Charade and masquerade
by Bob on April 25, 2008
One wonders about life. Especially how real one is and how real others are.
Shakespeare said all the world's a stage and we are all but actors on a stage, and he meant in real life. And that, of course, was written in his play "As You Like It".
But many times one feels one is unreal. And that everything sensible and intangible is a cruel charade and a masquerade. And we can't see behind the masks of anyone, nor they ours.
It seems that we are almost forced into playing roles on the stage of life, of other people's invention and connivance. We easily also become a prisoner of other people's perceptions of us and how we are and should be in their eyes.
This makes life confusing, for we hardly ever know who anyone really is, let alone ourselves. And the admonition of the Pythagoreans was to "Know Thyself" firstly which is a very hard task if Shakespeare is right about the world being a stage.
Scholars have said the internet, which adds a whole new dimension to the perceptual problem, is the biggest role playing game in the world, which would make old Will Shakespeare quite giggly and yet sardonic about this modern age of emoticons.
The Who sang a great rock song called "Who Are You?" which besides being a great pun on their band's name, which was also a great pun on an English phrase, wherein the song truly asked in great 1960s fashion, well, just who are you ?
I hesitate to think we have any answer for them yet.
Another stratagem was evinced by Woody Allen's ostensible 1983 comedy film "Zelig", which really was a dark comedy at best if not a metaphysical experiement with being a chameleon: always blending in to the extent of ostentatious deception yet innocently so for Zelig it would seem. This film was amplified by his later film in 1985, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" wherein a film character from the screen jumps into real life into the audience and into our reality.
So we are still left with charades and masquerades and the question posed by the band: "Who Are You?".
And there's no easy answer. Despite bar codes and smart id cards.