Encounters at the End of the World

Encounters at the End of the World

So the other day, I got a chance to check out the new Werner Herzog documentary, ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, about his trip to Antarctica, and his incredible underwater footage and all.  Though the documentary involves alot of different things, there was one side story that really intrigued me: it was about a strange behavior amoung adele penguins where occasionally, an individual penguin would run away from the rest of the pack, completely on its own, and run for the mountains and hills far beyond the safety of the pack,  and ultimately to its own solitary doom.  The scientists who observed this strange behavior have no idea why certain penguins do this, and they can offer no explaination.  As Werner was shooting this documentary, they also ended up filming a single solitary penguin doing just this – suddenly running away from the community, separating itself from the only world that it knew, and it made a b-line straight for the mountains way off in the distance, never to return.

I find this behavior beautiful, facinating, and really intriguing.  If we could only hear and understand what this individual penguin might be thinking or feeling.  It probably knows that it’s going to die out there on it’s own.  But for that brief moment, it’s running to pursue it’s dream, a far off place, away from everyone, somewhere its never ever been before.   For that brief moment, the penguin is truly living its life for itself, and its truly an individual, only a short time before its inevitable frozen death, on the coldest place on the planet.

I find myself sometimes feeling somewhat the same way, growing tired and bored of the mundane everyday life and an urge to do ‘something crazy’  like run away to some endless point, to experience a little bit of excitment of life, even for a brief moment in time.

Some people might say that this penguin is crazy.  I’d say that the penguin is pursuing its dream.  Some people say filmmaking is crazy.  Some might say its crazy to equate your life to a penguin.  I say it’s okay to act like a penguin that is living its life on its own, and pursuing its dreams.