Scripts

Disclaimer: This post is random musing on my part and gets into things that you might not find all that interesting. But, read on anyway.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Or so says William Shakespeare in the play As You Like It. Now, if you take the literal meaning of this passage (that we all have roles in life), then this is most definitely true. We all play the part of the son or daughter, mother or father, student or worker, etc. Throughout our life, we will play most, if not all, of these parts and more.

But in another way, when you think just a little more figuratively, Shakespeare sheds light on a fascinating psychological concept. We all play parts in everyday life and therefore we all have scripts in our head. These scripts as a collective we call the ego. Now, the ego has it's place; it tells you what happened yesterday, and therefore what you might need to do tomorrow. But sometimes, the ego can get out of hand. It can perpetuate useless stereotypes about yourself and others: I'm no good; I'll never be as good as him/her; Nobody likes me; I'm not social; I'll never understand this. All these thoughts are logical fallacies (that one's for you Dave) that really hold no value in the present. They're all just part of the "script" that we make up for ourselves.

Now, if we have no choice but to live out these scripts, wouldn't it be a good idea to write our own? To say, "Hey, screw you guys, I'm gonna do what I want!"? That seems to be what the most important figures in history did. Must be something to it.

Obviously, this looks only at the psychological and social factors of life, which is actually made up of psychological, social, physical, and cultural factors. If you don't have a high IQ, uncanny athletic ability, or brown hair, no amount of script writing will change that. But still, since it's one half of the story called life, it's something important to consider.

If anybody out there found this interesting, cool! If not, then at least I entertained you for a brief part of this very long summer. I'm just personally proud that I finally wrote a semi-profound entry.

And Happy Father's Day!