Avatar: Pocahontas in Space

I grew up in the age of the beloved Disney movies The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. When Pocahontas came out in 1995, I loved it in a more mature way, imagining I deeply understood "Colors of the Wind" and playing the song in junior high band. Later, in 2009, James Cameron's Avatar came out, and I was awestruck. I've also always had a thing for space and stars, and it very magically combined my interest in space travel with a fondness for nature.

Those Disney movies and Avatar have stayed with me well into my adulthood. I've always clung to Belle as my favorite character, but Avatar holds a special place in my heart. One year, I "won" Halloween by showing up to a friend's party in full Neytiri costume, having done my own makeup. Nobody talked to me for hours because they didn't recognize me! Once the cat was out of the bag, people were still confused as to who I was supposed to be. I even re-used the costume for a football game, throwing an ASU shirt over the outfit and opting out of the makeup, which made people even more confused. It was such a good movie, and I was always surprised to find how many people had not only not seen it, but had no recollection of what it even was.

When the Pandora area opened up in Disney World, I was thrilled to be immersed in the recreation, and riding the Ikran (or Banshee) on the Flight of Passage ride was more thrilling and awe-inspiring than I could have imagined. 

I don't remember when it first occurred to me that the story of Avatar is the story of Pocahontas in space, but the parallels are fascinating. Here is how they stack up.

The Overall Plot

Both stories involve "modern" people, driven by a greed for resources, clashing with local "savages."

• The Valuable Mineral: In Pocahontas, the colonizers are obsessed with gold, even though it isn't actually there. In Avatar, the "Sky People" are after Unobtainium, which they know is sitting right under Hometree. 

• The Long Journey: The "Skywalkers" in Avatar had to be in cryogenics for the long journey to Pandora, while the Englishmen in Pocahontas had to cross the salt water on a long journey to the Americas.

    

The Antagonists

In both movies, the villain is ugly—both in appearance and spirit—and gives a demeaning speech about the locals to justify killing them.

• Governor Ratcliffe (Pocahontas): "Don't lose your heart, men. It won't be long before we reach the New World. And remember what awaits us there. Freedom, prosperity... the adventure of our lives. You're the finest crew England has to offer, and nothing-- not wind nor rain nor a thousand bloodthirsty savages shall stand in our way. Carry on, men!"

• Colonel Quaritch (Avatar): "You're not in Kansas anymore. You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact, every second of every day. ... Out there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes."

The Overseers: Both movies feature a leader who supports the villain, but isn't necessarily quite as evil. In Avatar, this is the corporate administrator Parker Selfridge. Unlike the brutal Colonel, Selfridge isn't painted as a pure combatant; he’s a bureaucrat, which makes his complicity in the destruction feel more cold and calculated. King James in Pocahontas isn't even seen until the sequel - he never steps foot in the New World, and is, therefore, just an ideal over-sea-er. 

Signs from Nature

Both films rely heavily on the idea of a spiritual connection to the environment.

• The Signs: Pocahontas has a dream and confides in Mother Willow. Later, a raccoon brings her the compass John Smith gifted her, reminding her of the spinning arrow in her dream. Neytiri sees the sign from Eywa—the floating, dandelion-like seeds that collect on Jake Sully.

• The Battle: The invaders of both films had superior weapons, and the natives in each story united disparate tribes to form a more powerful army in order to level the playing field.  

• The Rebellion: Mother Nature physically strikes back in both. Mother Willow raises her roots to trip the encroaching Englishmen, and in Avatar, the animals unite to fight against the humans.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

It isn’t a coincidence that the heart of both stories is a tree. In Pocahontas, Mother Willow is an ancient, sentient guide who offers wisdom and perspective, acting as the spiritual anchor for the entire tribe. In Avatar, Hometree is the literal and metaphorical center of the Omaticaya people—it is their sanctuary, their connection to their ancestors, and their source of life. Both films use these massive, rooted, and ancient beings to highlight a fundamental truth: while the humans see the land as a resource to be harvested or moved, the natives see it as a living entity that holds the memories and spirits of those who came before. When the invaders target the tree in each film, it’s not just an attack on a resource; it’s an assault on the soul of the community.

The Heroes and the Love Story

John Smith and Jake Sully are both battle-tested soldiers, and I love that they share the same initials. They both undergo the same arc: a cocky guy meets the indigenous beauty who happens to be the chief's daughter, betrothed to a beefcake of a warrior, and she teaches him to the foreign hero to nature differently. He realizes his people are in the wrong, falls in love, and is seen as a traitor by his own people.  

• All Tied Up: Both of our heroes are captured by the natives following a misunderstanding. However, in Avatar, Dr. Grace is also captured and tied up, while in Pocahontas, John Smith is by himself.   

• The Injury: In Pocahontas, when John Smith throws himself in front of the musket fire to save the Chief, he is wounded, and Pocahontas rushes to his side, cradling him. Neytiri likewise cradles Jake Sully's human body when he is suffocated in the battle.   

