The favorite part of being a literature graduate is the appreciation you have for plays. I would love a good play even over prose (and definitely over poetry)! There’s beauty in the way a play is written, structured, and most importantly interpreted. The onus almost always is onto the structure of the play more than anyone else.
Years ago, I did a funny thing — I mapped out my life (I was 29 then) in acts. Something like this:
Act 1, Scene 1: Birth, infancy, and being the only son to my parents
Act 1, Scene 2: Being the eldest son, a brat, and a jealous brother
Act 1, Scene 3: A pathetic student, obsessed with Cricket, and reckless in general
You get the idea, don’t you? I was thinking more in lines of life in general. As with plays, it’s got a start, middle, and an end with acts and scenes in the middle of it. And as with most plays, nothing interesting really happens in the scenes of the first act. Besides the occasional drama (perhaps, tragedy some times) or humor everything seems to so slow, meaningless, and even boring at times!
And then suddenly, you see things beginning to catch steam, you’re achieving success, realize you’ve got a long way to go before you can live a fulfilled life, experimenting with things that give you joy, and experiencing your childhood again through your own children. Before you know it, you’re 35 years old and understand that you’re at the tail-end of Act 2, Scene 1. Literally, a few more acts before the curtains fall down. For good.
Yes, I know, it feels so unfair to be experiencing all that momentum something you’ve really worked for all your life, only to realize that you’ve already reached the middle of the road and there’s only so much further you can go! But all that brooding wouldn’t help, would it? The big question worth our time and attention are the following:
- What the hell are you going to dictate the remaining Acts and Scenes of your life?
- What are you not happy with and what would you like to change?
- What characters would you want to have in this play?
What Act and Scene are you in right now? And what needs to happen to make your lifetime an all-time best play ever?