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The 1991 film Hook, considered a flop by many critics and even director Steven Spielberg, was one of my favorites as a kid. I guess I didn’t know any better at the time to be more critical of the movie. The sense of adventure and the feud between The Lost Boys and The Pirates appealed to me, overshadowing the cringeworthy scenes that precede Robin Williams' return to Neverland.
As I have gotten older, I can't help but make comparisons between Peter Pan, the story of the Garden of Eden, and our own lives. In the biblical narrative, Adam and Eve are presented with a profound choice and ultimately choose knowledge over immortality, despite all the consequences that follow.
Similarly, Peter Pan wrestles with a choice between remaining in Neverland, a realm of eternal youth and safety, and living in the real world, with its inherent uncertainties and different set of adventures. Although counterintuitive, as Neverland is a place full of wonder, Pan proclaims that "to live (in the world) would be an awfully big adventure." These tales suggest that perhaps as humans we aren't built to remain in paradise but to endure and grow through challenges, that we are at our best when we step beyond what is comfortable or known.
In our own lives, we continually face moments where we must choose between the comfort of the known and the potential growth that comes from stepping into the unknown. As one of my mentors has shared, “all the answers are out there and often are realized on the other side of action."
In every season of life, and in some senses every day, we are faced with this fundamental choice: to live, to strive, to try, to cross the thresholds from the world we know, with the comforts of familiarity and certainty, to the adventure and unknown of our commitments and inspirations. And like Peter Pan in Hook, we must make the choice to leave Neverland again and again, remembering why we made these decisions in the first place, even when we forget how to fight, fly, or crow.