8th
If ever there was a story that didn’t live up to the promise of its title, it’s Boy Meets World. Not once in the show’s seven seasons did titular boy Cory Matthews ever meet the world. On the contrary, with every passing year he retreated further and deeper into his insular bubble.
He married his high school girlfriend. He had the same grandpa-teacher through middle school, high school, and college, and also lived next door to him. Instead of moving away after graduation, he went to the same local college his older brother attended, where he hung out solely with his friends from high school. (Pity poor Topanga, who declined admission to Yale so she could stay in Philadelphia with her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s childhood best friend, her boyfriend’s idiot brother, and her boyfriend’s next-door neighbor-teacher.)
When the show started, Cory had dreams of growing up to be a professional baseball player. In the show’s later years, Cory rarely had ambitions more complicated than hey, let’s get Shawn back together with his quirky ex-girlfriend, SO THINGS CAN GO BACK TO BEING LIKE THE WAY THEY WERE. Of course, all the other characters on the show did their part to also not take on the great challenges of the universe. As the show progressed, Eric got stupider, Shawn got whinier, Feeny got Feenier, and Topanga went from Idealistic Feminist Flower Child to Girlfriend (Who Mostly Cares About Getting Good Grades). When Cory’s little sister Morgan was quietly written off the show and then reintroduced a year later, the explanation was that she was in her room for a really long time. Of course she was.
Is this the best we can do? When the future looks scary, fall back into what’s comfortable and familiar? Say No to risk, experimentation, and opportunity? Just stay in our room for a really long time?
Good God, I hope not.
Of course it’s easier to eat lunch with the same people every day, to stick with what’s safe and unchallenging. It isn’t hard to not ask the big questions or second-guess your own assumptions or confront the things that frighten you, both in the real world and inside yourself, to always always always be pushing pushing pushing. It isn’t hard at all to not do those things. Not doing those things is the default.
But there’s so much to see and so little time to see it. Why would you waste a second? If you’re not swimming, you’re sinking. If you’re not living, you’re dying. There are blocks of marble just waiting to be turned into Davids. There’s a great big world, just waiting to be met.
Two years ago the best thing I read all year on tumblr was boringoldraphael’s post about iCarly. This is even better. There’s hope for the internet yet.
