The Movie-Effect
Ep.0 : The start of something requires an end of something
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
-Ferris Bueller’s Day off
Do you ever stop and ask yourself : how did I ever end up like this? Yeah I know, me too. I think we sometimes resent our “fate” for it. We get so caught up in the rat race of life that we aren’t even aware of the amount of things that moves past us. All of the good ones. I was cynical about this idea, always. How does it even make sense that a day that I thought of as bad, really just had alot of things to make me even slightly smile? However, it’s actually true. It perfectly got illustrated in my brain chemistry after the day I watched the movie About Time.
The movie moves about a guy named Tim, who just like all the men in his family, has the ability to time travel ( by means of going back to past, not future). Time machines, capsules or any sorts were not involved in the process of doing so. All it takes is for him to stand in a very dark place with fists tightly closed, squeezing his eyes shut and think of the time he wants to go back to. And Boom! He’s there. He could go about the day since then and this time, look at things differently , do things differently; cause he already knows what happens next.
This ability gave him power to really just ‘fix’ things after a damage is done, literally. He could experience a good moment several times as well. Oh to be Tim, I know. However his ability could only go to the extent of experiencing it all as the way Tim usually would, in his own perspective and mindset. It was only until he realized that the normal days he dreaded at first, could also be lived differently. He would live a day as it is, then go back to that same day and live it again, in a new perspective - slowly, patiently, and finding happiness in small things. It was absolutely baffling to him that how such a bustling busy day would actually seem this joyful, only if lived and looked at slowly. He had no idea of the things he was missing. Just like you, and me.
After a time being he stopped going back to time entirely, and started living his days like he were to live it for the second time- slowly, savouring every moment of it. His soul-less life became more than expensively worth living .
Slow down. Delight in.
As the hot summer air is changing to frequent cool breezes, I can’t help but wonder what this time was like last year. I remember all of it so clearly, I feel them on my skin. It feels like just yesterday when I was fighting the cold wind on New Year’s eve with my friend at 9pm. We were trying to light a sparkler, but it was less of that and more of frustrated laughters and watching the fire from the lighter getting blown off by the wind. The idea of being high on a feeling used to feel strange, but it’s so real. New Year’s Eve is my only favorite occasion, it feels like celebrating the start of a clean slate. Celebrating the start of unknowns. Everywhere around us was fireworks and floating lanterns, it all lit up the dark night sky. I loved it. I hated it too, because I was starting yet another year with my bestfriend being thousands of miles away. Nothing’s fun when I think about that, and I hate it all.
Well, a whole year went away since then, while everything feels the same but nothing’s the same anymore ( Except the bestfriend part). Things changed, people changed, and time just moved past me like a bullet train (electromagnetic bullet train?). I felt stuck through it all.
The idea of slowing down is great, but I think , in life, one can only slow down when they’re doing one of these few things : looking at the sky, watching a baby play, seeing the leaves sway in the breeze, watching a good movie, and doing nothing. I tried all of it, so I can ensure it works hehe.
Subsequently, I discovered that I’m a very nostalgic person. Guess nostalgia isn’t something that comes in you after you’ve experienced the high-school teenage fever, fun college days, graduation, getting married, having kids and yada yada; like they said in the Inside Out 2. I miss it all right the next day.
Yes, it does. : >
I think movies are solely the only thing that made me feel every feeling there is possible to experience. More than that, it taught me. Everything. Everything that I am today, I’m basically raised by movies ( and books too). Ofcourse, major thanks to the downfalls in my life til now. Atleast its making me sagacious heh.
Though, I still wish to be Tim. Do you?