We all know what it means to move the whole body with one hair, we all know that a butterfly flapping its wings may bring about a tropical storm, we all know the theory of six degrees of separation, and you can change your hairstyle through six people to the other side of the earth. So what if we let life start over?
Or start over from the day Evan and Kelly filmed the tape. We thought Evan and Kelly would live happily ever after, but it turned out that they even killed Tommy and went to prison. From the day they blew up that wife and child, we thought Lanny and Kelly lived happily ever after. Tommy became a gifted student and even became a crippled mother with lung cancer. Or do we want other endings, like Tommy being killed by Lanny, Lanny going to a mental hospital, and Kelly becoming a prostitute? Or did Kelly simply get killed and Evan go to the hospital? We found no happy ending. Evan wants to change the world, wants to be better for himself, Kelly, Tommy Lanny, and everyone, but the result is not just like that, back in the embryo in a nervous breakdown and tightening the umbilical cord by hand. Maybe this is a good ending. Kelly, Tommy, Lanny, and Evan's mother were all doing well, but they even killed themselves.
I believe that everyone once wanted to go back to the past because the past always seemed so beautiful and always seemed so happy. But if you do go back, what are you going to do? you will change it. Maybe go back to the day your parents died and stop them from leaving; maybe go back to the day you failed the college entrance exam and change it. But what is the result? Are you going to end up like Evan and end up with such a ridiculous game?
I am reminded of the "memento" that shocked me at the beginning. I don't have anterograde amnesia, I don't completely forget my life every ten minutes or so. But after reading it, I believe that memory is unreliable and memory can be faked. I thought you killed my wife, but maybe I killed my wife, and then I made myself believe that you killed her and pursued her all my life, or maybe I don't have a wife at all. I just think kill you. The logic is a bit confusing. Maybe you meet 1 million people in your life and no one has anterograde amnesia, but have you ever tried to change your memory?
In fact, to this day, some episodes impress me so that I still can't tell whether I experienced them, just dreamed them, or just made them up on my own. In my mind, I repeatedly used a toothpick to stab a goldfish deeply into the body, and I could even hear the "swoosh" sound of the goldfish being pierced. Is this real or just a fictitious memory that I always thought existed?
When you find that, let alone the people and events around you, even your memory, even your existence as an individual, seems unbelievable, you will feel fear. Maybe Truman in "The Truman Show" has this feeling too. The city that I think I have always lived in is just a huge photo studio; every passenger and every story is set up early in the morning for you to experience. You will be helpless, you will panic. So do you make up memories for yourself like Lenny? Or should I keep going back in time like Evan and want to change the world? But does all this exist? What if a TV suddenly appeared at the end of the story, with yourself on it, and a perfect ending?
In the 1980s, when we watched "Back to the Future," we could get a perfect happy ending. The protagonists lived happily, but now even Snow White has a sequel, and Paul was poisoned to death. "The butterfly effect" How could I even give you a butterfly?
Too many times, we can't choose. Too often we can only deceive ourselves. But does this story of deceiving ourselves give us a beautiful fantasy or just a foreshadowing for ourselves to tighten the umbilical cord?
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