Twilight Zone: The Changing of the Guard

[Rocketboy1313]

Was the book, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" a rip off of this story?

https://sfdebris.com/videos/twilightzone/tzs3e37.php

The idea of Your life flashing before your eyes before you die is a common refrain but I kind of prefer this idea. Rather than seeing your own perspective again you instead see the impact you had on others, the ripples caused by the stone of your existence.
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/151229.html

[Thebestoftherest]

It is good.

[JL_Stinger]

Strange to see Donald Pleasance with hair and a big beard.

It's a neat idea for an episode. I think there is a twist of sorts: that the ghosts that come to him are students who all died young because of him, except they did so in service of greater causes, often heroically.

If you teach for awhile and you're good at it, you will end up encountering former students who will sing your praises. I saw this from knowing some volunteers who were retired local teachers.

That said, it can often be hard, especially but not only as an educator, to tell whether you're actually having an impact and making a difference. Whether you have indeed justified your existence and your efforts.

I had been recently thinking of the parable about the boy throwing starfish back into the ocean after a storm. "It mattered to that one" he says.

It raises a philosophical question: if he can't save them all, how many is he morally obligated to try to save? As many as he can - to do his best? But what does that even mean? Until his arm gets tired, or until he can't physically throw them anymore? What if he has to go to school? Can he stop when the sun goes down? What if he can't throw them far enough and the waves are just washing most, or all, of them back up on the beach rendering his efforts truly futile? How many does he have to throw back to be a good person, to be justified in feeling good about himself, before he can deserve to sleep soundly at night?

The greedy man never has enough money. But there are other men who will likewise never know "enough" because they will always be consumed by the feeling they should have done more. I guess you could say the greedy and the selfless are both looking for the same thing: a peace of mind money can't buy.

How many ghosts had to visit Donald Pleasance before he justify putting the revolver down?

[Nightbeat74]

i am admittedly not someone who enjoys watching the twilight zone ((HAIRESY)) , i just find it too scary a lot of times , but that said i do appreciate what it has done for sci fi/horror anthology and there are a few eps that i will sit down and watch. they are of course mostly the "lighter and softer"ones, this story is now one of them. thank you chuck and whomever suggested it .

[cdrood]

I've never seen this one, somehow. I do agree that some of the best ones are the simpler, life affirming episodes where it's a more of a brush with the Twilight Zone rather than full immersion. Serling did a very good job of keeping the show balanced because the heavier morality pieces could get really draining after a time. The format was really fluid and allowed for a lot of variation.

[Ixthos]

Strange to see Donald Pleasance with hair and a big beard.

It's a neat idea for an episode. I think there is a twist of sorts: that the ghosts that come to him are students who all died young because of him, except they did so in service of greater causes, often heroically.

If you teach for awhile and you're good at it, you will end up encountering former students who will sing your praises. I saw this from knowing some volunteers who were retired local teachers.

That said, it can often be hard, especially but not only as an educator, to tell whether you're actually having an impact and making a difference. Whether you have indeed justified your existence and your efforts.

I had been recently thinking of the parable about the boy throwing starfish back into the ocean after a storm. "It mattered to that one" he says.

It raises a philosophical question: if he can't save them all, how many is he morally obligated to try to save? As many as he can - to do his best? But what does that even mean? Until his arm gets tired, or until he can't physically throw them anymore? What if he has to go to school? Can he stop when the sun goes down? What if he can't throw them far enough and the waves are just washing most, or all, of them back up on the beach rendering his efforts truly futile? How many does he have to throw back to be a good person, to be justified in feeling good about himself, before he can deserve to sleep soundly at night?

The greedy man never has enough money. But there are other men who will likewise never know "enough" because they will always be consumed by the feeling they should have done more. I guess you could say the greedy and the selfless are both looking for the same thing: a peace of mind money can't buy.

How many ghosts had to visit Donald Pleasance before he justify putting the revolver down?

Mentioning the star thrower reminded me that I made a post on reddit a while back, which I will reproduce here, addressing someone elses concerns in the Christian subreddit that they felt guilty not funnelling all their effort and money into helping others.

This is my advice, not God's, so I urge you to pray on this and seek the scriptures - do not worry, but do everything you can to use what you have to help those around you. If everyone in the world put all their money together to help the poor, there would still be poor - Jesus said there would always be the poor. But anyone who doesn't at least try to help, in the local or global areas, has no love inside them. You can't save every starfish - do you know that story? Of a man by the beach, throwing starfish into the sea because the tide was going out and they would die, and someone approached him and asked him why he was bothering because no matter how many he saved still more would die. And the man said, maybe, but I can make a difference for this starfish, and this one, and this one ... Yet at the end of the day the man still had to go home, and still sat down and drank some water. Was he a hypocrite for stopping before his body collapsed and he died of hunger and thirst, letting so many starfish die while he now relaxed after only saving some? Yet by stopping, relaxing, and drinking some water - water the starfish themselves needed - he was able to then go out the next day and save some more. There are physical needs and emotional needs and spiritual needs for the body - to rest is not a crime, and to spend a little money on yourself, or have money spent on you, is not a crime, if it satisfies an emotional hunger, and allows you the peace of mind to then be able to spend your energy helping the poor. It isn't a mistake to spend some money on yourself or have money spent for you if that becomes an investment for you to help others later, so long as you do help others later. To enjoy yourself is not a crime - God wants you to have a full and rich life, and in that richness of life - not money or influence or power, but richness in joy and peace and good works - to be able to help others.

That is an extract from the conversation, and to clarify if there is any ambiguity my argument isn't that spending money or effort or time on yourself rather than others is good only that it is impossible to spend all your money or effort and time on others without eventually finding yourself unable to go on, and so a little rest or a little break, etc. are good in order to continue doing good.

In the end while it might feel like trying to absolve yourself, there will never be a last starfish to throw into the ocean, and it isn't about the one who is throwing the starfish back into the ocean's conscience, but about him doing everything he can to help as many as he can. Do the best you are able and then trust in God for the rest.

How many ghosts need to visit Donald Pleasance before he puts the revolver down? As many as are needed until he can infer that there are still more he may have helped in lesser or greater ways. Even one should have been enough, but the rest drive home that it wasn't just one, or two, or three, or four. He doesn't need to have moved mountains, only to have helped tie the shoes of someone else who would later do so. And, ultimately, he never should be satisfied with only helping those he has already helped - he should, until he dies, keep striving to build up others, even when he feels himself on his deathbed, because it isn't about the work that you have done, but about the work you have done AND the work you are still doing. You should never stop and say my work is done until you are ready to die, but you can be reminded that your work hasn't been in vane.