S(cheik)spearean Thoughts

I can't remember writing about this before, but I know for a fact that I've talked to a multitude of people about it, because I find it really interesting, and definitely one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry/theatre ever written.

Macbeth, or the Scottish play, by Shakespeare, is probably the only one of his plays that I've read, front to back, without being able to put it down. It captured me from the beginning and I could not stop. Everything spoke to me, I didn't even need to look up words because it just made sense. The reason I read it in the first place was because of an assignment in school where we had been given an extract from one of the title person's monologues. And it went like this:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Spoken by one of the most villainous characters in Shakespeare's works, in a moment when of great sorrow, when has just learned that his wife has died, in the context of the play it's a pretty dark passage. No wonder, I'd be pretty desperate in this situation too.

But as a "stand alone piece", this for me, changed my life.

I'm going to break it down to why;

We're always worried about our future, even though we know NOTHING about how it's going to turn out, no matter how much mediums and other charlatans claim that they can read. Days creep, because we can't stop time and it's the only "certainty" that we have. Tomorrow we WILL have a new day. 24 hours is a long time, now times 7 for a week, and times another 52 for a year, times another 81 for your expected life time, now that's a lot of hours to fill, and time will keep going, even after we're gone. How amazing is that?

All the people that have come before us, they have experienced the same flow of time, even though life expectancy has radically increased in the last 100 years. And they have made it possible for US to be exactly where we are. You have to be a fool to be alive, otherwise you'll just get depressed about the immenseness of it all. Death comes when death comes, and the imagery of the candle is a beautiful metaphor. We're born like a spark, grow and live like a flame, die when we're blown out, but the memory of us linger like the smoke.

Think about it, if life is an actor, who desperately tries to get the audience going, and you only have a mere hour to do so, make sure you do the performance of a lifetime, woo the audience, trick them into your world and make them spellbound by your spectacle. YOU and no one else, knows your strengths, your weaknesses and how to best manipulate them to your advantage. YOU are the idiot, telling the story, so make it amusing, sad, full of sound and fury, because in the end, life signifies nothing, if you make nothing out of it. Well. Not entirely true, because no matter what, your life will have had an impact on the people around you, and will have an impact on future generations, because of the choices YOU have made in this life.

It's pure life advice signed Shakespeare that will ALWAYS be applicable and current.

How will you fill your day?

Don't be a stranger! Loves