Thoughts: On things that have run their course

What do you do with a thing that has run its course?
Say, your favourite film. It’s really awesome. And it runs for exactly 135 minutes. You don’t want it to end because you are so much in love with the characters. You are not satisfied. But the film is over. It will always be one hundred and thirty five minutes long. Not one hundred and thirty six minutes. Just one hundred and thirty five minutes. And there is also not going to be a sequel. It is over for good.
Now, what you felt during those first 135 minutes when you watched the film for the first time in the dark theatre, or on your laptop at 3 am in the night, or wherever, you are not going to feel those exact same emotions ever again. You can rewatch the movie but you know the beats, you know the twists. Yes, it gives a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is your comfort watch. You keep watching the film enough, you become one of those dreadful things called fanboys, and soon, you are in a cult where you discover that if a character’s dialogue at the 83rd minute is played in reverse, he is predicting that the world will end in 2053 in Portuguese.
Real-life examples of such unhealthy obsession with movies are the Fight Club fans who shave their heads and march the streets for white pride. Or the guys who think they are living in a Matrix. (There is actually a subreddit for the Matrix fellows and I was once a part of that. I shan’t speak no more.)
Now, you are still you but replace the movie with a person. And I will repeat my opening sentence: What do you do with a thing that has run its course?
You accept that what’s dead is dead. And all good things end and even all bad things do. The Black Death took its time but it ended. So did the World Wars. And the Twilight movies. Everything has to end. Those are the rules.
And all ends have their pros and cons. Cons are something you cannot do much about. If a thing is semi-fucked, you can still salvage it. If it’s fully fucked and beyond repair, it’s important for you to realise and accept that it’s beyond saving. (I love the phrase “irreconcilable differences.” This phrase cannot be more perfect. It’s complete and pristine and untouchable for another hundred years.)
But the pros, you can work on.
So, if your favourite movie is over, or if your favourite show is no more (Hello! Bring Dunder Mifflin back! Also, Utopia [It’s a British series, please check it out] and another mystery set in Carcosa, please, Nic Pizzolatto?), or if your favourite band disbanded (Rage Against The Machine… sigh), or if your favourite writer died, it’s not the end of the world.
You gave a part of your heart and life to an entity and got a life-altering experience in exchange. As the entity ceases to exist in your life, you, now rejuvenated by all that you learnt and felt should now move on to get different experiences. I mean, you don’t want to become one of those Fight Club-quoting Nazi weirdos, do you?
What was is over, sure, no doubt, and it feels bad. Sometimes, you can feel in your heart, strongly, like it’s about to implode, as if it’s not just a book or movie or TV show we are talking about but a real-life, flesh-and-blood person.
But don’t forget, you are still here. That’s all that counts. And what happens from here on is up to you. So, good luck to both of us.
