All the World's a Stage

You may recognize that from Shakespeare. While I was in the shower a while back, I was inspired to add a little something to this. I recognize that the image of me being in the shower is probably not the most successful way to start off a post in this space, but here’s what came to me:

We all play parts on each other’s stages. Sometimes they’re lead roles, and sometimes minor ones. The minor ones are difficult, because if you’re like me, when you get on a stage, you want to be noticed; you want the critics to write good reviews about you. You’re tempted to overact, to take up more space or time on another’s stage than your role calls for.

That never works. If you’re smart, you know exactly what your role is, and you say the lines you’re given as best you can. Sometimes, you hear your cue to get off – time to leave the stage and maybe go sit in the audience and clap at the end for the stars as they take their curtain call. It’s all about minding your own business (and “business” is one of those fancy terms they use in the theatah, correct?). Chances are, you have bigger roles on other stages, or will have, before your acting career is over.

Those of you who know me may naturally be asking, so WTF (as they say these days) is he talking about? I’m going to have fun with this, hearing your wheels turn, trying to figure out what the situation is -- and knowing that you just might be wrong! But if I told you, you might miss the message here.

Actually, if any of us look over our “credits” objectively, there are probably multiple situations like this in our lives, which are clues to our patterns. I think we all have them, playing similar roles over and over again. That’s a whole ‘nuther program – in fact, I’ve posted about that before.

In the olden days of TV, stations didn’t stay on the air all night, or didn’t have real programming after a certain hour. It might stop at 1 a.m., and they’d either sign off or run a “test pattern” all night, until it was time to start the broadcast day again. When that happened, they usually began with a “sermonette” – a short religious, spiritual or philosophical message, and then launched into regular programming.

So that’s what I’m doing here. Sermonette over -- time to return to Christmas shopping, the Middle East, Pacquiao-Marquez, the Fiscal Cliff…and, of course, the Mayans. Have a great day (and let’s enjoy those we have left, LOL).