I'm working on this idea for a screenplay -- I haven't started writing it yet, I've just been kicking around ideas for it. Pre-writing, I call it. Structuring, contemplating, figuring out what the characters are like and how to show that. This one screenplay in particular centers around a man who's moving backwards in time rather than forward. When you and I go to bed each night, we'll wake up on tomorrow, and in Groundhog's Day, Bill Murry goes to bed each night and wakes up on today...the main character of my screenplay goes to bed each night and wakes up yesterday.
So, I was kicking around ideas for this particular script today, and I'm thinking, one of the inherent problems with a script like this is that we don't care about the problems of any of the characters except the main character. As the audience, we're following him, so we move through time with him. So how do I make this man's wife like-able? Generally speaking, if you want the audience to relate to a character, you give them an obstacle and let them overcome it. But the wife of my main character can't do that. She's aging in reverse. All of her problems are already solved.
So then, in my head, I wrote out this scene. Where the wife comes home with this huge problem. I'm not sure what it is, but she's upset by it and she doesn't know what to do about it. So she vents to her husband -- a man who is not only literally from the future, but has gone through this exact scenario once already. He was there the first time she came home crying about it. He was there to share her pain and help her make a decision on how to react to it. He was there to see the outcome of her response firsthand. And he was there to see the person she grew into as a result of all of it.
The way this scene plays out in my head -- she comes home upset and he listens for a while before finally saying, "Look! I don't care! I've been through this. Do you want to know what you do? You do this. The response is this! Go do it. I know you're upset now, but you get through this. I've seen it. I was there." Now, of course, I'm writing a screenplay here, so the husband can't be perfect and wonderful...he has to be a little insensitive at first, so that he has room to grow by the end of the film. But...it got me thinking. About the nature of God.
In High School, the only novel I was required to read outside of an English class was called Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. It was for Geometry. But to be honest, I think the only reason our teach had us read it is because she was a Christian and she could pretend like the tiny amount of geometry contained in the book was an excuse for us to read a thinly veiled metaphor for humanity's failure to grasp God.
The book follows the life of a circle and explains the 2 dimensional world he lives in, how things work and what it's like to live in a world of only two dimensions. Basically, he sees things only as lines and is unable to fathom the possibility of a third dimension. Until one day he is transported to a 1 dimensional world. Here, he is only able to see things as dots...or rather, one dot on either side of him. Imagine if you lived on a line...what would you see? A dot. This is the one dimensional world. Imagine if you lived on a sheet of paper and could not see above or below the paper -- only towards the contents of the paper. You would see everything as lines of various lengths that would change as you got closer to or further away from them. This is the two dimensional world. Toward the end of the book, the circle is transported to our world and is able to see in three dimensions for the first time and is utterly amazed. Of course he goes home and tells all of his friends about this and they simply believe that he is crazy...as the inhabitants of the 1 dimensional world felt about his world of 2 dimensions.
Like I said...it's a thinly veiled metaphor for our inability to comprehend God.
Many people believe that time is the fourth dimension, as we are only able to travel it in one direction and we have no ability to perceive it or control it. I am inclined to think this is the case, but I'm certainly no expert.
I've heard oh so many sermons and Sunday school lessons on the nature of time and how God exists outside of time. Of course, people are just hypothesizing, but it makes sense. God knows how things were, how they are, and how they will be. Either he can predict the future or He simply exists outside of time. There are so many implications for this, but one that just clicked for me today is this:
If God exists outside of time or knows the future, then holy crap, we must sound so stupid when we get worried about ANYTHING.
Imagine this for a second. You're a time traveller...and not just any time traveller, but one who has already been traveling for quite a long time. You've been through your whole life once already and now you're going back through it again for fun. You've been to the end of your life and you've been to the beginning of it. You've been to the end of your spouse's life and the beginning of it. You've even observed them and walked with them from childhood, just to get to know them a little better. You know the end of their story and your own as well as your mutual story. And you've been through your children's lives and their children (your grandchildren) and on and on for generations. You've seen the end of the world. You've seen all the new technologies rise up and then be replaced. You've seen the future. And now you're back here in the present. And your spouse comes home one day and is freaking out about what to do over some dilemma. Let's say it's even a pretty major dilemma -- their mother has just died and as a result, in order to settle the debt she was in at the time of her death (which was substantial), they are going to take away your home. So you're spouse, with good reason, is kind of freaking out. Now, if you've already seen how this thing plays out, doesn't that seem trivial? For them, it's a question of what's going to happen. Will my life continue? Will I lose everything? For you...it's just part of the story.
You know how on House or Grey's Anatomy or every other medical show ever invented, the patients have these bizarro, crazy illnesses? Or something ridiculously bad happens to them -- the kinds of things that never happen in real life? They do that because they want it to feel dramatic for you. And if something is realistic on television, it will never compare to the drama felt in your own life. Because we've watched enough TV and movies to know...it all works out in the end. Always. Even if it's a "sad ending" it's always tied up in a neat little bow. Unless it's the Coen Brothers. And we've gotten used to that, and the only way to trick us into thinking otherwise is to raise those stakes to ridiculous levels.
When you know the end of the story already, the middle never seems as scary or dramatic. No horror flick is as scary the second time you watch it.
So when I whine or complain or struggle to understand what the heck is going on in my life, I just look like an idiot...because I'm whining and complaining and worrying to someone who's not only seen this movie already, He's capable of fathoming the results of every single possibility I could possibly try out. It's not just like having already read the book. The book is a choose your own adventure and he's read up on every single possibility.
My life seems pretty small right now. And I hope I continue to feel that way. I'm stupid most of the time. And narcissistic and petty and shallow. I want success. I want it now. And I'm frustrated that I haven't found it yet.
Jesus said to observe the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and to be like them. Because they don't worry about the future. He said to let tomorrow worry about itself.
The Sunscreen Song says: "Don't worry. Or know that worrying is about as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum."
There's no use worrying. Tomorrow might not even happen. There's only one person that does know for sure. And I for one am going to do my best to stop looking like quite such an epic idiot when I talk to Him.
