Kay:
Hey, Questers. Welcome back. This is episode 257 and it is December 29th. We’ve got a fun quote for you today from a new Christmas movie that’s on Netflix and we would highly encourage any one of you to go watch it. The movie is called the “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” and it is wonderful. This is from a character in that movie. Today’s quote from Journey Jangles and she says, “Because the square root of impossible is possible in me.”
Shi:
It is a super fun movie.
Kay:
So fun.
Shi:
We know that Christmas was last week, but it is still worth the watch. You probably know if you’re a longtime listener that we went on a real quest in order to better understand black lives and stand for equality and justice for all, and take an active role in that. So, this film has almost an entirely black cast, which is really cool and it’s like the Christmas themed, Greatest Showman.
Kay:
It’s basically what it is.
Shi:
In Victorian England with the superpower being math and STEM features and a girl hero. So, it was written for us. You cry, you laugh, and you get inspired. So, if that sounds up your alley, if you are like us, we highly encourage you to go watch Jingle Jangle and you will hear this line in one of the main songs that Journey sings, “Because the square root of impossible is possible in me.” By this time, you’re a weeping mess.
Kay:
Oh man, I had already been a weeping mess at least 10 times in this movie up until this point. We’ve been a mess in a good way and Shila and I get inspired by inspirational things. So, as she said, it broke so many norms and it was amazing to see a girl be ideating around math problems and engineering. I’m just, I’m so proud that our daughters get to grow up in a world where (a) our Vice President is a woman, badass and (b) that these kinds of things are being represented in mainstream media. But there’s a real lesson here because the girl in the movie, she’s feeling kind of down, she feels like nothing’s possible and I can’t do it. Then she starts singing this song and she says, well, the square root of impossible, which is this impossible calculation that her grandfather could never figure out, it is possible inside me. That’s such a beautiful place to come from because how often in our lives do we limit our own capability by limiting our imagination.
Shi:
Right. We have unlimited human potential and that’s what this song is speaking into. There is nothing that’s impossible or as the stupid motivational poster says, “It’s not impossible. I’m possible.” I think about all of the things through human history that probably just seemed insane. Insanely impossible to fly through the air in a giant metal tube that weighs tons.
Kay:
Right? People will be like, what!
Shi:
On old dinosaur bones, powered by old dinosaur bones.
Kay:
Powered by old dinosaur bones.
Shi:
Things that are impossible. We haven’t advanced there yet, or human ingenuity hasn’t caught up with that. But in the imagination, you can close that gap like that, which is why imagination is such a fun place to be in. We encourage you to use yours more and this movie will certainly encourage you to do that.
Kay:
Well, look, if you would take a paper clip back to let’s just say 1650, and you handed it to somebody, they would say, this is impossible.
Shi:
Sorcery.
Kay:
Sorcery. Impossible. You have taken metal and you made it small and you’ve bent it and I don’t even know what it’s for. At this point, paper isn’t everywhere and it’s not readily available. So, you don’t even have paper around with which to clip. So, a couple of hundred years ago, the paperclip was impossible guys, the paper clip. So, what are the other things? Refrigerators, microwaves. Look, in 1940, 80 years ago, nearly half of the houses in the US lacked hot pipe, water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet. Outhouses, 80 years ago. What!
Shi:
80 years ago, as not that much and it seems like ancient history, but it really isn’t. 80 years ago, they would’ve probably said it’s impossible to have hot showers in every house…
Kay:
In every single house.
Shi:
…or running toilets, or just so many other different things. So, impossible is always a subjective label and by realizing that human potential is unlimited, and imagination is unlimited, putting those two things together means that the square root of impossible is possible in me and in you and in everyone else.
Kay:
Yep, because you can create impossible things in your mind. The things that have never been done before will be done eventually by someone who dares to imagine it first. That’s where things start. Everything exists twice, once in imagination and then in reality and it goes first in that imagination piece before it comes into reality. So, Shi, you woven the quote into your final teaching there.
Shi:
Let me remind you what Miss. Journey Jangles says for today’s quote on Tuesday, December 29th in weird week.
Kay:
Weird week.
Shi:
“Because the square root of impossible is possible in me.”
Kay:
Alrighty, gang, you’ve got a Jingle Jangle Quest today. We want you to reflect on Journey Jangles’ realization in preparation for the New Year. It’s a little bit of a reflection quest for you. What are you the square root of and in what way does that make you unique? Does uncovering your uniqueness help with you identifying the personal powers you have to make things possible in 2021? If the square root of possible is you, what makes you qualified to be impossible? Are you ready?
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
