I just read an article about the 1987 film "Fatal Attraction." Originally the film ended with Glenn Close (Alex) killing herself with a knife from Michael Douglas' (Dan's) kitchen. Dan gets carted off to jail since Alex successfully made her suicide look like murder. Test audiences hated this ending. They wanted Alex it "get hers," and they wanted more action. The bathroom knife fight, near drowning, and shot to the heart became the ending in final version.
Movie makers, TV producers, even hand cream formulators have test audiences and mall survey takers to help them get it right. The rest of us just muddle along. Even the most cautious human being - the one who uses common sense, does his research, consults an expert, and prays about the outcome - sometimes winds up disappointed. Somewhere down the line we start reflecting and asking, "What if...."
I might speculate about what would have happened if I had chosen the second of two alternatives. What if I had joined the Peace Corps instead of marrying Husband #1? What if I had learned to play the drums in high school instead of accepting my mother's assertion - girls don't play drums? What if I majored in Spanish instead of English? Y si.... Or I might come up with some off the wall stuff. What if I had been born without thumbs? What if I knew what you were going to say before you said it?
There is a whole world of "what if" out there. The aforementioned movie industry has made a lot of what if films. Have you seen "Sliding Doors," "The Family Man," or "Run Lola Run?" Have you heard Jason Derulo's song "What If... ?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qQCx9mxV9g
Marvel has a comic book series called "What If... ?" What if Dagwood Bumstead woke up on Dick Tracy's couch? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_If_(comics)
From 2006 to 2008 a couple named David and Phoebe wrote a blog titled "What If ...."
http://whatiftheydid.blogspot.com/ Why did they stop, and what if they had continued?
Pondering the alternative or engaging in completely fantastic thinking is mostly a waste of time. What's done is done, so live real, and live now. Turn "what if" into "why not." I'm not going to join the Peace Corp, but why not take up the drums?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykEd9YUsjgQ
What if suddenly everything you owned was gone and your spouse's job went away? Well it happened to us last September in the Bastrop Texas Wildfire so we decided to retire and bought an RV and are traveling the U.S. In the end it was just stuff and it was liberating to let it all go and start a new chapter in our lives.
ReplyDeleteMaking lemonade out of lemons - good for you!!
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