Characters

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players"

William Shakespeare, As You Like It 


      Quotes at the beginning of my posts make me look cultured, right? Even if it is one of the most quoted lines from any play.
      Either way I'm keeping the quote there as it relates to what I'm going to write about and I never know how to write the intros to these things. As old Bill says, the world is a stage, but what he fails to say is who the main character is. Think about your life and who you think the main character is. It's probably pretty obvious, even if you deny thinking it. The main character is you. Of course it's you, why else would you bother being you? You are the single most important person in the universe, everything that happens is either part of your story or part of the background. You probably don't truly believe this (because that would make you a megalomaniac) but there's a good chance you have at some point, on some level, suspected that it might be the case. And if you've watched The Truman Show it's almost a guarantee that you've wondered if you were part of your own little "Your Name Here Show".
      If you're like me you might occasionally take this wonderment a bit further and start to live your life like it's an American sitcom, making jokes that would only ever be funny to an external observer and occasionally pausing after saying something funny to let the imaginary laugh track die down. But enough about my somewhat concerning delusions, that's not what this post is about. It's about, like everything else in this universe, you. The thing is, as amazing and complex as you are, you probably aren't the most important thing in the lives of everyone you know. They are too busy being their own main characters.
      This brings me to quote number two, "You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do." said by David Foster Wallace. (Maybe. It's hard to find out exactly who said this, but he'll do. I've found about four other possible people who might have said this.) You see, when you are from your own perspective the main person in the universe it means there is little time for thinking about other people. That's not to say people don't see you as important, it just means they probably won't analyse you anywhere near as much as you think they would.
      As my deadline comes close I'd like to leave you with an exercise: talk to someone as though they are the main character in a play, as though everything was about them. You might be surprised at the insight you get into them, and people in general.