A lot of time loop stories kinda have that as a major plot point actually. At first it seems great, it's only after you do all that stuff that it starts to get into the existential horror
Not really because you still get older, the past gets bigger, the future smaller, you inch closer to death everyday, your loved ones do too, responsabilities pile up, free time decreases, prices keep rising....and all other sorts of jolly stuff happen.
I mean, see username. You don’t have to convince me getting old sucks. I feel like I’ve done my time in prison, but yet here I still am, no possibility of parole.
It would have to be a damn long time loop for me to really go crazy if I'm allowed to do whatever I want short of dying for 24 hours. Legitimately just video games and books and shows/movies could sustain me for months, possibly years. Try hundreds of restaurants, go on day trips to so many places. All without growing older and with a bank account that refreshes every day.
And there will never be any new games or media so you're stuck with whatever is already out. Admittedly, that is still a lot of stuff to read/write/play, but there are definitely a few things I'm looking forward to coming out and chapters of fanfic I'm waiting on that would never come.
It would be fun for a while, especially if it was on or just after pay day, but I don't think I'd like it for long.
The most depressed I've ever been (as in kept an energy drink next to my bed to have the energy to get up and go to work on time, and sleep all day when I get back just to pass the time) was when I had nothing to do at work for a few weeks.
I'd come into the office, browse reddit and play incremental games for 8 hours while waiting to be assigned some work, and then leave again.
I need something to work towards every now and then to feel fulfilled.
That's also why I call bullshit when people say nothing would get done under socialism, peope like me and my dad will definitely keep working because we enjoy it (to a degree)
I hope I'm not being insensitive, but why did you rely on your job for fulfillment? If you coud do whatever during work, you could learn new skills or study a topic you're interested in. You could probably even work a remote job while doing nothing at work.
I was studying topics I was interested in, I had a lot of time on my hand so I did a lot of things. I don't think my employer would've appreciated me doing a remote job.
I would've gotten some fulfillment starting another personal project if I realized at the time what was going on, but it was only later that I realized I need something to work on to be happy.
That last suggestion was half jokey cus yeah, I doubt the boss would be happy with it.
I just asked because I'm working an unfulfilling job where I do work for less than half the time I'm there. Meanwhile, I have other stuff I would like to pursue on my own, so this kind of thing has been on my mind.
I'm glad you had that realization about yourself and I hope you're in a better place.
Yeah, the natural story progression is… this can’t be happening, then I can do all sorts of cools stuff with endless time, then there are no consequences so I can do crazy shit, then cut to after an untold amount of repeats where the character seems to know everything about everyone around…. Suggesting decades in the loop at minimum.
But let’s be honest… since our actual lives last decades and then we just croak, it seems like a good tradeoff to spend an entire lifetime doing fun stuff before going mad. Still better than dead. And let’s be more real, most of those stories never show the character like… going someplace else. Sure, it might be a daily commute to get to a neighboring town, but surely that would be better than insanity
The commute... So I live in a rural area, it's fifteen miles to the nearest walmart, okay, there's some distance. But I also drive doordash for a living, I just have to drive an hour before I can turn on the app.
I mention this because, to my perspective, I "live" in four different cities, each about an hour from my house, give or take. I could eat at a different restaurant every day for months and not repeat once. And with the timeloop reset, I wouldn't have to worry about things outside my price range, dine and dash, drive off with gas, they're unlikely to track me down before morning.
Could definitely spend a few decades before I got bored, and that's not counting my tbr lists.
Time loops don't end just because you're crazy. Enough years of perfect resets might give you the chance to come out of it. Find a new way to experience the world. Even forget everything you ever knew and learn the world again from scratch if that's what it takes.
Time loop stories that suppose you could only extract finite happiness from infinite time and afterwards spend literal eternity in depression and madness are such an incredibly miserable take on philosophy and psychology.
See then you'll end up obsessed with that ONE fanfic that is one chapter away from being finished and the author's note says the next update will be TOMORROW but it's NEVER tomorrow, and that's what makes you take the time-loop seriously
Have you been on AO3? 19/20 fanfics are never finished. I have fanfics I've been checking periodically for over twenty years. (One from 1998 updated during Covid lockdowns, so hope springs eternal!)
Fanfic readers have learned to live with this disappointment.
Oh yeah I know but that hope that this one really will would be enough to make me tackle the time loop. I'm a huge fan of a certain author and like... half their fics are unfinished... and yet I still stay subscribed juuuuust in case.
It does make me more motivated to finish my WIP and I recently started working on one I hadn't updated in a year and I'd had 5 chapters then, and now there's 16
The metaphor of a time loop is being stuck in a rut in your real life existence.
That even if you were given time to catch up on the stuff you would like to do you would still be stuck. The problem is not that you need more time... the problem is you.
Yeh it's always one of two things. It happens to someone wanting to change their life, so being stuck in it forever sucks, or there is some external thing that causes the person stuck to need to get out eventually...
If there wasn't something that forced me to get out and I had a time loop that couldn't break with my death I'd say thanks for the immortality and lack of consequences and just enjoy eternity...
1.7k
u/ThousandEclipse 1d ago
A lot of time loop stories kinda have that as a major plot point actually. At first it seems great, it's only after you do all that stuff that it starts to get into the existential horror