Surely a large part of the point of Groundhog Day is that Phil started out as a self-absorbed person, who was genuinely unable to empathize with or appreciate other people.
Being stuck in a small town, he ran through every possible distraction from his emotional isolation relatively quickly. In New York City, for example, he’d have gone a lot more years before becoming bored and suicidal. But in Punxsutawney, he exhausted every pastime that could divert him from his egocentric separation from others.
Eventually he started noticing that other people were more than mere cardboard cutouts decorating his life; he got interested in them as something other than tools for his use. He started craving learning in general: the piano lessons, the medical knowledge, etc.–mainly because these were means of connecting with others.
People who already see others as individuals in their own right (and not as mere objects for use) would, presumably, be less likely to become suicidal if caught in a G.D. loop. There would be frustrations aplenty, but never that sense that ‘there is nothing to do and no reason to go on’.
It helps that I have kind of a leaky memory. I think I’d take a shot at learning to write short stories, maybe very short stories.
Now I’m wondering if it would be possible to mail anything to outside of the loop. I’m guessing not. Too bad. That would be the only reliable way to keep a count of days, for me.
If you were already in a relationship, you would probably figure out ways to convince them of your situation, and check in with them periodically to have them help talk you through wherever you’re at.
If you don’t, unfortunately, you might end up with some crazy person that’s just impressionable enough to take you at your word that you have had an ongoing relationship. It will be unfortunate when/if the loop stops, and you’re still attached to this person, since you’ll have to come to grips with the fact that you were using a crazy for your own goals.
This was sort of the premise of a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Secret Miracle,” written I think around 1950. In it, a Czech (or was it Hungarian?) playwright is being executed by a Nazi firing squad. He asks God for time to finish writing a play he had started, and God gives him a year to do it – time freezes, the bullets in mid-air. He can’t move, just finish writing the play in his head. Just after he perfects the final line of the play, time unfreezes and the bullets kill him.
If God was waiting for me to finish a whole play in my head and remember it all, He’d have a long wait. I think that would make me essentially immortal.
Really? How long do you want to stand paralyzed, tied upright to a post and staring at the bullets that are frozen in mid-air, already on their way to kill you?
Ate at the IUP dining area, sorry. I usually eat at Lily’s diner when there. I’ve never tried Laska’s.
Sorry to disappoint but I definitely did not get trapped into a time loop yesterday at Punxsutawney. I do think it would get pretty boring there pretty fast. They do have a nice bike trail though so that would help.
Laska’s is a Punxsutawney tradition going back to when pizza in that style was sold by Sarah DeFelice starting in the 1950’s. You may have to have grown up on it to like it.
WRT Punxsutawney, there really is fuck-all to do there. Fun and interesting stuff isn’t terribly far away, but Punxsutawney itself is a pretty boring little town.
What I want is not the question. My memory is not up to that. Assuming that paralyzed means I’m not in pain, once I calmed down it would be time for a nap.
After that, sure, I’d take a shot at finishing the play. I wouldn’t want to piss God off or seem ungrateful. But without my notes I’d be screwed.
Maybe I could try doing it in limericks. They’re easier to remember.
Well, in that situation, you know God exists, and is actually paying attention. So I’d imagine most people’s faith quotient would go up dramatically in that situation and wouldn’t be quite so worried about the impending death.
What I want to know is the moral implications of being stuck in that loop are; so let’s say you get bored and start thinking up creative murders. Does it count, if in the next loop, they’re back alive like nothing happened? Same thing for sex, robbery, etc…
Seems like in that set of circumstances that you desired to sin and then completed the act. An outside ageny is hitting the reset button on an unpredictable schedule.
