Journeys of choice and self-determination
In Groundhog Day, the classic film starring Bill Murray, every morning begins with the same radio alarm clock message: same weather outlook, clean slate for Bill’s karma. Each day provides a new chance to “get it right” with his life.
You can also think of the time loop operating on the next level by watching the film multiple times. Each iteration gives new insights, and new details come to light. The time loops in Groundhog Day are not merely circular, but spiral, representing a progression of consciousness, awareness, and learning with each successive repetition. In the end the newsman does learn humility and grace, and gets the girl.
In the memoir My Generation, the journey to adulthood (giving rise to the next generation) is configured as a spiral progression, a serial process of engagement and disengagement with each milieu. The process repeats itself within each phase in seven stages, and the overall progression follows the same seven-stage pattern writ larger—like a fractal. Yet with each chapter the narrator approaches closer to his dream of a meaningful, sustainable lifestyle.
The adventure tale Rendezvous is built with time loops but on a different model. The original image for this story construction was the old British Navy whip, the “cat o’ nine tails,” nine whips (tales) in one. These plot variations are not merely layered repetitions, but divergent timelines, alternate futures that begin the same but wind up in different disastrous cul-de-sacs. The mechanism for departure, as in the Groundhog Day film, also involves the repetition of daybreak, but also uses a nighttime dream-box with seven doors to provide the entry points for the choice of scenarios.
Read My Generation: A Memoir of the Baby Boom
Read Rendezvous: A Time-Loop Adventure (also see the Interactive Edition!)
