The Scarecrow Syndrome

Watching the movie “The Wizard of OZ” for the thousandths time it occurred to me that this film is not only about a young lady being caught up in a tornado and being transported to a faraway land where she meets three unlikely friends that set out on a journey to find the Wizard of OZ so that she can return home and her friends can be granted with a brain, heart and courage, but it is actually a story of one’s search to find love not knowing that the love they seek is right there within them.

We can all learn a valuable lesson from this masterpiece of movie making. Each of us, at one time or another, have looked for love outside of ourselves, whether through another individual, money, material things or whatever there is outside of us that we felt would bring us love. When we found those things, we would love them for awhile but would find that in time those things did not bring us total satisfaction or love, simply a sense of appeasement until they grew old. All the while, we were ignorant of the fact that all we needed to do was look within ourselves.

The characters in the movie “The Wizard of OZ,” Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion were all guilty of looking outside of themselves, in search of things that they already owned.

• Dorothy searched for love, when all the while the love she searched for was right there at home with her family.
• The Scarecrow was in search of a brain, when all that he needed was right there within his heart and that alone made him intelligent.
• The Tin Man was in search of a heart to fill the void within having no idea that he already had heart due to the care and love he showed Dorothy and his other comrades.
• The Lion wanted a hefty dose of courage because he felt that he was a coward when all the while he showed courage in everything that he did.

 At the finale of the Yellow Brick Road all of them discovered that the Wizard was only an ‘illusion’ and possessed no power at all, signifying our search to find something outside of ourselves to complete us or make us happy, there in discovering that all they needed was to look within and this is usually what happens with us in our search for love or something to complete us, we set out on journeys, searching for something outside of us only to discover at the end of the journey that it was within us the entire time.

 I named this the Scarecrow Syndrome not only because he is my favorite character from “The Wizard of OZ” but because of his search for a brain and his already having the HEART that allowed him the ability to do and accomplish all of the things that he wanted to do, inspiring me to look within myself to discover all that I need to do is follow my heart to reach my destiny. It’s ALL within us! ...."OZ never gave the Tin Man what he didn’t already have…”

Written by Patrick Miguel