Ridiculous Opinions #211
You like that subtitle there? I’m a poet. A good one. I coined that phrase. Those words have never been uttered in that order in the English language.
It is Saturday morning and the first week of school is now over. It was a good start to the year and hopefully that will continue. Today I’d like to talk about the impermanence of existence.
What?
A heavy topic for a newsletter? Sure.
It all stems from a television show, ladies and gentlemen. There was a show (which shall remain nameless) that I absolutely LOVED last year. It consisted of, I believe, eight of the most succinct, well-told stories that could have been on television. Every single episode…every single character…every piece of filmmaking…all of it came together in the most interesting way to create a season of television that was one for the books. It was a good story, told in a spectacular way.
Along comes the second season of the show. We rewatched the first season before we watched the second season and on the second rewatch, we were astounded at how well the first season held up to a second viewing. It was wonderful. So, it was with great excitement that we began the second season.
And it was terrible.
We watched the first three episodes of the second season and then stopped. It was bad. All of the compelling characters were no longer compelling. The intricate web of storylines no longer held my interest. The filmmaking, which was so spectacular the first season, was now just a pale imitation of the first season. Any sense of logic and character was lost. We abandoned the show after three episodes, but then forced our way through the last few this week. It did not get any better.
How could something go so wrong so quickly? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s kind of a metaphor for life in general, isn’t it? That inability to rely on things that are beautiful to remain beautiful?
This, of course, set me down a path to thinking about my current relationship to entertainment in general. I hated the new Indiana Jones movie. The Marvel Universe is but an echo of the fun it used to be. My favorite band is now set to play a residency in Las Vegas where they are playing their best album from 30 years ago as the centerpiece of the show. Beauty is fleeting. Those things that are good shouldn’t be good forever.
And it speaks to the nature of change and what change means. When we watch a good season of television, we want every season to be just as good. When we watch a good movie, we want every movie to be just as good. When we hear a beautiful piece of music for the first time, we want to experience that feeling every time we hear it.
But that’s just not the case. That high we get from experience does not last. But we are junkies and we want to experience that feeling over and over, even though we know there will be diminishing returns. We want things to be permanent and we want to enjoy those permanent things the same way every time. That’s not the way it works.
I learned this through being an international teacher. Mr. G has a reputation at the school. One would expect that reputation to live past you; that when you leave a school, people would still be talking about Mr. G. But the minute I leave a school, the reputation of Mr. G leaves with me. The students leave. No one remembers me at the Lincoln Community School or at Shanghai Community International School or at Shanghai American School or at the American International School of Dhaka. There’s not even a trace of me at those schools. It’s disturbing that you put that work in and are then forgotten.
But that’s also what is glorious about it. The knowledge that we are but impermanent beings should free us to enjoy every moment in which we live and should lower our expectations about the future. This moment…right now…is all there is and it is glorious. Enjoy it.
So, this tv show…remember? I was talking about a tv show…this tv show was spectacular for one season. The second season was awful. But the fault here lies with me in that I expected it to live up to ridiculous expectations. I should have enjoyed what I had (though I still can).
However, I’m still a little mad about it.
But what this all leads me to is the notion that I..we…need to seek out new things and stop trying to live off the high of what we used to experience. Watch new tv shows. Listen to new music. Have new adventures. There’s a lot more out there to do and a billion new things to experience. We should all be so lucky to continue the experiment.
I don’t really know what point I was trying to make here, but it’s what I’m thinking about on a Saturday morning. Now, I will go draw a Maurice cartoon and continue my day.