• Lost (and Found) in Translation: It makes sense that the indigenous tribes of each move have their own language. Overcoming the language barrier and learning to communicate is one of the first tests of our new couples. 

The Divergence

How the two films differ is powerful. While the setup of these two films mirrors each other so closely, the way they end is where the real story lives. The depth of the transformation changes significantly between the two eras. In Pocahontas, the hero’s "leaning in" is cautious and tentative; he learns a few lessons, but he remains firmly an outsider, leaving much of the emotional labor of bridge-building to her. In contrast, Jake Sully’s arc is one of complete immersion. He doesn't just visit the forest; he effectively dies to his old life so he can be reborn into the new one. This shift in the heroes' journeys—how they communicate, how they fight, and how they ultimately choose their futures—tells us as much about our evolving culture as it does about the movies themselves.

• Overcoming the Language Barrier: A key difference is the role of language. In Pocahontas, she magically learns English ("Listen with your heart"). In Avatar, the process is more deliberate—Jake is part of a program designed to bridge that cultural gap.  

• No Fight Club Here: While both films lead up to a battle between superior weapons and a united native force, Pocahontas ends with a fragile, hopeful truce. Avatar goes further, with an all-out battle and brutal losses on both sides, ending with the total expulsion of the industrial force.  

• The Departures: John Smith ultimately returns home to heal, leaving behind many of the men in Virginia but ultimately retreating to the world he knows. Jake Sully, however, makes a more radical choice: he permanently abandons his human body to live as an Avatar, helping to lead the effort to expel the industrial force from Pandora entirely. These departures mirror a classic tension—between the comfort of returning to the life we were born into with a newly refreshed perspective, versus the transformative, permanent choice to fully commit to a new way of existing.

There is so much to be said about the velocity of technology today—from the rise of AI to the evolution of increasingly effective, and frankly, scary weaponry. It’s easy to feel the weight of that shift. But I’ve come to believe that in a world where these forces are becoming more pervasive, the act of retreating into nature and intentionally celebrating our humanity is going to increase in importance, not decrease. If Pocahontas and Avatar taught me anything, it’s that no matter how advanced our 'Sky People' tech becomes, it can never replace the quiet wisdom of a forest or the necessity of seeing our world through a lens of connection rather than conquest. The further we advance, the more we need to stay rooted.

 

 

 

Book Review: "The Meaning of Your Life"

As a lifelong "striver" and a career people manager, I have read countless books on mindfulness, philosophy, and psychology. Many of them offer a single "silver bullet" solution—rest, balance, or mindset. In his most recent book, Dr. Arthur C. Brooks has done something much more courageous here: he has written an all-encompassing masterpiece that weaves these threads into a logical, structured model for a meaningful life. You can read my official review on Goodreads here and get more info about the book. This book was so timely and so meaningful to me, I felt compelled to write to the author. So I thought I'd share my letter here.  

Mr. Brooks, 

I just finished listening to your new book, "The Meaning of Your Life," although, of course, listening is hardly all I did. I heard about your book while listening to the Andrew Yang Podcast (what a guy, right?) and I knew instantly that I needed to give it a go. I am still processing it all, and probably will be for a while, which is one of the ways I know it was good. As a regular seeker of purpose, meaning, love, and happiness, I have read countless books on mindfulness and longevity and philosophy and psychology. I've taken a lot from each of those books, and continue to piece together what makes sense to me for my life, while challenging myself to grow and be better. I am probably a very typical striver as you would expect of your readership, and I describe my particular type as a problem solver. My career, romantic life, friendships and personal pursuits often boil down to chasing down problems, and ideating and executing solutions (obviously bad for romantic relationships - which I've started to untangle). As a people manager for many years now, I have counseled my mentees and future leaders that people are complex, and that's what drives me as a manager; optimization problems of math and statistics can be solved, but how to create movement and growth within other people is an ever-changing, unsolvable challenge that requires vigilant nurturing, personal growth and adjustments, and courage. You could say that exemplifying good management and leadership is my calling - it's at least part of what gives my professional work purpose. 

Speaking of courage, I first and foremost want to thank you for yours. As an avid reader of many similar books, I have found that many dive deep into only one area, which would be okay if they acknowledged the limited scope. But instead, I find they tend to sell their ideas as the only thing that matters, and then show different angles and examples to reinforce that one, central concept. This has left me trying to piece these things together in perhaps an unstructured method. "Ah ha! The key to life is rest! No, it's balance. No, it's a growth mindset." This has also left me aching for models to put it all together, and trying to piece it together myself. As a hobbyist writer, this has also discouraged me, as a part of me would love to author a masterpiece of a book that is all encompassing; but seeing that niche books sell, I've wondered if our world is too shallow to absorb multiple concepts in a single book. Yours was a true masterpiece, I think. It weaves in a lot of those ideas I've explored in other reading, but provides structure that speaks to the left-sided need for logic, while giving a vocabulary for the things we cannot explain with a formula. So thank you for having the courage to tackle such a monster topic and to do it so eloquently, without excessive elaboration or salesmanship. 

