The episode was okay ─ nothing superb. And I have no idea what we are supposed to take from the closing scene where "Alex finds a note from the future mentioning Mancha and killing Nico before he pockets it so he can join his friends."
The episode was set in 2022, three years after the climactic events of the previous episode.
A six-years-into-the-future (i.e., 2028) version of Alex had come back in time to 2022 because supposedly one or more of the present Runaways was or were going to become 'evil' and inexplicably begin to kill the others.
Only Alex had come back initially, intent on killing all of the present Runaways in order to prevent the killings of the future Runaways. But then Chase came back to try and stop him.
Ultimately, a combination of 2022 Runaways and the two 2028 Runaways return to 2019 to try and change the events of how evil witch Morgan le Fay was defeated because that victory had cost the life of Gerd. As well, the assemblage of future Runaways wanted to ensure that their earlier selves remained united as a family in order to halt the descent of any one of them into 'evil' intentions.
All well and good, I suppose.
However, what annoyed me was how the various future Runaways then accepted that after their successful meddling in the events of 2019, none of them would exist anymore because the 2019 versions of themselves would never make the same choices that they had made over the years.
The future Runaways would all blink out of existence, and they knew it. But they were fine with this, sacrificing themselves so that some new version of themselves would live instead.
That's where I had considerable difficulty.
A study some while back accessed quite a number of Scots who were still living who had filled out a fairly extensive personality questionnaire back in 1947 when they were approximately 14 years old ─ the survivors still willing to be involved in the personality research were now 77 years old.
In other words, 63 years had passed.
This is the final paragraph of the published research:
In this study, we assessed the stability of personality over an interval of 63 years, from adolescence through to older age. We observed that individual differences in personality characteristics in later life were not closely related to the same traits in early life. Controlling rater-group effects did reveal marginally significant and near-significant stability of two of the six assessed personality characteristics at the expense of imposing other assumptions, but results generally indicated very low stability of personality from age 14 to age 77 years. Previous studies have demonstrated that personality is subject to a lifelong series of relatively small changes—particularly in adolescence and early adulthood, but continuing even into older age. As a result of this gradual change, personality can appear relatively stable over short intervals—increasingly so throughout adulthood. However, the longer the interval between two assessments of personality, the weaker the relationship between the two tends to be. Our results suggest that, when the interval is increased to as much as 63 years, there is hardly any relationship at all. If so, personality changes only gradually throughout life, but by older age it may be quite different from personality in childhood. Future studies should focus on developing better understanding of how and why personality changes throughout the life course.Overall, personalities had transformed so much over those 63 years that the 77-year-olds tended to be so markedly different from their 14-year-old selves that they were almost entirely 'new' people.
Or that's my take.
A sourse for the published study is here: Personality Stability From Age 14 to Age 77 Years.
But even after three years, our personalities do have changes, depending upon the events that occur in our lives in that interim.
This is why people grow apart ─ friendships fade, and romances and marriages fail and die. People do not remain the same.
Look at something as simple as a religious conversion. Essentially overnight, a newly-converted personality has profound differences from the former self. So very much so, that converted person is no longer who he or she was.
It can be an extremely radical change.
Ten years ago come November 1st, I suffered an accident that I will call life-changing ─ about three weeks following my 60th birthday, I entirely tore (avulsed) my left leg's quadriceps tendon from my kneecap (patella).
Sometime in the evening of November 5, 2010 I had the surgery to reattach the tendon.
I am a very private person. I have never been able to easily exercise in front of other people ─ I have always been very self-conscious about it.
As a result, I have lost the ability to run. I do not drive, so I have never been able to go anywhere at which I could try and redevelop the ability to run ─ I need to be out of the public eye. I am too ashamed of the spectacle I would present while lacking that privacy.
Yet I was a good runner, apart from cartilage damage that developed over the decades.
I have practically become a shut-in since the 2010 accident and surgery.
Had that accident not have happened, I firmly believe that I would have been quite a different person than I am today who spends many hours every single day sitting at this computer working on one of my half dozen websites and one or both of my two personal blogs.
I had not yet retired that Fall in 2010 ─ I was on vacation leave, using up a large accumulation of credits while I edged toward making that formal declaration, for I had no intention of returning to the job I had grown to hate so much.
The accident actually made available three months of my sick leave credits that were only going to be lost, and those extra three months of paid salary extended my pensionable service. I even accumulated a few more days of vacation credits over the three months of sick leave.
But I entered into my retirement an invalid or cripple.
Had it been otherwise, I know that I would have been a far more active man, pushing myself physically 'out there' instead of placing myself under what has been almost house arrest for these past years.
I am not who I would have been. I am less.
If I was to go back in time to that day of the accident, and meet my former self to warn me of what would befall if I did what resulted in the mishap, the version of me that would exist today would be considerably different from who I am now.
The present me would no longer exist ─ the only way it could remain in existence would be if there are alternate dimensions of ourselves. The me of now would live on, while my self of November 1, 2010 who would not have the mishap would become whomever he was destined to become.
