‘Well, if it is really happening, then I guess you’re the lucky one. It’s the rest of us that are stuck.’
Rita Hanson, Groundhog Day: The Musical
Tomorrow is an auspicious day. Tomorrow, we leap.
It takes the Earth one year and 0.2423 days to finish a full lap of the sun. So close. Over centuries, 0.2423 of a day will stack up to be whole weeks, whole months! And that would not do. Leap Day is an arbitrary, quadrennial “intercalary adjustment” that keeps our (also arbitrary) calendars in the right seasonal place. We leap to keep Jacarandas from blooming in July, we leap to keep bushfires out of the ski season. The 29th of February is a totally made up and yet completely real bonus day. A pocket dimension.
It’s in this kind of weird, wonderful, wibbly wobbly timey wimey world that Time Loop movies thrive—e.g. Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Russian Doll, Palm Springs. In these stories, an initially flawed character will be somehow trapped in an infinitely repeating day where, no matter what happens, they always wake up where they began. Suffering ensues. Insanity is induced. The main character will look oblivion right in its infinite eye, and then go through some kind of horrific, titanic, romantically comedic struggle just to discover how to be a better person. It’s a hassle.
I am eager to avoid said hassle—especially with the auspicious pocket dimension that is Leap Day coming at us quick. To prepare, I’ve studied cliches and tropes of the genre and pulled together this short list of lessons that must be learned in order to escape a Time Loop. If you find yourself stuck in an infinitely repeating day this 29th of February, all you need to do is re-read this email and self-actualise with haste.
1. Develop a working knowledge of quantum physics
Pretty heavy for number one, sorry. Bear with me. A core stage of the Time Loop is denial, where the main character rails against the logical and temporal impossibility of their infinite loop. With unlimited time at hand, and extreme boredom on the cards, characters will eventually go nuts and hit the books in a funny, high octane montage—they might even stagger around with Einstein hair for a few loops, or mutter hot streaming nonsense about harmonic oscillation to their barista.
Often in the scene directly after they have finally ‘cracked’ quantum physics, the character will realise that quantum physics is a waste of time. It can’t help them escape. It doesn’t help them really understand, either. From this we are to learn that the wealth of human knowledge is, when push really comes to shove, apparently ultimately pointless. Only once they discover this will the looped character find peace. This seems like a long run up just to get to “peace”, but you have to have a working knowledge of a thing in order to know that it isn’t worth knowing. You know?
2. Learn when to duck
A textbook, slapstick, riotously funny trope of the Time Loop genre is that, in the beginning stages of the infinite loop, the main character gets hit in the head a lot. LOL. The fact that they get clobbered in the same way in the same place at the same time is actually often foundational evidence that they are indeed caught in a time loop. Poleaxed by identical planks of wood multiple mornings in a row? Hang on a minute. More first degree burn from a familiarly fumbled cup of coffee? Something strange is going on. Smashed in the nards, again, by that same damn errant soccer ball? I must be in a time loop!
Later in the movie, we will see the protagonist dodge these same recurring bumps and spills with grace. With a knowing smile and choreographed cool. The key to ducking at the right time turns out to be to really engage with your loop, to accept and absorb and observe. The lesson for us is that by empathising with the people around you, being in tune with the rhythms of the physical universe, and always being ready to hit the deck, you too can minimise your risk of concussion.
3. Crisis, what crisis?
There comes a time in every Time Loop where the protagonist decides that nothing that they say or do matters—that there are no lasting consequences for their actions and therefore no meaning in their life. They’ll walk around without pants on. They’ll drive recklessly on icy highways. Since the day always resets, they start to feel like they’re in a video game with infinite lives and that there’s no point to anything and they might as well go crazy.
This is a relatable feeling in our dimension. What Time Loop movies try so hard to teach us is that existential crises are not only a gift, they are a necessary part of the journey. After a challenging, nihilistic middle period, the looped character will have a revelation late in the third act—they will realise that each of their infinite days is exactly as good as they decide to make it. Cue triumphant orchestral swells! Cue montages of acts of kindness, of getting the whole diner keeled over with laughter, of running hands through running streams!
Easier said than done when the next door neighbour’s yappy cocker spaniel starts letting it rip at 5:30 in the morning before the frickin sun is even up—but still. The lesson is that on the other side of an existential crisis is joy. Freedom. Bliss in every atom.
4. Love will set you free
The real conceit of Time Loop movies is that they need a love interest to be watchable—the format would be horrifying without romance and comedy and light music and witty leads and a fun supernatural twist on the will-they-won’t-they dynamic. It is often this love that actually helps the character escape their loop, especially when it’s for a strong-willed, fundamentally kind person who isn’t won over by tricks or cheating. Time Looped characters start their movies selfish, ungrateful. Love chills them out! Warms them up! It makes them compassionate and humble and suddenly by the third act they’re a good person!
This lesson is not unique to Time Loop movies, but it’s an important box to tick. Love will set you free. It doesn’t need to be romantic love, just love love. Love for a tractor. Love of the spring breeze. Love and be loved and your prison becomes a paradise. You get the idea.
5. It’s the rest of us that are stuck
Time Loops are just a fanciful metaphor for mundanity. Routine. Day after day of waking up and going to work and drifting through the big and little motions of life unconscious. It can be easy for our default setting to be: I am the centre of the world. It can be easy to feel: My immediate needs and feelings should determine the world's priorities.
The Time Loop offers salvation. A chance for flawed people to really deeply (eternally) reflect on themselves and their approach to being alive. When they stop to pay attention, when they embrace their loop and genuinely care about the people inside it, every single day becomes rich. Packed. Bursting at the seams with the things that matter, on fire with the same forces that lit the stars: love, kindness, and the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
We’re all stuck in loops of some kind. The same conversations. The same day at work. But Time Loop escape strategies still work in the real world—embrace the absurdity, do interesting things, love and be loved, and you will find meaning. Live every single day like it’s your first and your last. Like it’s your only day. This is very hard to do all the time. Impossible to do all the time, in fact, when the neighbours have a yappy cocker spaniel. But once every four years, on the 29th of February, an auspicious day lands in our laps. A special circumstance. A pocket dimension. A totally made up, and yet completely real, bonus day.
Why loop you can leap?
Thought provoking. Showing my age here but there is a lot of interesting stuff on internet re the quote "Crisis? What Crisis?" in UK politics. Often attributed to then prime minister Jim Callaghan but actually a headline in a Murdoch paper.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/921524.stm
Thanks Gus,
Very entertaining as always.
And also insightful and motivational!