Joy:  Do you ever look at someone and wonder, what is going on inside their head?

~ Inside Out, written by Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Pete Doctor

Ever since researching the post Petroglyph National Monument, I’ve been meditating on the idea of “inverted relief.”

Inverted Relief refers to landscape features that have reversed their elevation relative to other features ~ Wikipedia

Let me clarify. I have NOT been thinking about landscape features. I’ve been considering how the process that shapes landscapes shapes us as well.

To explain, an example of inverted relief would be a valley between two dirt hills that is suddenly filled up with lava. Then the lava hardens and over time the hills erode, leaving behind the shaped lava.

Perhaps something like that happens to people, too. To paraphrase Inside Out, have you ever met someone who is all joy or anger or bitterness all the time, and you wonder how they got that way?

Like the tabula rasa rocks of Petroglyph, we all begin as clean slates, blank and pliable. Eventually, we end up scarred, hard and unyielding.

We’re all molds, and what we choose to fill up with (thankfulness, self-pity, positivity, criticism, etc) hardens into our character.

(Yes, I compared you to Jell-O. What are you going to do about it, sit there and quiver?)

What’s being etched onto your slate? And what features will your character eventually reveal?

Sadness:  Wait, Joy! You’ll get lost in there.

Joy:  Think positive!

Sadness:  Okay… I’m positive that you’ll get lost in there!

~ Inside Out, written by Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Pete Doctor