About Time

A few days ago, while watching the actually-not-so-bad About Time movie, I was yet again reminded of this wonderful (American?) custom of kissing a girl at 00.00 in New Year's Eve. In Portugal we have a different custom: to eat twelve horrible raisins.

We can despise the Americans for many things. but they sure know how to get their holiday traditions straight. Certainly a beautiful girl's lips taste better than that dreadful fruit. Unless, perhaps, if she has just eaten two handful of them. We undoubtedly love to "learn" and copy things from others, not just Americans. It's about time we start adopting the good stuff.

Back to the movie, if you've watched the trailer you might have noticed the tagline. If you could relive any moment... could you make life perfect? The question, besides somewhat summarising the film's main theme, is quite interesting. If we could. what actions would we undo, what words would we take back? Or rather, would we take action where we stood still and say the words left unspoken?

Sometimes people say they've done something and never looked back, in the sense that they are sure of having made the right choice. I, perhaps unfortunately, do not find myself amongst those ranks. I tend to look back again and again, until I am so much further down the road I can no longer see where it began. This is not, however, necessarily a sad process. There are those things which, when brough back from our sea of memories, always manage to make us smile.

Of course there are many thngs that we would like to have done differently. Still, going back to "fix" them would ruin some of the magic that surrounds our lives, very much like over-planned vacations. There must always be room for the unexpected, the unknown, the mistake. Could you make life perfect by relieving any moment you'd wish?  It's a trick question. What is perfection anyway?


Filipe Baptista de Morais