But failing there being other dimensions of ourselves in existence, then the reality I have now would disappear if that accident had somehow been prevented. My whole or accident-free self would have effected all manner of changes here in my home over these past years with my actions and interactions with my wife and my two stepsons, and also my brother.
The dynamics here would have turned out differently than they are today. Better, by far.
These interactions my new self would have enacted upon the others here in my home would have changed each member of them to some degree, as well as our relationships with one another.
Perhaps my wife would even still love and respect me.
But this post is getting out of hand ─ I had no intention of burgeoning into this speculative philosophizing.
All else I will say about The Runaways is that it was not until today that I researched just who the actress was that had the role of Morgan le Fay ─ I had no idea that it was that phenom of superb well-sculpted physical form, Elizabeth Hurley.
She was in her early 50s during the filming.
I wish that I had learned of who she was while my brother and I were still watching the series, but I kept forgetting to find out.
I confess, almost every time there was a close-up of her, my eyes were drawn to that almost supernatural cleavage. I had begun to suspect that her breasts were artificially enhanced for the role as was the case of Sigourney Weaver in the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest, but evidently not! Morgan le Fay was ALL Elizabeth Hurley.
Enough of T.V.
I was into bed last evening shortly after 11:00 p.m., nurturing the hope that I would be able to get away early this morning to make the 5.625-mile round trip hike to do some grocery shopping at the nearest Real Canadian Superstore.
The main purpose was to acquire two litres of Dairyland whipping cream (33% butterfat). No other store comes anywhere near offering whipping cream at their price ─ two one-litre cartons can be had for $3.59 apiece. I am unsure if any supermarket around here sells whipping cream for under $5 a litre anymore ─ and so the planned hike. I am a pensioner with no other income, after all.
I had last stocked up on whipping cream three weeks ago, and only ran out of the cream ─ which I use in my hot caffeinated beverages ─ maybe three days ago.
My brother only buys the weak 10% butterfat phony 'creamers', so I had to make do with that feeble crap ─ my hot beverages always tasted more like mud with his creamer than the sweetly creamed drinks I so much love when I have my whipping cream on hand.
Anyway, it was no more than 3:25 a.m. when I first checked the time overnight, so I rose then to put some work into the post I am developing at one of my six hosted websites.
I wanted to take advantage of The Real Canadian Superstore's hour of dedicated shopping: "Dedicated shopping hours occur 7 am to 8 am every day for those who need it."
This is a special hour for seniors and others who might be more vulnerable to COVID-19.
But to avoid a lineup, I would need to arrive there as soon after opening as possible.
Well, by 5:00 a.m. this morning I was flagging, and beginning to ponder calling off the hike. That trek three weeks ago was in fact the last time I have actually walked anywhere ─ I am losing my endurance for distance walking.
I even began considering that maybe I am going to have to accept that I am physically declining too much now that I am 70 years old, and start accepting my limitations.
I lay down around 5:30 a.m. to try and recover some vigour, but after about 10 minutes I rallied and went downstairs to boil up some water for a stiff, black instant coffee.
Then I began readying.
It may have been something like 6:20 a.m. when I finally set off. The sky was a mix of Sun and cloud.
Along the way I had a cheque to deposit into an ATM for the monthly expenses reconciliation that my brother had passed along to me yesterday, so I made that stop.
By the time I was nearing The Real Canadian Superstore, I checked and saw that it was 7:17 a.m.
I did my little bit of shopping (including a 3-kg pail of creamed honey for $21.98); and then as I exited the store, there had to be as many as 20 people already lined up to be allowed entry into the store ─ one or a few at a time ─ as customers who were already in the store would leave.
This is why I try to get to the store as soon after opening as I can ─ there is no wait.
The trip back home lugging my purchases was punishing, and I was soon talking to myself just as if I was speaking with a travelling companion.
Not a mile from home, it began spitting rain, and that continued for the remainder of my walk.
I was back here by maybe 8:40 a.m. No one else was up, but my younger brother was soon to be.
The toll of the hike quickly exacted itself upon me, and around 9:00 a.m. I returned to bed for 1½ hours. The nap was superb, but I was wretchedly stiff and sore.
I put some further work into that website post after finally fixing up my day's first hot, creamed caffeinated beverage. And then around midday, I decided that I had to try and tackle the scheduled exercising I expected of myself out in the backyard toolshed.
It was a true test. The exercises out there always commence with a set of chin-ups, but I was so painfully stiffened that I was only able to bear a partial bend of my elbows before hanging and then giving up for about 30 seconds.
After that, I could handle the movement. However, I felt overworked and challenged throughout everything that I pitted myself against, but at least I performed the session. This freed me up to finally have my day's first meal.
My brother never sought his afternoon bed rest until maybe 2:00 p.m., and I was hot on his heels in seeking another nap in my own bed. And though I did nap, I was only in bed for an hour or so. I emerged from my bedroom just before my brother did his.
And anon, he drove off for the afternoon.
I fixed up my day's second hot caffeinated beverage and then got to work on this post.
It is now nearing 6:30 p.m., and I am going to call it quits on blogging for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment