Welcome to your Groundhog Day and Hero’s Journey
“When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.”
Is 2020 Groundhog Day?
“Groundhog Day” is a metaphor that has generated a myriad of corona-memes and has long been used as shorthand for monotonous slogs of time that are indistinguishable from one day to the next. It’s not generally a good thing. It’s a complaint. And, indeed, for most of Groundhog Dog, the 1993 movie that spawned the catchphrase, Bill Murray’s character Phil is miserable, both in disposition and mood.
Everything about the film Groundhog Day is brilliant, one of my all-time favorites thanks to great acting, a clever story, and a whip-smart script co-written and directed by the comedic genius Harold Ramis (Stripes, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, etc). Aside from its cult-like following as one of Bill Murray’s best comedies, and a metaphor for intolerable monotony, Groundhog Day is a profoundly spiritual lesson about maturity, acceptance, personal growth, and resilience. Unlike his other comedies (with the exception of Scrooged, another transformation pic), it has more in common with Bill Murray’s not widely seen, and roundly panned, but IMHO superb remake of The Razor’s Edge, a dramatic film based on Somerset Maugham’s 1944 bestseller about a shellshocked WWI veteran who traverses suffering and reflection to rebuild a sense of the world and himself.
At the outset of Groundhog Day, Phil is a cranky, self-absorbed, small town weatherman. For whatever reason, never explained, and it doesn’t matter, he wakes up morning after morning on the same day. The story then follows his psychological and existential transformation, from suspicion, to panic, to insatiability, to apathy, to despair, and ultimately acceptance, curiosity, and generosity, which beget a deep, sustaining joy. As Phil evolves, we see that his state of being miserable had nothing to do with the repetitious days, but rather his own arrogance, lack of connectedness to others, and desire to control what was out of his control. Once he begins to open his mind beyond his own frustration, to the needs of the entire community, he lives a richer and more meaningful life, even if it is the same day after day. Curiosity saves him from wallowing and indulgence.
What can Groundhog Day teach us about ourselves in the covid-19 pandemic? Monotony and boredom do not necessarily mean our mental health has to suffer, though major adjustments in habits, expectations, socialization, travel, work, income, and time management can be uncomfortable, challenging, or downright terrifying. Boredom is often what prompts us to learn to whistle, to wink, and to juggle, build, paint, read, knit, or embark on any number of new endeavors or inventions.
What does monotony do to us if we don’t search for meaning? Is it possible to find meaning in the mundane and repetitive? Ultimately, the question that begs answering is: does our well-being hinge on external or internal factors? Can we be well if we can’t have the freedom we want? Serenity comes from within. For those who are struggling, angry, frustrated, sad, overwhelmed, anxious, you are not alone. This pandemic is asking all of us to dig deep and call on the best within us. We may not answer the call consistently, but we do have that choice.
Groundhog Day and The Razor’s Edge are stories that conform to the arc of the hero’s journey, the formulaic, universal narrative of personal transformation that appeals to the human collective consciousness. The progression of the journey is described by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 anthropological masterpiece, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this study of stories, collected from ancient and modern civilizations, he illuminates the global “monomyth” , a term coined by James Joyce but amplified by Campbell, of the hero’s journey, represented in song, poetry, literature, myth, and religious narratives in nearly every culture on planet Earth. The thousand faces, which are in effect, one hero archetype in many guises, re-enact the plot of a protagonist with a mammoth task, who prevails despite obstacles, aided by a cast of other archetypes: allies, shadows, gatekeepers, mentors, magicians, fools, etc. The victorious return home, discovery of the magic potion or promised land, and other tropes of redemption, benefit both the hero and the larger community.
Healing the inner self saves the world, one grail at a time.
The hero’s journey inspired George Lucas to construct the original Star Wars around Campbell’s delineated stages, which have become the de facto guiding plot points for aspiring screenwriters. The Razor’s Edge was written before The Hero with a Thousand Faces, yet still conforms to its basic shape. That is how innately satisfying and familiar the journey is. Great stories revert to it instinctively, because of its roots in ancient myths, reconstituted for centuries in literature, and deeply resonant in our psyches.
The hero’s journey cannot be undertaken or completed without an impossible challenge. Loss, despair, and hopelessness play their roles too. The loneliness, near madness and morbidly close calls of Ulysess, his survival and ultimate homecoming, the doggedness and growth of Frodo Baggins, the tragedies of Antigone and Hamlet, Arjuna in The Mahabharata, the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts, Kurosawa’s samurai, the morality play of Atticus Finch, Dorothy’s pilgrimage in The Wizard of Oz, ET’s Elliot, Atreyu from The Neverending Story, George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life are all embodiments of the same karmic tale. Every sympathetic character who’s been close to failure, or actually entered the land of death as Phil does repeatedly in Groundhog Day, and yet mastered the impulse to give up, to go on to fulfill a quest — are manifestations of the epic, universal journey.
After the reluctant hero steps out of the familiar (Bye, Kansas! Bye, Shire!), battles ensue, interior and exterior, and are LOST. The hero’s story is built on failure, fatigue, self-doubt, and fear. The quester is dragged through a dark silt of grief and must emerge to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The hero is seduced by the lure of quitting, feels inadequate to the task, but does it anyway. The legends glorify the beset but eventual victor we all dream of being, to grasp the brass ring, the golden fleece, the sword from the stone.
These parables fill us with strong emotions because they appeal to us metaphorically and psychologically, to our profound, primordial subconscious, which preserves the instinct that survival depends on reaching adulthood, and adulthood is mastery of self.
When Phil emerges from his time loop in the Punxsutawney he formerly resented, he exclaims “Let’s live here!” He’s talking about his new headspace, his appreciation for living in the moment and connecting empathically with others. He has journeyed from a selfish and indignant boy to a man. This is the true meaning of the ancient legend — not to empower civilizations to win mythical or other-wordly battles , but to prod and champion the vision quest to human maturity.
As the pandemic restricts our lives, and for too many decimates life itself, those of us working from home are stalled at an impasse of good fortune (I have work — I have a paycheck — I am not in the hospital) and daily Hell (my kid is driving me bonkers — I haven’t seen my family since X — twenty pound weight gain — insomnia). Yet we still possess the agency to choose which mental road to take. Can the first step of our hero’s journey be in a bathrobe eating peanut butter from the jar? Yes. Because we don’t need Gorgons or Sith or Orcs; they are metaphors for our inner obstacles.
Every life is a hero’s journey, some more compelling and victorious than others, but nonetheless universal in the humanity of our struggle, pain, fear, and will to survive. This pandemic and its monotony and suspense (when will it end!?) will bring out the best and the worst in us and more of the former if we let ourselves accept the challenge, pick up the gauntlet, face our monsters, and also, this is the key part (!), press on through the despair and resistance to the other side. We may not be fighting Polyphemus or sirens, but loneliness, or laundry, distance learning or the limits of our own patience, cancer, economic strain, apathy, rage, catatonia; these are the beasts and battles within and without. We are more commonly defeated by the limitations of our maturity, our bad tempers and impetuousness, our destructive impulses and snarky bad moods. These are our Orcs. Fear is a Gorgon. Pride is a Sith. They destroy our friendships, marriages, and careers, and slice open rifts with our children which create real, human trauma.
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
