Yesterday my brain started playing the Sliding Doors game. In Peter Horwitt's film, Gwyneth Paltrow's character lives out two different possible realities with the principle difference being that in one she made it on the metro train after being fired from her job, and in the other reality she does not.As you can notice from my blog postings I've been a little extra busy lately, largely because of moving to a new city, with a new job, and doing new things. Yet I have to believe my life would have been totally different if certain decisions and interactions had not occured.
Namely, before enrolling in my first semester classes almost a decade ago I noticed a sign for a campus organization that met on Monday nights, I thought I might be interested in checking out the organization once school started, but I was about to sign up for monday night astronomy class and changed my schedule as I walked over to the library to insert my course choices.
My first week of school I debated about whether I would go to that first monday night meeting, and interestingly enough the people in the room that night changed my life forever, namely, by many of them becoming good friends, roommates, etc.
But one of those people in the room, a senior, forced my involvement in that group, became the connection point for my first job out of college, and is now my boss.
Hum? Glad someone posted a sign that I saw on the way to registering for classes, if not it all might be different right now.
Related Tags: potential realities, gwyneth paltrow, peter howitt, sliding doors, college
7 comments:
Sliding Doors is one of my ALL time favorite movies! I love the way it makes you think about the small "chances" in life!
I also love how even the smallest, most insignificant events can change/set the course of your entire life! (Such as, the birth of a particular baby boy...)
That was an incredible movie! One of the few where I think Gwyneth was pretty brilliant. Who was the guy actor that played opposite her? I haven't seen him in anything since. Reminds me of David Straithairn a bit.
The guy opposite her is John Hannah http://imdb.com/name/nm0001314/
I really haven't seen him in anything else.
John Hannah might be best known as one of the gay guys in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), though he also played Rachel Weisz's brother in The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001).
FWIW, an even better recent film that explored these "what if" questions, in my opinion, was Run Lola Run (1998), which shows how an incident in a stairwell can produce three different outcomes -- and not only for the main character, but for all the people she bumps into afterwards.
That film, in turn, was inspired by Blind Chance (1981), a film directed by Krsyzstof Kieslowski, who is best known now for the Three Colours: Blue, White, Red trilogy (1993-1994). Blind Chance also shows a man running through a train station, and his life spinning in three different directions based on whether or not he catches the train.
FWIW, I wrote an article on some of these films a few years ago -- I don't think it exists online for free any more, but you can buy a copy here.
you know it's funny. the other day I had a sliding doors moment too.... remembering how I befriended this dorky looking kid from Denver...
the question is, rc, is your life now the good life or the bad life. been a while since I've seen the movie, and as I recall the good life went bad at the end, and the bad life didn't end that bad after all... what's your alternate universe life?
irunabookstore
oh it's definitly the good life...
I do wonder who made the sign, but kind of scared to find out.
I can't believe you quoted a Gwyneth Paltrow movie as a life event. If you had a man card before, you should now completely destroy it.
Sheri loves this movie, it's all you need to know :)
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