Historically, Groundhog Day is a “holiday” on February 2nd where a designated groundhog will either emerge or stay hidden to either signify an early spring or six more weeks of winter. But if you’re a child of the 90s the first thing that probably springs to mind when you hear Groundhog Day is the classic Bill Murray film. You know, the one where a curmudgeon news reporter is begrudgingly forced to attend Groundhog Day festivities and when he wakes up in the morning he keeps re-living Groundhog Day over and over again for him to change his ways and live it correctly.
At first being trapped in the same day over and over sounds like hell on a hamster wheel, but if you stop to think about it how amazing would it be to be able to revise and eradicate your mistakes. You’d basically have carte blanche to be yourself and make any choice you want because if it’s somehow detrimental to you or those you love it will be expunged in a mere 24 hours.
Such as everything in life there’s an upside and a downside to being able to fix all of our mistakes. In Bill Murray or Phil Conner’s (his character in the film) case the element of surprise is completely eliminated from his life. He knows what song will awaken him on his alarm clock in the morning and even knows the exact moment a bus boy will drop a tray of dishes at the local diner.
If you knew what was coming everyday what would motivate you to live it? As dependent as our culture is on psychics (at least in LA) or preparing for every possible future scenario the monotony of life sounds like too much to bear if everything is always expected. We take for granted those chance encounters and events which some refer to as fate that are unplanned and end up changing our lives. Not to mention the crazy ass butterfly effect that would be going on if we were able to re-live a day to live it to perfection- or whatever our idea of perfection is.
Thanks but no thanks Groundhog Day. While I’m sure some people wish they could re-live their wedding day or another major event I’ll stick to February 2nd as celebrating a furry little guy predicting the weather. Do you think he accounts for global warming?
