Today is Groundhog Day. It’s an occasion to meditate on where you are and where you’re going.
For most people, Groundhog Day merely represents Bill Murray at his finest. No harm in that. But even if we just stick to the movie, you don’t have to be a Buddhist, Christian or Hindu to sense the existential themes underpinning the plot: karma, dharma, purgatory, redemption, rebirth, nirvana, grace. Every religion is, at its core, an escape plan from Groundhog Day.
Sure, Groundhog Day can be depressing. You wake up and look about and say, My God, I’m still here. How am I still here, still doing this, after all these years, after all these decades, after all this eternity?
Don’t worry if that’s you, because that’s everybody. We’re all thrashing around on that hamster wheel of samsara. Few escape it.1 Those who do either die in obscurity or get religions named after them.
The rest of us, meanwhile, are stuck in jail, whether that takes the form of riding around in a Ferris Wheel, running around a track, circling around a Monopoly board, or turning upon ourselves like an ouroboros. That last one always ends badly.
Yes, you will always wake up to the same day, until one day you won’t. If there’s anything in your control, it’s what you do with those days while you still have them. And if you’re feeling stuck, take the sensible advice that Anne Lammott’s father gave her brother when he was overwhelmed by a school project about birds: “Just take it bird by bird.”
For those, on the other hand, who want to go full ham, there’s only one time-tested way to do it. The Beatles knew how. Tolstoy knew how. Jesus knew how. All you need is love. But to do that right (like Jesus) and not just as a poser (like much of his flock) you must become a Jedi. Unlikely, but worth aspiring to, no doubt.
This piece has no destination, which seems appropriate today. It also seems relevant that I now offer you the same fable I posted exactly one year ago about Sisyphus and the Groundhog.
The Fable of Sisyphus & the Groundhog
*Today, February 2nd, is Groundhog Day, which stems from a Pennsylvania Dutch superstition: on this day, if a groundhog sees its shadow upon emerging from its burrow, it will return below ground and there will be six more weeks of winter; if it sees no shadow, spring will come early.
But I already read that tale, you protest. Yes, that’s exactly the point. That’s also the same sun in the sky that rises each day. And that’s the same you that wakes up. What matters is what you do with that sun.
And, more to the point, what you do with that you.
Not quite true. Nobody escapes samsara. Some just embrace it better than others.
In the sunshine of your love, please be kind to groundhogs and other life forms.
I loved the movie, and there have been other worthwhile time loops since, such as 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children', 'Source Code' and 'Edge of Tomorrow'. Then there are special offbeat gems such as 'The Endless' (2017), 'Palm Springs' and 'Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes'. I'm looking forward to watching 'River', the sequel to the latter.