Have you watched Waiting for Godot?
If you did not... Waiting for Godot, published by Samuel Beckett in 1949, is a play in which two characters (Estragon and Vladimir) are waiting for someone who never comes. If you want to impress someone, you say Waiting for Godot explores themes of existentialist philosophy. The emptiness and randomness of the plot cause the audience to wonder if there any meaning in the play – or in life.
At one moment Estragon asks Vladimir what it is that he has requested from Godot:
VLADIMIR: Oh ... nothing very definite.
ESTRAGON: A kind of prayer.
VLADIMIR: Precisely.
ESTRAGON: A vague supplication (asking or begging for something).
VLADIMIR: Exactly
Sounds familiar? That is what we do all our lives.
If someone asked me to describe life in one word, that word would be... WAITING.
Our whole life we are waiting for something. We're waiting for the dawn, birthday, holiday, train, children, summer, Friday, payment, vacation, recognition, dinner, enlightenment, love, new year, answer, smile, call, truth, destiny, death...
I have stopped waiting for Godot. I live my life flying with open wings.
Do you want a perfect life?
Like perfect happiness in a perfect family, good kids, big house,
Volvo on the driveway... plenty of sunshine and vegetables, with a perfect
body doing even more perfect running in perfect green forest pursuing a wisdom
to save the rest of humanity?
Are you living your life, waiting for
the next moment to be even better than this one? Well...
In any
given year so far, (2020 and 2021 are exceptional), 1 in 5 Canadians
experiences a mental health problem. By the time Canadians reach 40 years of
age, 1 in 2 has, or have had, a mental illness. The terms "mental illness"
refer to depression, anxiety, delusions... general dissatisfaction and
disappointment.
Nothing is serious!
Every day you are faced with traps that encourage you to take
life seriously. You are faced with all kinds of frustrations, turning
everyday situations into problems, constantly on the lookout for shit to
complain about and worrying about a bunch of things that simply do not
matter.
You are very sensitive, your ego is huge and you cannot tolerate simple
truth. You get offended by rain, by look, gesture, words... especially
words. "I am feeling offended" is an epidemic spreading across the world.
And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re a carrier of the
disease. It’s a mental condition whereby your ego grows up to the point
where everything offends you. The hurt feelings,
indignation, irritability, disappointment, grumpiness and an all-around
allergic reaction to anyone who says or does something you don’t like. In
one word - seriousness.
You try, you think, you plan, you work, and then there is no achievement. The thing that you desire never happens, it never comes. If life was a static, fixed thing - not dynamic and flowing - then you could achieve what you wanted, but then life would be a death. Life is life because it is dynamic, changing. You cannot predict its course, it is unpredictable. It is dynamic and flowing - always flowing nowhere.
If you are serious, then you cannot flow. Then you are frozen inside; then you become just a dead stone. Then there are resistances around you. You cannot melt, you cannot change as life changes. You have a fixed pattern, a fixed shape, and because of that shape you will resist change. Then you are not flowing with life, you are struggling against it. Seriousness creates frozen-ness, and frozen-ness creates struggle.
- Life is Not Serious, Osho
The Waiting for Godot plays quickly because it gives situations
which don't offer anything. Thus the main theme of the play and the meaning of
life is set in two sentences:
VLADIMIR: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.
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