Lines Fom A Movie
Whenever I hear or think the phrase, “What a waste of time” or “That’s just a big waste of time”, my mind occasionally brings up lines from one or both of two movies that I have watched. The first is in the movie, “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. The basic premise of the movie is that Bill Murray, who begins the movie as an egocentric jerk, gets stuck in a time warp and is forced to re-live the same day over and over again. During his time in this time warp he attempts to seduce his co-employee Andie MacDowell. As he is wining and dining her over dinner in a restaurant, he is feigning interest in the various aspects of her life. During this charade he asks her what she majored in during college. She answers that it was nineteenth century French poetry. Murray can’t help himself and starts derisively laughing saying, “What an incredible waste of time”. The other movie line comes from the movie, “Middle of the Night” starring Frederic March and Kim Novak. In this movie March plays a successful businessman and lonely widower in his early 60’s who begins a romance with Novak, his secretary who is in her late 20’s. Almost everyone around March (family, friends, etc.) strongly disapproves of this romance, especially his daughter and his sister. One day as March is struggling as to how to proceed, his business partner, who is stuck in a loveless marriage, counsels him to follow his heart. If the romance does not last, then so be it, he says to March. The business partner, named Walter Lockman in the movie, disparages his own life for not doing so and during the conversation says to March, “You know what they’re going to put on my tombstone – Here Lies Walter Lockman – This Was A Big Waste of Time”.
The Post-Death Life Review
There are times when I reflect upon my own lifetime thus far and wonder if that is what is going to be inscribed on my tombstone when I die. In my mind I observe my many successful positive manifestations as well as my numerous failures and flaws. I observe the minor miracles I have gratefully been privileged to experience as well as the stupid blunders I have made. I review my life as a son, a grandson, a brother, a father, a spouse, an employee, a friend, a businessman, a neighbor and so on. As I review my life now, during my lifetime, I look it as a kind of rehearsal for the big enchalada life review that will take place when my spirit exits the body at death and moves on. I will be looking at successful opportunities and missed opportunities…intuition followed and intuition ignored…productive use of my alloted time and time thoroughly wasted on trivial matters…keen perception and total lack of perception. To manifest a reality in these final few years of my life that will give that life review movie a happy ending is the one focus of my remaining time now.
And Yet, If You Have Breath, You Have Hope
As I was formulating the idea I wanted to convey in this post, I was led to this quote from the author Alexander Solzhenitsyn from the book, “The Gulag Archipelago” – “There is nothing that so assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one’s own transgressions, errors, mistakes.” With these last ten years or so, it is my heart’s desire to take full advantage of all oppprtunities, to explicitly follow my intuition, to use my precious time on things that matter and to continually sharpen my perception. Will I succeed? I sure hope so. How about you? Every day of life, regardless of whatever current circumstances which you find yourself in, is a new lifetime, with new opportunities. If you have breath, you have hope. Even in the midst of the prison gulag hellhole, at the end of one day in his life, Ivan Denisovich could say to himself – “All in all, it was a good day”. With that sixteen or so hours that you have to work with each day, put everything you have into whatever it is that you are doing, wherever you happen to be. Everything. Then at night go to sleep “living in the end” in your Imagination. It is your choice. It always has been. It always will be. And by your choice, the shape and texture and substance of your life is sculpted.