Falling with Style

We rented Disney's Earth and Daniel keeps falling asleep every time we start to watch it. Since he continues attempting to finish it, I have now seen it 2 1/2 times. It's great and there was blog post written all over the scene with the baby ducks. As Mandarin ducks emerge from the nest for the first time, they must make their first attempt at flight. It would be a lot easier for them if they were hatched on the ground and thus attempt their technique as a sort of lift off. Rather they must step out from their tree house and flap with all their might to make it to the ground. The scene in the movie shows baby duck after baby duck (what's the term? ducklet?) stepping into the great unknown and flying for the first time. It actually doesn't look anything like flight though. The ducks are flapping, flapping, flapping, but their path is straight down with a cushy landing in a pile of leaves. Narrator James Earl Jones comments that it can't really be called flying, but rather "falling with style". I LOVE this. If you watch it, they are a picture of failure. Despite all their best efforts, each one falls straight to the ground just as their entire species have done for generations. Talk about a culture encouraging the freedom to fail. Failure/falling serve as a rite of passage. I guess it works this way with human babies as well as we learn to walk. Parents never scream at their children in frustration over failing to execute those first steps. Instead each quiver, wobble, and tumble are met with cheers of encouragement and laughter. The learning curve for walking is well-acknowledged. Why do I not give myself this same kind of grace and kindness when learning anything new? I think I'll try to adopt the mantra of the baby ducks and fall with style eating dirt and picking leaves out of my hair, but looking cute doing it. (And yes this brings my personal mantra count up to like 3 or so at the moment.)