Ripples of I – Blog 108: The backside of water

Every Wednesday, I share one article made up of three little ripples: 

Have you ever experienced something so familiar that you stopped really noticing it? 

Have you ever moved through a moment on autopilot, only to realize later there was more there than you first saw? 

Have you ever been so sure you knew what you were looking at… until you saw it from the other side? 

One Inspiration 

I love Disney: the movies, the music, the parks, the songs... .all of it! 

Last week, I started watching a documentary series called Disneyland Handcrafted, which explores how Disney parks are made.  

In the very first episode, they dive into the making of the Jungle Cruise. When Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, Walt Disney envisioned the Jungle Cruise as a live-action, educational “True-Life Adventure” boat tour through the world’s great rivers.  

Since opening day, guests have boarded replica steam launches from a 1930s British explorers’ lodge, gliding past audio-animatronic exotic animals along the riverbanks. A live Disney team member serves as both tour guide and skipper, loosely following a rehearsed script while delivering a steady stream of famously corny jokes. 

Just before entering the Amazon River, the boats pass behind Schweitzer Falls - setting up one of the most iconic skipper lines of all time: 

“And here you see… the backside of water.” 

One Insight 

“The backside of water” has become a joke because it sounds so absurd... after all, water doesn’t really have a front or a back. But that’s exactly why it works so beautifully as a metaphor for life. 

So much of what we experience feels ordinary or familiar when we’re moving straight through it.

Yet when we shift our angle - even slightly - the same moment can surprise us, revealing something new we hadn’t noticed before. 

The backside of water reminds us that perspective matters. When we slow down and look again, familiar moments can take on new meaning.  

One Invite 

So this week, I invite you to look for your own “backside of water.” 

If you need a little inspiration, here are a few ways you can experiment with: 

• Listen to a familiar song, but focus only on the background instruments or the lyrics you usually ignore. 

• Try reverse brainstorming - instead of brainstorming solutions, brainstorm questions about the problem from different angles. 

• Reframe a frustration by asking, “What is this trying to teach me?” rather than “Why is this happening?” 

• Revisit something you once disliked - an idea, a habit, even a person - and see whether your perspective has changed. 

• Look at a current goal from the finish line backward and notice what steps suddenly seem less intimidating. 

  
  

You don’t need a theme park or a skipper to point it out. Sometimes, a small shift in perspective is all it takes to turn the ordinary into something meaningful - and that, in true Disney fashion, is where the real magic happens.