Everything I Know About Life I Learned From Groundhog Day
Is there anyone who doesn’t like the movie Groundhog Day? On the face of it, it’s just a funny flick about a smug, egocentric weatherman Phil (Bill Murray) who repeats the same day over and over again (Groundhog Day, to be exact) until he convinces Rita (Andie MacDowell) to fall in love with him, which breaks the “curse.”
And yet, underneath that is actually a movie about time, metaphysics, the meaning of life, the redemptive power of love, and a bunch of other important stuff.
Most people wrongly assume it’s only serious art that teaches us about the Real Meaning of Life — dark films, serious poetry, boring documentaries, heavy-handed religions. But everything you need to know about what it means to be alive can be found in comedy, particularly of this kind. Comedians are far better prophets because they are deeply flawed, but at least in their quest for laughter to blot out the horrible, they transcend the plodding know-it-all philosophers and gurus to go for the jokes.
So here are some surprisingly profound things that Groundhog Day can teach you about living.
A Consequence-Free Life Would Eventually Become Boring
When Phil first realises he’s living the same day over and over again, he takes advantage of it. He steals, he lies to satisfy his desires, he’s lawless. And it gets boring! Eventually he realises manipulating people to get exactly what you want all the time isn’t that satisfying, and begins to help them instead.
People Make People Better
It isn’t money or stuff or careers or fame or superiority that makes you a better person, it’s giving yourself to something bigger or other than yourself — a person, a cause, an endeavour. Other people make you better! That’s what people are for!
Don’t Try Too Hard
Life requires effort, but more importantly, it requires some degree of sincerity. When Phil courts Rita again and again and again while stuck in the loop, his first efforts at winning her over are 100% fakery, a total act — who among us hasn’t quoted 19th century French poetry or toasted to world peace if that’s what it took to worm our way into the hearts and minds of others? But it isn’t until he taps into something authentic — an actual, honest to goodness appreciation for his fellow man/woman — that he stands a chance in hell at being happy, OR waking up to February 3rd.
We are All in a Prison of Our Own Making
Everyone is living out their own Groundhog Day as we speak. You’re bumping into the same problems, the same issues, the same challenges in most of the situations you’re in, because, well, you’re you. And maybe The Point of why you’re here is to overcome this stuff.
The Only Way Out is Through
Suicide is definitely not an answer (Groundhog Day joke!) – and there is no quick fix through our issues and hangups. We have to face them, take them on individually, one by one, until all the crap is worked out. It can be challenging, tedious even, and yet, so very true.
Love is All You Need
Obvious, but always bears repeating: There is no transcendence like the transcendence of lurv. It soothes what ails you. And that love doesn’t have to be romantic, it could be spiritual: In fact, that seems to be the Big Message many people took from Groundhog Day, an answer to the deep persistent questions wrought by simply being alive. In an interview Harold Ramis, the director of the film and one of its writers, said he’d heard from nearly every religion that the film pinpointed the heart of their beliefs: Christians, Jesuit priests, rabbis, Buddhists and more
In fact, the film has screened for a class on Buddhism at NYU:
Angela Zito, a co-director of the Centre for Religion and Media at New York University, screens the film for students in her Buddhism class. She said that “Groundhog Day” perfectly illustrates the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth that Buddhists regard as suffering that humans must try to escape. “In Mahayana,” she said, “nobody ever imagines they are going to escape samsara until everybody else does. That is why you have bodhisattvas, who reach the brink of nirvana, and stop and come back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the bodhisattva. He is not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released back into the world to save it.”
Harold Ramis may no longer be of this world, and we can only imagine what someone who thought so deeply, and so hilariously, about what it meant to be in it would think about what comes after it.
So, maybe give “Groundhog Day” another view (and if you’re one those very few that haven’t seen it – do yourself a favour). Look a little deeper and you’ll find there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Source: jezebel.com