One good effect of growing up for me has been acquiring new lenses to look at life with. The standard college ritual is to chill out, watch tons of movies, read books, and enjoy yourself. And I did do a lot of that. Until recently I had a rule of never watching a movie/TV show again . There’s so much to watch! How can I waste time rewatching! I already know the story. I’ve grown older and more enlightened about the matter; and have completely changed my stance . Sure, there’s lot of stuff out there but a lot of it is garbage. Some movies are so great, they’re worth experiencing again. The impression dies off and it’s great to rewatch and experience the emotions again . You can use good movies as solace, as inspiration, as tools of upliftment when you need them.

My other interesting discovery is that rewatching things reveals to you how much you’ve changed. Especially if there’s been a significant gap (5+ years) between the two viewings. Case in point: Scrubs. I watched almost all of it college in 2010 or so. I thought hadn’t finished it so I rewatched it recently in 2019. The difference in experiences was night and day. Take this scene, where Carla (a nurse) is angry that JD (a doctor) treats her like his inferior. The main character JD is shown as a smart, comical, imaginative character, always day-dreaming about things and providing a lot of the comic relief that undergirds the show . Here Carla is crying because she felt betrayed by JD. She thought JD was different, he was finally a doctor who didn’t shit on nurses, and she felt she could be his friend . Unfortunately, with his behaviour, JD proves her wrong and breaks her heart. The first time I watched this scene, that sense of loss, that feeling of betrayal in a strange friendship that was ventured, the power dynamics in the doctor-nurse relationship, and the overall thick emotions in the air as Carla weeps and JDs offers a weak apology were completely lost on me . In fact, I was annoyed at Carla. As an emotionally stunted teen, my reaction was something like “What is up with this cranky bitch, let’s move on the next scene where JD is funny again” . My teaspoon wide emotional range couldn’t process anything other than humour . When I watched the scene again, I felt a veritable cauldron of emotions; anger at JD for not being man enough to offer a sincere apology, a sense of loss for Carla who had her hopes betrayed and finally an engulfing sense of incredulity that my past self had looked past all of this!

And that made me think. Oh Lord! All those books I read until the age of 25 or so, were they in vain? Did I miss all the important subtexts, subtle cues, stories between the lines that weren’t palatable to my emotionally blinded past self? The answer felt like a resounding yes . And ever since I’ve often thought, “oh damn I was so dumb”. But this mild regret is a sign of great progress, isn’t it?

And it’s all the more a reason to watch things again.