This is exactly how society kills our creativity – in a breathtaking short film

There’s an aching difference between an adult and the child the adult once was.

When I was a small child I wanted to be a broadcaster. I didn’t know the meaning of this big word at the time, all I knew was that I wanted to be the lady in the radio who is so friendly and knows so much. (I thought she was actually inside the radio).

By the time I got to high school and had to choose my subjects, I chose science and math because that was a sensible choice and a guarantee for work. I had completely forgotten about the friendly woman in the radio.

My story is not unique. Maybe you were that child who were always told to sit still, while inside you the dancer was fighting to get out. Or maybe you were the one who spent hours drawing and painting, but was told not to take art at school because you can’t make a living with art. Or maybe the math was just so difficult it usurped all your energy and left nothing for creativity.

So you listened to the wisdom of the day and chose sensible subjects and forgot about creating something new.

Society functions on the daily grind of millions of unmarked individuals marking time on a mind-numbing treadmill of rise, commute, work, commute, eat, sleep, repeat.

How did so many of us land there?

This is the question that Alike answers (see video below). The Pixar-like short by Madrid-based animators Daniel Martínez Lara and Rafa Cano Méndez, is a 7-minute story about Copi and his son Paste. Copi is teaching his son how to live, what the correct, acceptable behaviour is and Paste changes from entering school as a happy, excited child to a miserable unwilling little boy, all signs of engagement erased from his being.

But don’t criticise Copi. He is just a father teaching his child what he was taught: do this and you’ll succeed; do that, and you won’t. We are all victims of victims – an insight from Louis Hay.

The critically-acclaimed film originally debuted at Mundos Digitales in 2015. It has received 69 awards at festivals all over the world and has been played 10 million times on youtube, vimeo  and social networks.

Do yourself a favor and take some time out of your daily grind to be charmed by this beautifully crafted animation into reflecting on the woeful values of our society.