TIME WASTER

Time is defined as the indefinite progress of existence. What if you felt that there was no progress in your personal life? Would time, relative to you, stand still? Or perhaps you feel that you don’t have enough time to do all the things you need to do and could benefit from more time? Do you sometimes have the desire to repeat an experience so that you can make different choices?

A time loop or a temporal loop is a common plot device used in science fiction in which time runs normally for a set period and then skips back to repeat what has gone before. Most of the characters in a time loop forget all that has happened as their memories are also reset. The central character, however, (who is to be eventually transformed by this time loop) retains their memory and is aware of having to repeat the same experiences over and over again. The mythological tale of Sisyphus is one of the first recorded times this loop appears. For a crime against the gods, the specifics of which are variously recorded, Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity at hard labour. He was to push a great boulder to the top of a hill. This was eternally frustrating because every time Sisyphus managed to get the boulder to the summit the huge rock rolled right back down again.

The best known example of this device used in film is the 1993 comedy, Groundhog Day. In the movie, actor Bill Murray plays Phil, an arrogant weather forecaster who spends the night in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he is to do a broadcast the next day about the annual ritual of the coming out of the groundhog. If the animal sees its shadow it is said to portend six weeks more of winter weather. Phil wakes up the next morning, does his story and is annoyed to discover that he is trapped in Punxsutawney for a second night because of a snowstorm that comes in after the groundhog ceremony. When Phil awakens the next morning, he thinks he is experiencing déjà vu. In reality, he is experiencing the same day all over again. As Phil relives the same Groundhog Day over and over again, he goes through a myriad of highs and lows.
Stories with time loops commonly centre on correcting past mistakes or on getting a character to recognize some key truth; only when this truth is known can escape from the loop follow. In Groundhog Day Phil is given opportunity after opportunity to get the day "right". Since no other character in the film remembers having lived this day before, he can relive it knowing more about what will happen than the previous time. After reliving the same day hundreds of times, Phil finally learns how to live it perfectly.

At first Phil responds with bewilderment, believing that he has a serious case of déjà vu. Then he despairs in the hopelessness of it all and gorges on food. Then, knowing that nothing he does has any consequences he begins to use the information he gains about others to his own advantage. Then he tries a myriad of ways to kill himself. As the days pass endlessly, over an over, into the same day, Phil finally figures out a constructive response: he begins to live his life on this day allotted to him to its fullest. He takes piano lessons, he learns how to sculpt ice, he becomes generous with everything he has because, he knows, he will still have it tomorrow. His final lesson is an encounter with death. When an old vagrant dies, Phil cannot accept the death at first and tries to be good and save the old man by feeding him and keeping him warm. To no avail. The old man still dies. When Phil finally stops trying to control death his final defences are broken and his compassion is extended to those who are living. He now is transformed and the day that was originally a kind of hell becomes a kind of freedom. For, having accepted the true conditions of life, having given up trying to use the weather forecast, by human or groundhog, to control events, he no longer fears life's travails.

How long this takes is open to discussion. Harold Ramis, the film’s director, states on the DVD audio commentary that he believes 10 years passes. However, a few years later, Ramis is quoted to have said: "I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years".


Groundhog Day allows us to experience what it would be like to make a breakthrough like this in our own lives. Here is a character who is self-absorbed and isolated who finds himself adrift in the hands of fate. Most of us go through our days semi-comatose, yet he has the luxury of being forced to stop, reflect and treat each day like an entire lifetime.

The phrase “Groundhog Day” has become a shorthand illustration for the concept of spiritual transcendence. The film can undoubtedly be considered a tale of self-improvement: look inside yourself and realize that the only satisfaction in life comes from turning outward and concerning yourself with others rather than concentrating solely on your own wants and desires. The film has been described as a film about Zen and is a favourite of Buddhists because they see its themes of selflessness and rebirth in accord with their own spiritual message. The transformation in the movie is a fictional counterpoint to a universal experience: A confrontation with death and an acceptance of the circumstances of life will lead to freedom of the self and a greater enjoyment of life.