Booth

Humanity, war, theatre...enjoy

   Of all our skills as a race, all of our crafts; and our arts, none is so refined as that of theatre.  There are arts more noble; more intrinsicly subtle, but none have we worked drier than this product of our deep seeded need to recant, miscant, and uncant our story: the human story.  We treat the world as a stage, and though we are merely players our struggle for a sense of protaganistic justification can be seen on the pages of any history book.  Our melodrama splashing crimson on pages upon pages of humanity.  In peace, and in war: that great climax of social narrative.

    We make speaches and flourishing poetry towards the cause of stopping that climax, bringing peace, and deluding ourselves.  We say it is natural, but it is not: peace is a novel concept, not some forgotten rose left behind by people long gone.  We assume it comes from corruption; this lost solace, from the seeds of evil laid amungst us: from jealousy, from gluttony, from spite.  We beleive our humanity comes from peace and thoughtfullness.  While what truly makes us human, what truly makes us original is this creativity, this ability to fool ourselves.

   We make whole productions solely for the purpose of examining ourselves and our nature and declaring it unsavory, and weeping inconsolibly, hoping for a hero.  In the end we make ourselves the hero, because as long as we're 'Braveheart' it's alright if we're the ones doing the killing.  Our screams of terror at horrors unknown, our stumbling efforts to claim peace through violence, only cause that regal dream to fall asunder.  In the end our demands for peace: so arbitrary and unattainable; so ridged and foolish, only make more war. 

   Then History sets the stage and on it we lay, our leg broken and our pride slowly strangling us.  "Sic Sempir Tyranus!"  We cry to the crowd:  rhetorically antiquitated, latin verse: so poetic, the illusion of wisdom.  The giant slain we find ourselves on a stage as great as the breadth of the earth, lights burning into our eyes.  Faces upon us, we leave an audience to decide whether we are hero or villian, and take hero either way.  We had felt that sick compulsion for the adreniline rush so often associated with murder, so often absent in it's presence.  We are decieved by the greatest actor of all: our inner self. 

    If we could look back into the eyes of our victims, perhaps we could have seen what lay there.  A truth perhaps?  A justification?  Something to make us feel sophisticated and noble and learned?  After all we have experienced death, looked it in the face, and yeilded it's power: surely there must be some deep clue to the world, the answer, in this.  All we would see, however, is the cold unforgiving stare of death himself, and a fear reflected back in our eyes.  Realizing the curtain has not fallen, and trapped in a story in which; though we may not realize, we are only a supporting role.

Author's Note

Please look at this, I think it's really good. Perhaps you could knock me down a few notches, or not. Either way reveiws are welcome.

Reviews

[Raef C. Boylan]

First of all: thanks for your review.
Second of all: how do you feel about the DropKick Murphys? & have you ever checked out The Levellers?
Thirdly: your review...

Your tone [for an inspirational essay] is spot-on: fairly formal, interspersed with wit and reflective observations. Although the subject is technically depressing, I was ready to cheer for you at the end.

"Faces upon us, we leave an audience to decide whether we are hero or villian, and take hero either way."
How true, and funny. We are the most egotistical critters on this planet [or so our over-sized egos tell us]; self-interested, self-absorbed, self-preserving, we are indeed the stars of our own dramas, rom-coms and chat shows. It'd be interesting to see some sociological statistics regarding this matter pre- and post-international media...is life imitating art or is it merely our nature? Whatever we do, we demand empathy and sympathy, at the very least from ourselves [as we are the captive, 24/7 studio audience].

"peace is a novel concept" - Well, yeah, unfortunately. We're only animals; Darwin and Wallace will tell ya, folks, survival of the fittest blah blah. We just happen to be able to invent weapons of maximum destruction, as opposed to relying on our own claws and cunning. We're so screwed...

My apologies for this disjointed review; I kind of took what jumped out at me first on the re-read. I like your writing style, and also your thinking.
Thanks for sharing this article with us; it's both provoking and entertaining.

p.s. Some typos spotted:
"more intrinsicly subtle" [intrinsically]
"protaganistic" "miscant" "uncant" [up until now, not words...but hell, let's go for it]
"We make speaches " [speeches]
"evil laid amungst us" [amongst]
"We beleive our humanity " [believe]
"peace and thoughtfullness" [thoughtfulness]
"weeping inconsolibly" [inconsolably]
"rhetorically antiqutated" [antiquated]
"hero or villian" [villain]
"adreniline rush " [adrenaline]
"decieved by the greatest actor " [decieved]
"and yeilded it's power" [yielded] [its]
"so often absent in it's presence" [its]

p.p.s Just read the review below. I'm from the UK and we don't do American history over here unless you chose it for your degree. I only know the basics of Lincoln's death, so this reference bypassed me - I thought it was all [albeit interesting] hypothetical rambling. So I read it all again and it added another level to what you were saying. Sorry about that, thank you Sam Davidson, goodnight Lincoln.

[Sam Davidson]

Yeah, it's brilliant. I like the reference to the guy who killed Lincoln, connecting his final jump onto the stage to the desperate attempts of individuals to become a protagonist, even if through evil.

Why don't you write a play about him (I've forgotten his name which is now really annoying me)? At the end, he could jump *off* the stage.