Secondly, I wanted to thank you for highlighting a few things that really resonated with me. Even though I am a rigorous planner, with my life's budget planned until I'm 100 years old, and vacations planned decades in advance, I've learned, through an admittedly privileged version of suffering, that life will throw curveballs and that we need to sometimes be okay with not knowing all of the answers. When the company I worked for announced it was relocating its North American headquarters across the country, and almost all of my colleagues and I would be receiving offers to relocate, we were devastated by the difficult choice and the change we'd face either way - either we'd have to pick up our lives and the lives of our families and move to an unfamiliar area with a very different way of life, or we'd have to find a new job to stay put. While many knew their decisions quickly - they had to stay for their partners' jobs or their kids - it was uneasy for everyone. Around that time, I found this quote, and shared it on social media, which was comforting to many of my colleagues and friends. 

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers.  They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.  it is a question of experiencing everything.  At present you need to live the question.  Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." 

    ― Rainer Maria Rilke

    
Your book reminded me that having outstanding, unanswered questions, is sometimes a part of life, and perhaps, a lot of where growth happens. If the answers could all be googled, then the meaning of life is null. It's a hard thing for a problem solving striver to accept, but an important reminder for that same reason. 

Another concept I've been focusing in on as part of my New Year's Resolutions (yes, I do those, so typical) is to re-wire my brain to consider exercise and getting outdoors as not just a necessary evil or a mandatory sometimes-thing, but that it gives me more pleasure than idly doomscrolling or playing games on my phone, which, like an addict, I could tell was starting to taking too much time in my life but also wasn't willing to quit cold turkey or apply other effective strategies. Your book didn't, to my recollection at least, hit on this point a lot, but it did talk about various ways in which going through the motions helps illuminate the meaning and purpose, and I felt like that was very similar to my re-wiring my brain concept. Your discernment exercise was especially helpful in evaluating and adjusting my focus and reasons. 

I am a strong believer that Andrew Yang is right about the shift in our world that's coming as a result of technology and AI. I love tech, use it in my work and personal life to a further extent than most, which is why is part of the reason I am so convinced that a lot of people are going to have a hard time finding meaningful or even livable jobs in the future. At the same time, I often grapple with the depression that seems to be growing in our society and a lot of examples in my personal circles. Someone once put the idea in my head that my boyfriend at the time was using video games as a form of escapism - he wasn't successful in real life but he could achieve in his virtual world. It has stuck with me as a watchout of gamers as romantic partners in general, but also for my own wellbeing - when I may choose to play again, I wonder if I'm trying to escape the failures or inadequate progress in my real life. What I couldn't quite make sense of was why this was so bad, until your book explained it. When we fill our time with distractions - and even if not gaming, I am very guilty of filling my time with different forms of "productive" activity and even multitasking by listening to an audio book while I walk or do chores - we don’t give ourselves the freedom to be bored and to ponder the big stuff. This is really important, I think, for our society to hear. Say it louder for those in the back! 

I may be a "mean boss" with my "traditional" thinking that we should be going to work most days, so I require my team at work 3 days a week, with one work from home day (we work 4/10s). I may be a bit biased, but I perceive my very small team to be outperforming teams ten times the size, and I attribute much of that to the cross-talk, in-person collaboration and relationship building, and focus that comes from being in the office. My teams also tend to have a lot of satisfaction in their work and profess enjoyment of the challenging problems and the social aspect of working with really smart and talented people. Maybe I'm just lucky, but since I've built a few teams now, I think there's something to it. The headlines about return to office mandates and initiatives are so baffling to me, and the cynical assumptions about manager's motives in doing so are completely misguided, in my estimation. I may be unpopular when I say this, but I believe depression and work from home have a correlation, and that return to office mandates are good for society. So shoot me! Adversaries point out the time savings of not having to commute, or in some cases, even showering and getting ready for work, the cost savings in gas, and the benefits of "focus" by not being disturbed. In our world that is constantly vying for attention, I am guilty of not having as much focus on the occasions I work from home, and I assume I'm not the outlier. Your book has given me another thought: maybe even the commute is a good thing. Whether we're listening to music, which could be therapeutic, using the commute to listen to an audio book or podcast - a time strictly dedicated to personal development - or zoning out, being intentional not to have a screen in our faces, maybe its merits are greater than the perceived cost of lost time and expensive gas. 

Anyways, this has already been a longer note than I intended, so I'll bring it to a close while I keep processing the good stuff in your book. But I was moved to write to you to let you know that I deeply appreciate the wisdom, science, philosophy and vocabulary you poured into this book. It truly is a masterpiece, and one I will strongly recommend to, well, just about anyone. I plan to explore some of your earlier work, and I hope you continue to explore these topics and the dynamically shifting atmosphere of our simulated lives. I'm no longer a practicing Christian, but this is more like God's work than most of what I saw in many years of religious practice. It is really important to be grappling with these huge topics and helping others to find meaning but also to sit with the questions that trigger their own grappling of these topics. 

With love and gratitude,
Laura