04/18/2025
When Do We Move On?
The passage of time. How do we experience it as an individual? At what point do we accept that something is in the past and move on?
I remember the first time I watched A Ghost Story. I hated it and saw nothing special about it. I had graduated high school only a couple years before, and I still had the attachment to it. So I think that I wasn't in the right headspace to truly grasp the themes in the movie. I didn't want to move on. I didn't want to let go of the time I spent there or in school in general. Whether I was afraid of having to become a new person or afraid of not knowing who I could be without the structure of school, I'm not sure.
Once I had stopped going to every school event and everyone that I knew had graduated as well, I began to let go of it. I can't really pinpoint when that happened though, and I think that's where A Ghost Story hit me so hard when I watched it a few years later. There was something about not knowing exactly what made the main character move on that resonated with me. I feel that there is nothing that he could have read or showed us that would be as meaningful. I think that we ourselves are not sure about when the thing happens that makes us move on, or what specific event makes us move on.
The main character dies in a car accident and is stuck in limbo because he does not want to move on from his life with his significant other. I could see how powerful the need to still be a part of something that isn't available to you anymore. In the heavy scene where his significant other sits on the kitchen floor and eats an entire pie for five minutes, the main character just stands there and watches. He is unable to interact with her or even be there for her. He chooses to watch her grieve because something is still holding him there.
He then begins to experience time on a level that we cannot. He sees her move on and move out of the house while he is still trapped there for centuries as the world evolves around him. There is something holding him there, something he cannot identify or explain. The director portrays this feeling with a note that the significant other left in the trim molding of a door in their house. The significant other says that she moved around a lot when she was younger and would leave notes so that if she ever came back, there would be a piece of her waiting. Our main character's feeling that is holding him there lies in that note.
This movie is a depiction of how we experience time and how we deal with change. Although we may not know it, we get trapped in parts of our past just as the main character did, unable to know what exactly will force us to move on. Another theme that we see is grief. His significant other truly experiences it, and he watches it all.
There is something about this film that makes me feel an eerie comfort. I think it is because it shows us something that we experience daily that we are unable to describe or even visualize. I could not tell you the thing that made me move on from my years in school. I could not even tell you the thing that was keeping me there. Maybe it was the comfort in the known.
I think part of me was just trying to make sure I wasn't forgotten. I have always had this desire or craving to be someone that everyone remembers. As I have gotten older, I realized that in a thousand years, if the world even makes it that much longer, no one is going to remember pretty much anyone in my life. Why should I keep holding onto that feeling of wanting to be something that might get me remembered for a couple years after my death?
No matter how significant of a difference someone makes, something new will come along and it will eventually be forgotten. As we continue to create and mass produce, nothing is sacred here. We do not know how time works and we only experience it linearly. We regret things we have done in the past, and that creates problems for us in the future. I don't think that as humans we can ever truly move on. I think somewhere in our subconscious, we are stuck in the past. The only thing that is certain is death, it comes for us all.
I want to leave this off with a dialogue that happens in the movie that some people like and some people don't, but I think it was very close to an incredible conversation:
"We build our legacy one piece at a time. Maybe the world remembers us, maybe just a few people. We write books, create songs, share stories, all in an effort to leave something behind. Kids remember their parents, families remember their roots. Beethoven composed his symphony, and for now, we still listen. But eventually, that continuity breaks. Generations pass. Natural disasters strike. Volcanoes erupt, tectonic plates shift, and societies fall. Humanity shrinks. Survivors move to higher ground, and civilization collapses. We become scavengers and hunters again. Yet even in that chaos, someone might hum a melody, and it could stir something in another person, a feeling beyond fear, hunger, or hate. That’s how hope endures, how rebuilding begins. Maybe someone finishes the book. Maybe someone paints again. Maybe fragments of our culture are carried to another world. But time continues. Earth will die when the sun expands and swallows it. Humanity might escape, or it might not. Either way, it all ends. The universe will eventually stretch until every atom is torn apart. Then everything collapses into a single speck. So yes, you can write that book, sing that song, build your dream home. But eventually, it will all disappear. The pages will burn, the music will stop. Nothing you leave behind will matter more than planting a fence post, or fu***ng. Which, in the end, is probably about the same thing, trying to leave a mark, however brief."
Now this quote is incredibly pessimistic, but when you really think about why you want to leave a legacy or an impact, it makes you think about time in a different way. You don't think about it in the span of your measly 70ish years you have here. You think about just how long things could go on and how fast humans have evolved and learned.
In the grand scheme of things, you will die, and things created in your lifetime will be forgotten. So at the end of the day, what really matters? Why should you even try to do anything? Why should you finish writing that book? Is it because you are grasping to the chance of fame? Why does it matter when it will be short-lived and forgotten in a hundred years?
To me, I have chosen to believe in a higher power. I wouldn't say that I am religious but more spiritual. I do not try to convince other people to believe because I am not the best example of your everyday "Christian." I think the main reason is that the religion has been taken over by people who don't act as the Bible teaches, rather pointing out everyone's flaws while they have their own.
I see myself as someone who is aware of my own flaws and sins, and I don't try to tell people to ask for forgiveness because then I would just be pointing out their sins when I sin every day. I have a personal relationship with God, and I think that is what I should be focusing on rather than the things of this world. Now I am by no means someone to look up to or admire, but I try to be the person that God wants me to be. Every day I fail because I cannot let go of that thing, that feeling, that is holding me to this world.
I guess I'm just waiting to find my own "note" that will release me from this world.
