived lego society? Will he eventually come around out of loneliness (like Scrooge?) or does he ignore the plight of others and continue to get lost in his own play, all alone?
Who will be happy then? Who will be happier, the Elon Musks and Jeff Besos who have taken a wealthy cohort to Mars while we self destruct on earth, or those left on earth who learn a new level of empathy and love for one another, in order to survive?
How do we make collective happiness in society matter, when we are given advice to look out for ourselves and make it about transactions (not feelings) in our game of capitalism?
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