There comes a point in life when we discover that growing up isn’t about understanding everything. During childhood, we imagine that adults know the answers, that the world has an order we’ll eventually learn, and that, when we reach a certain age, uncertainty will cease to be our companion. However, experience ultimately disproves that unspoken promise. Life remains complex, losses don’t always have an explanation, and many questions remain unanswered for years.

Perhaps true maturity does not consist of finding all the answers, but in learning to live with those that will never come.

Hayao Miyazaki seems to have dedicated his entire life to exploring this idea. His films never offer simple solutions or endings that attempt to heal all wounds. On the contrary, they invite us to contemplate the world with a mixture of wonder and serenity, as if reminding us that understanding reality doesn’t mean dominating it, but rather learning to inhabit it.

The Boy and the Heron  is probably the most intimate work in his entire filmography. Many have interpreted it as a farewell or an autobiographical account. It certainly contains elements of both. But above all, it is a reflection on the moment when a person understands that life will never be the same again and yet decides to keep going.

Synopsis

Mahito loses his mother during World War II and moves with his father to a house in the countryside to begin a new chapter. Unable to find his place in this new environment, he feels trapped between sadness, guilt, and rejection of a reality he did not choose.

The appearance of a strange heron will lead him to a fantastical world where the boundaries between memory, desire, and imagination disappear. There he will embark on a journey not to change the past, but to discover how he can return to it without becoming a prisoner of what he has lost.

Will you come with me?

There’s a deeply human temptation that arises when reality hurts us: to imagine that, somewhere, a different life exists where everything would have been simpler. We do this when we think about the decisions we didn’t make, the words we never said, or the people who are no longer here. We construct, almost without realizing it, an ideal version of the world and begin to compare everything we experience to it.

The problem isn’t dreaming. Dreams are part of our ability to imagine a better future. The problem arises when we turn that imagined world into the only place where we believe we could be happy. Then we stop looking at the life we ​​have in front of us and start living waiting for a reality that will never come.

Mahito feels that temptation too. The universe he accesses through the heron seems to offer him what reality has taken from him: answers, possibilities, and even the illusion that pain can be undone. However, as his journey progresses, he understands that no place, however wonderful it may seem, can replace the task of living.

And that is, perhaps, the most profound lesson of the film.

We don’t grow when we find a refuge where nothing hurts. We grow when we discover that even a life marked by loss can still be a life worth loving.

We live in an age that constantly fuels the idea that there’s always a better version of everything: a better job, a better relationship, a better city, a better life. Social media has transformed this feeling into a perpetual comparison. As we observe the carefully curated happiness of others, it’s easy to think that the problem lies in our own reality and that we’ll only be truly happy when we manage to change it.

But experience often teaches us something different. Fulfillment doesn’t arise when difficulties disappear, but when we stop measuring our lives by the yardstick of an imagined existence. Only then do we begin to discover the beauty of imperfection, the depth of everyday connections, and the value of that which, precisely because it is fragile, deserves to be cared for.

Miyazaki doesn’t invite us to renounce imagination. He invites us to return it to its rightful place. Fantasy isn’t for escaping the world, but for returning to it with a fresh perspective. After his journey, Mahito doesn’t return because all his wounds have healed. He returns because he understands that no story can be built by remaining forever in a place where everything seems possible and nothing needs to be chosen.

Life, on the other hand, always forces us to choose.

Choosing to keep loving after a loss.

Choosing to trust when fear invites us to shut ourselves away.

Choosing to build, even knowing that everything human is imperfect.

And those decisions, much more than circumstances, are what ultimately define who we are.

For young people, families and educators

Adolescence is often experienced with a mixture of excitement and confusion. Young people search for answers, role models, and certainty at a time when almost everything seems to be changing at once.  The Boy and the Heron  reminds them that they don’t need to have their entire lives figured out to begin living meaningfully. Sometimes, simply taking the next step is enough, even when the path isn’t yet fully illuminated.

For families, the film offers a serene perspective on grief, change, and the importance of respecting the pace at which each person learns to live with their pain. Not all wounds heal in the same way or at the same time, but all need an environment where they can be nurtured without haste.

And for educators, this story raises a particularly valuable question. Perhaps the goal of education is not to prepare young people for a perfect world, but to help them develop the judgment, sensitivity, and strength needed to engage with a world that will always be imperfect.

The question that remains

When life stops resembling what you imagined, do you wait for it to be perfect again before you start living… or do you discover that true maturity consists of loving and building precisely the real world in front of you?

José María Sánchez Villa