I have always loved the idea of the world being a stage (courtesy of William Shakespeare). It fascinates, excites, even puzzles me. When I first heard it, I felt kind of “funny.” What does it really mean? I wondered. Are we puppets on a string? Are we actors whose story has been written by an author and, consequently, are we bound to carry out the actions that have already been decided? If it is so, where is the “free will” we have been told we are endowed with?
Italian playwright Eduardo De Filippo wrote a play where an illusionist, in order to cover up for a malicious trick he had played on a naïve spectator, convinces him that the whole situation is an illusion, a game created by the poor man himself. Such game must now be carried out till the end. The “victim” blindly believes that all the people, actions, happenings that take place on a daily basis are fictitious. He has been convinced that they are the fruit of his own imagination.
The story is definitely grotesque and tragically sad at the same time. You see this human being – totally under the spell of the clever magician – who gives up living his real life because he does not want to accept any unpleasant truth. Therefore he finds silly explanations for whatever happens, dismissing them as illusions. He stops facing his challenges, he simply gives up on life. Nothing is important any more, nothing is worth his interest, enthusiasm or care.
Now, going back to my starting point, I wonder: hasn’t it been said that Life is actually an illusory state? Therefore, it should be true that we “only” believe that we are choosing the way we carry out our existence while, in reality, we don’t. Positive Thinking says that life is a creation of our thoughts, therefore we experience what we think. As a consequence, we are able to create one thing or another. The world is only the result of our interpretation. What we see is not what actually is but what our thoughts make us see. Our thoughts are influenced by what we believe to be true.
At this point, the situation starts to become a bit clearer. Yes, we are (actually, we can be) like puppets on a string. When? Every time we accept to be conditioned by outside forces, which we are unaware of. Yes, we play a part, we are like actors that act out somebody else’s script. Who or what is “somebody else”? It is our blindness, our unawareness, our incapability to realize that “we” have the power to write our own script, create our own stage and direct the play the way we choose. When we, when “you” decide what to believe, what to accept, how to behave, how to feel… this is when you are “creating” your own life.
“You,” your essence, is outside the thoughts, because it is what generates out thoughts. Therefore it is in your power to give origin to a world according to your wishes, not so much physically as psychologically and spiritually. Do you choose to see this situation as awful? You suffer. Do you choose to accept it as a natural fact of life and try to improve it? You might still suffer, but to a much lower degree. And it will be easier to make adjustments, to change things. More than once have we said that the world assumes the color of the glasses you are wearing, actually of the glasses you have willingly chosen to wear. Observing your surroundings from a low position, you cannot expect to see the top of the mountain.
Entertaining thoughts of failure, it becomes more difficult to automatically experience success. If you see yourself as a loser, you have fewer chances to become a winner. As usual, it all depends on your starting choice about what kind of human being you want to be.
