Friday, April 28, 2023

        What about American playwright Samuel Beckett?  In all his plays, Beckett constantly repeated a single theme:  there is no meaning.  It's a dark, cold, and impersonal world.

     Is this true?  Emotionally, it can certainly seem that way at times.  If there is no reason for this world to exist, if there is no reason why we are here, then however grand our life might be, it ultimately means very little.

Samuel Beckett - Wikipedia

     For Beckett, this didn't seem to matter.  In his "Happy Days," Beckett presents only two characters, Winnie and Willie.  Winnie is buried in dirt up to her waist; Willie crawls around on all fours.  As the play proceeds, Winnie talks, talks nearly constantly, to Willie.  She talks of everyday things and how blessed she feels to be alive:  she has Willie.  Willie rarely responds.

     By the end of the play, Winnie is buried in dirt up to her neck.  Willie is still only able to crawl.  Yet she continues to insist that these are happy days.  And we, the audience, are left to wonder why.

     But that's life:  living for something that never happens.

    Yet in a world absent of point, what else is there to do?

    Nothing:  when transcendence is gone, we are, too.

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