A funny thing happened to me today, and I’ve experienced it twice now so I sense a pattern developing.

Twice now I’ve read books where the narrator is … flawed, in some way.  In a way that says, “Wow, society could chew this person up and spit him out.”  On the inside?  The narrator in both cases is a sweetheart, perfectly innocent, seeing the best in everyone, and ready to help whoever might need him. In other words, the perfect victim.

Here’s the thing, though.  I read both these books with an overwhelming sense of trepidation, always waiting for the tragedy to fall.  One is a young adult story (it was very popular, you may even know which one I’m talking about by now) and whenever a bigger kid entered the scene I would turn each page thinking, “He’s going to get beat up he’s going to get beat up he’s going to get beat up…” preparing myself for the inevitable.  But it never came.  In both cases, I reached the end and the tragedy never came. Both had happy endings.

Here’s the thing, though. I’m disappointed by that.  It’s not that I was looking forward to something horrible happening. On the contrary, it practically made me nauseous waiting for it to happen.  But when both books ended with a happily ever after I did not find myself thinking, “Yay! The world is a happy place sometimes!”  Instead, I end up thinking something more along the lines of, “I’m disappointed that the author chose to ignore that sometimes reality is unpleasant.”

I have to attribute that kind of thinking to years of studying Shakespeare’s tragedies. I’ve had debates with people about whether the comedies or tragedies are more entertaining/enjoyable.  Plenty of folks would rather go home on a song and dance number, not on the death of the hero and everyone he loved.  Not me. I think that’s just too contrived.  It’s kind of like a chicken and egg problem, the audience wants the happy ending, so you give them the happy ending.  Which came first? I like it when the audience wants the happy ending and you deliver despair, and then it gets interesting because then they have to face things they wouldn’t normally choose to face. That, to me, is where the value is. That is how you continue to grow as a person by constantly examining the places you don’t want to go, instead of staying in the light.

Is that depressing?

(Having said all that I’m well aware that if you asked me my favorite play I would say The Tempest, and part of my argument for that is precisely for the happily ever after ending.  But I know why that is. That is for my kids.  For me, personally, I’m ok with facing unpleasant reality and pondering how I deal with it. For my kids? I’m ok with them getting happy endings for as long as I can help it happen.)

I just finished Start with Why by Simon Sinek, a book I’ve seen recommended many times over the years but I finally got around to reading (well, listening to).  The premise is so basic that I’m honestly surprised he got an entire book out of it.

It goes something like this – to succeed in business (and, by extension, in life) do not focus on what you are doing, and how you are doing it, but why you are doing it.

I guess some folks need that spelled out? I thought that was kind of obvious, it’s called being authentic and having personal integrity, isn’t it?  If I tell you that I’m promoting a product because it will make your life better, I should actually believe that, I shouldn’t just be saying that because my marketing tests have shown that the phrasing “make your life better” converts higher than the comparable “improves your life”.

I don’t read books like this and think about my day job. I’m out of most of the decision-making in that area.  No, I read books like this and think about Shakespeare.  What do I do? I run a Shakespeare blog, trying to generate some degree of reputation on the subject, and occasionally attempt to turn it into a side hustle.  How? By creating merchandise based on the original content we generate here, and by writing in a way that I feel presents the material in an approachable way to an audience not necessarily already being served.

What do I do? I run a Shakespeare blog, trying to generate some degree of reputation on the subject, and occasionally attempt to turn it into a side hustle.  How? By creating merchandise based on the original content we generate here, and by writing in a way that I feel presents the material in an approachable way to an audience not necessarily already being served.

How? By creating merchandise based on the original content we generate here, and by writing in a way that I feel presents the material in an approachable way to an audience not necessarily already being served.

Why?  See, I think there’s two answers here.  One answer is, “Because I want more Shakespeare in the world. I want to walk down the street and see people with Shakespeare quotes on their t-shirts, or tattoos, or reading a Shakespeare-related book at the beach.”  Why? Because I immediately feel a bond with that fellow human being, and that makes me happy.  I immediately think of those people as smarter and more philosophically in touch with the universe, and that raises my standard toward the whole human race just a little bit.  The more I get to experience that, the more optimistic I am about the people I haven’t met yet.

Or, “Because everybody wants to make more money.”  Why? It’s not necessarily the amount of dollars, though that does help.  It’s the direct connection to the process that does it for me. The feeling that I made the decisions (see above!), that whether or not the money comes in is based on things that I find important. Why? Because money means there’s something tangible at stake. You put money into these things, and hope to get more money back in return. That signifies success. Why? Because for people to spend money because of the value they find in something that I created, it means that what is important to me is also important to them. That makes me happy, because that means that I am adding value to the world.

What about you? Why do you Shakespeare?

 

 

We recently discovered that a family friend has cancer. Luckily (happily? thankfully? not sure what the word is to use there) it is a reasonably treatable one with a life expectancy measured in decades.  But, you know.  Still.

That got me thinking. If her husband asked me over a beer, “So, what’s Shakespeare got to say about this?” I don’t know how I’d answer. For years I have spoken about finding the answers in the works of Shakespeare, how the entirety of human experience and emotion can be found within the pages.  “If you’ve ever felt it,” I bet you could find me saying, “Shakespeare wrote about it.”

Pretty sure Shakespeare never mentioned cancer.

So let’s talk about it.  I’m trying to think of places where a character is ill and not going to get better. Or perhaps a more reasonable comparison might be, “Knows that he is going to die before his time and there’s nothing left to do about it but contemplate what that means.” What about the characters around them?  The woman I’m thinking of is a wife and mother.  The journey they’ve been put on isn’t just for her and her husband, her kids are part of it as well.

Technically there’s the king in All’s Well That Ends Well, but that doesn’t really count – he gets better.

Hamlet is really one long contemplation on what life is all about, but it’s not really what this post is about.  Hamlet’s father’s murder is not the same thing – being taken suddenly is not the same as having a long time to prepare for it coming.  I suppose if we had Polonius or Ophelia say a single word about what happened to Ophelia’s mother, there could have been something there.

The Winter’s Tale?  I don’t have time to go through the text right now but if Leontes believes his wife to be dead, taken from him before her time, doesn’t he have some thoughts on the subject? True she ends up coming back to him, but at the time he thinks she’s gone forever.

Are there no examples of a sick character? Surely the idea of, “You are sick, and you are only going to get worse until you finally die” was a thing in Shakespeare’s time, regardless of the name they attached to it.  Did Shakespeare give us any characters in that situation? I suppose in a time of plague that was a pretty depressing topic, but he mentions it in places like Romeo and Juliet so it’s not like the subject was totally off limits.

Getting back to the original premise, I’m open to discussion on the idea.  If a friend of yours was suddenly confronted with their own impending mortality (or that of a loved one), what comfort can Shakespeare offer?