I am Hamlet...

If you are into theater, like I am, it's not a stretch to see yourself as a character in a play, and your life as a long-form theatrical production. It has been said that the great era of tragedy and comedy is long gone. We may still love to delve into, and swim in, the world according to William Shakespeare, but we actually live in the era of Samual Beckett. It's all just bleak, deadpan, comedy. We are infinitely little people; grim & determined clowns, rooting around like little pigs in the gutter of a vast uncaring Universe. We are just killing time until the curtain call.

I'm not sure about that.  We all still face the abyss, the void, the grave, the long goodbye. We live with shit, blood, phlegm, vomit, sweat, and tears. It is up to us to create a coherent & much grander narrative. We can conjure up our own purpose, meaning, magic, love, hate, fear, joy.  We can spin our own intricate webs of shimmering drama. Yes, there is tragedy, yes, there is comedy, these themes hover over and above us; they taunt us, with nearly every step, and every breath. We can aspire to the great & weighty things; unimaginable success and failure at every turn.

We can still see our selves as Hamlet, Lear, Mark Anthony, Romeo, Macbeth.  Sure. Why not? We can live with the tempo of the line: iambic pentameter. We can be poetic in every thing we do, we can see the world as a meaningful drama, overstuffed with panache & poetry. Yes, no doubt. We can. And you know, if I am going to don the Hamlet-mask, my answer to the key, burning, existential question is yes, "To Be!"