Time
is described as a repeating circle, which is nothing new. In Nietzsche, "eternal return" is such a ring. Eternal return refers to the eternal return of the same, and the same refers to the difference itself. Because as far as ontology is concerned, if the ontology exists, it must be an idea that cannot be exhausted, and only differences cannot be exhausted. In this way, eternal return is the continuous unfolding and realization of difference-difference, difference, and difference. Nothing is really the same, this is a world of vastly different, there are no two identical leaves in the world. In this sense, only the difference itself is what is truly repeated, and what is truly identical. This movie also shows the concept of time: Although Phil’s day is repeated, the day of the groundhog that is repeated is also inherently different. Even if it seems to always wake up in the same bed, always meet the same people on the street, and always encounter the same things, at least he can make some changes with his free will. He can choose different meals, choose to associate with different women, choose to help others, and even choose not to step on the puddle on the street.
Because he was trapped in this repetitive day, no matter what he did-suicide, stealing, helping others... he couldn't get rid of this predicament, so he seemed to have a kind of continuous exploration and exhausting time. Possibility of possibility. The model of time was visually constructed as an inverted cone by Henri Bergson. In this cone, almost all of the cone was occupied in the past, but now it is the apex of the cone that can be regarded as infinitely small. Is not it? Aristotle thought in detail in the fourth chapter of "Physics": We can't grasp the present, because once we realize the present, the present is already in the past. We can only grasp the present retrospectively, and grasp it only after it has disappeared. This paradox of time determines that mankind's grasp of time can only be grasped of the past, so the past is almost the entire cone, and now there is almost no trace to be found. But can we grasp the past? Isn't it gone?
Gilles Deleuze tells us: It does not actually disappear, but is self-preserved in a potential state. If time is a crystal, just like a diamond, then the present is a flash of light, and the past is the dark side that is absorbed and incorporated after the light has passed. But aren't diamonds sparkling? Yes, but it can't be refracted on all sides, it will become pure light, bright and blind your dog's eyes. As the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima has given us, humans cannot withstand this intense light. It will disintegrate the eyes and become liquid and flow down like water. In the same way, we can't bear the pure past, pure memory, our memory always has to be based on a lot of forgetting. We may be able to treat memory and forgetting as muscle contraction and expansion. Without muscle contraction, there can be no muscle expansion, and without forgetting, there can be no memory. In the movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008), it is described that the villain wanted to possess the wisdom of aliens because of greed, and as a result he could not bear such a huge amount of knowledge and memory. The whole head exploded. If the past can be transformed into an experience and memory, how can we endure the entire past? In fact, we can only explore a part of the past, and only have partial memories of the past. The brain is not only a container, it is also a filter. We have to select images of the world. This is a passive behavior. I am not the subject at all, and I cannot control all situations. Bergson reveals very deeply: Without our inability, we simply don't have any ability. Lao Tzu has long understood this truth: inaction is a prerequisite for doing something, and doing something can be done afterwards.
Love
love, there are at least two words can express. One is friendship love, non-objective, non-possessive love, just like the hero's name, Phil, the prefix of the word "friend". In the ancient Greek tradition, philosophy is the love of wisdom (sophia). The love for wisdom is this: not to possess wisdom, but to follow wisdom and be friends with wisdom. Therefore, philosophy is philosophy. Fanying, cinephilia, is not going to own the film, but obsessed with the film, and making friends with the film.
Therefore, love in this movie not only means Phil's pursuit of Rita, but also means a rediscovery of time. In this movie, love is used as the only way to escape repetition. The director has given love such an important role, and we have to re-examine love, an ethical event in our daily lives. After experiencing countless repetitions and frustrations, Phil realized that Rita was the person he really loved, and began to pursue her. During this process, he gradually overcame his own vices, reshaped the Three Views, and began to become caring. A man's transformation from selfishness to helping others signifies a transformation from self-centered to other-centered.
From the beginning, he thought it was boring to interview the groundhog to get out of the hole, because this was Phil's conclusion based on his own experience. He thinks encountering beautiful Nancy is an exciting thing, because Phil thinks that everything doesn't matter, how good it is to be cynical. He even imagined: If the repeated day was the day when he met a certain style girl on a certain beach, how great it would be! However, the days that were repeated were the most boring days in his opinion. Nothing happened, everything was trivial and unbearable. As time beyond human beings, what can happen in it? What happens is always beyond our expectation, such as there is no hot water in the bathroom halter; or something we don’t even notice and don’t want to care about, such as the old beggar on the street corner. Frozen to the street? To measure the world with self-centeredness, we will not know this. Everything is fleeting, whether it is opportunity or time, of course it is for your own sake first, who cares about it? Time contains all the possibilities and all the secrets. Only in the process of repeated Groundhog Day did Phil slowly begin to understand and slowly surpass himself.
Psychoanalysis tells us that the ego is just an illusion that has to exist. Without this illusion, we will fall into madness and cannot live. Because our desire is always the desire for the Big Other, and the Big Other is just an endless linguistic order and chain of desires. As the little ruffian in Yang Dechang's movie "Mahjong" told us: No one in this world really knows what they want, so I will tell you what you want. "Mahjong" is a tragic story, because the little ruffian intends to represent the big other, playing a kind of dominance and manipulation function similar to God. But true love is not to dominate and manipulate, but to love others. Levinas developed a set of theories about the other after Heidegger, where the self is mutually constituted with the other, and the other is more important in the ontological sense. The ego must be unconditionally and absolutely open to the other: the other, please come, I pray that you will come on me and make me me.
If you use the ancient Chinese yin-yang diagram to describe this relationship, I think it’s no longer appropriate: yang in yin, yin in yang, me in you, and you in me. In the yin and yang picture, between the self and the other, a constantly moving and wandering line separates the yin and yang, you and me. This is a line of war, a border, and we are in hand-to-hand contact with each other here.
Loving others means getting out of the fog of oneself and respecting others absolutely.
Loving fate means taking on one's own mission.
To love time means to endure the mediocrity, to discover the extraordinary in the mediocrity, and to discover the new in the true sense when nothing happens.
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