Yesterday was Groundhog's Day, the holiday where everyone waits with baited breath for a rodent to decide if it saw its shadow, and therefore, whether there will be a long winter, or an early spring.
I don't actually know what happened this year.
But to celebrate the auspicious occasion, we went to my in law's house, and we watched the movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray.
I had forgotten just how great (and even Buddhist) that movie is.
Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, who is quite the self centered jerk, is a reporter sent to cover the groundhog’s day celebration (a holiday that he thinks is ridiculously silly and pointless), but for some unexplained reason, he begins to relive that frustrating day over and over again, forever.
What made the movie especially interesting to me this time through is that Phil seemed to move through many of the stages of an existential crisis. The movie is primarily a comedy, but I think it has a lot to say about finding meaning and purpose in life. Bear with me here.
When Phil first realizes that his actions have no consequences, he immediately experiments with Hedonistic gluttony, then moves through the blind pursuit of sexual pleasure, to greed as he learns to steal with impunity (because he can try over and over again until it works, with no consequences for his failures).
But rather predictably, this doesn't make him happy and Phil becomes depressed. What do you do with an infinity of life? Shallow pleasures are simply not fulfilling when you live the same day over and over again. This is the existential horror expressed by Hindu’s and Buddhists at the thought of Samsara and eternal reincarnation. What good is eternal life anyway? One option of course, is suicide. In this context, why not simply end the cycle of rebirth? But it doesn’t work. To his horror, he wakes up in the same bed, with the same horrible morning alarm music over and over again. No matter what he does. He’s trapped in Samsara, the eternal cycle of rebirth forever.
But the next stage of his existential crisis involved his falling in love. That could have provided a new sense of meaning for Phil, except he can’t win over the woman he loves in a single day. She remembers his past behavior towards her, and he has to start over with any progress the next day. Worse, he comes to realize that in his selfishness, he is simply not worthy of her.
And this is when things begin to change… and he begins a process of self improvement. He studies French Poetry. He initially despised it, and only learned about it to seduce his love interest, but eventually he finds that he likes it. He takes piano lessons. He learns to ice sculpt. And then, finally, he begins to live for others. This is the key.
Knowing what will happen each day, he starts to intervene in ways that make the lives of others better. Instead of mocking the celebration of groundhog’s day, he finds a way to make it inspiring for the other people who enjoy it. He changes a flat tire, he catches a kid who falls from a tree. He tries to save the life of an older homeless man. He saves another man from choking. Then, while dancing with his love interest, he says that whatever comes next, he is “happy now”. He has found a way to live for the moment, and find joy IN that moment, even if he can never escape the eternal cycle, he’s happy.
And this is why he was wrong that having to relive a day means that there are no consequences for his actions. Harmful actions are wrong precisely because they cause harm to others in the moment, regardless of what comes after. Similarly, good actions are good because they cause joy for ourselves and others in that moment. It's true that the future matters as well, and that actions that cause joy now but suffering later can be wrong because of the future effects. But this does not mean that the lack of a future effect robs the present joy or suffering of all meaning.
Compassion, love, and living in the moment have removed his suffering, and made a bad man into a good one.
And now, finally, he is worthy of the woman he loves, and when he falls asleep in her arms, he wakes up the next day, and he is finally free of Samsara. It’s February 3rd, and groundhog’s day is over. But then, like the Bodhisattva, he says that he wants to live in the town he tried so hard to escape from. He loves the people there now. All of them.
And now his life has meaning.
I think this is a rather profound illustration of my own beliefs, and the way that I find meaning and purpose in life, without any need for belief in a god, or heaven, etc. Life is beautiful, because we can be happy, now, in the midst of Samsara. And we can choose to return to Samsara, rather than just seeking an escape from it, because we can find meaning in living a life for others, helping them to escape their own suffering, and finding joy in each moment. I think that compassion, love, relationships, are what makes my life worth living.
I think that Groundhog's day has joined with several other key movies/stories that I believe function as "modern myths", in that they explore or illustrate concepts around the meaning of life in a profound and moving way.
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