Meditations Session 8: All This Has Happened Before
As we choose to reoccupy our command center, we are no longer puppets being jerked around.
This week, we are covering Notebook 10. Beginning March 23rd, we will complete our study of Meditations with Notebooks 11 and 12.
In Meditations 10.27, Marcus wrote, “Constantly bear in mind how everything that’s happening now happened also in the past. Bear in mind too that it will all happen in the future as well—entire plays with the same kinds of scenes, already familiar to you from your experience or from history books.”
The Hays translation of 10.27 is more striking; “To bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before. And will happen again—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging.”
The television series Battlestar Galactica repeatedly used the phrase "all this has happened before; all this will happen again." The borrowing from Marcus telegraphed the end of the series. Many fans were angry, but for me, it was perfect.
(Note: Or perhaps both Marcus and Battlestar Galactica borrowed from Ecclesiastes 1:9)
But perhaps the most remarkable artistic representation of 10.27 came in the romantic comedy movie Groundhog Day. The late great Harold Ramis co-wrote Groundhog Day with Danny Rubin and Ramis directed it. Ramis was also involved as a writer, director, or actor in Ghostbusters, Animal House, and other comedies. While all Ramis’s movies entertain, Groundhog Day stands out for teaching perennial truths.
Ramis was a spiritual seeker, and we wonder if he read Meditations.