It’s Star Wars opening night; it’s also the night of our choir concert. My wife had to start warning students in October that Star Wars isn’t a valid reason to miss the concert. There are showings literally every 15-30 minutes at our local theater this weekend.
There are two kinds of communal activities we can experience: singular and repeatable.
Singular communal activities, like choral performances, will never come again exactly the same. So many factors come together to create a moment never to be repeated.
Repeatable communal activities, like movies, can be experienced any time – the movie will be the same.
I think people are so starved for group connections that used to be commonplace that they happily substitute movies. Note how many people choose an opening weekend screening. It isn’t the movie that changes from Day 1 to Day 10; it’s the size of the audience – the fleeting sense of being a part of a community.
But these repeatable activities are no substitute for a singular community activity: a choir performance, a play, a family reunion. We have to find our way back to these soul-filling experiences.
A choir concert will fill you up in way that no movie ever will.
Personally, I’m not seeing The Force Awakens until New Year’s Eve. I’m a Star Wars fanatic from way back, but I’m more than willing to wait to change the viewing from repeatable to singular.
By waiting, I get to see it alongside my sons and my little brother. We saw the three prequels together and as kids spent countless hours together in a galaxy far, far away.
Watching it with him makes it unrepeatable and infinitely more valuable to me.