There we were - demented children mincing about in clothes that no one ever wore, speaking as no man ever spoke, swearing love in wigs and rhymed couplets, killing each other with wooden swords, hollow protestations of faith hurled after empty promises of vengeance - and every gesture, every pose, vanishing into the thin unpopulated air. We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened. Don't you see?! We're actors - we're the opposite of people!
Interpretation
The quote explores the performative nature of human existence, suggesting that people often act rather than truly engage with reality.
In this quote, Tom Stoppard reflects on the absurdity of the human condition, portraying individuals as actors in a play rather than genuine beings. He emphasizes how people often engage in pretentious behaviors and meaningless rituals, trading their true selves for acts that lack authenticity. The imagery showcases a disconnect between real feelings and theatrical expressions, suggesting that much of life is merely a performance devoid of true substance.
In practice
During a theatrical performance discussion, to illustrate the idea of living as actors in society.
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
The usual false conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists, therefore it has a right to exist.
I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose.
No state of society or laws can render men so much alike but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and though different men may sometimes find it their interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure.
We should distinguish at this point between "government" and "state" ... A government is the consensual organization by which we adjudicate disputes, defend our rights, and provide for certain common needs ... A state on the other hand, is a coercive organization asserting or enjoying a monopoly over the use of physical force in some geographic area and exercising power over its subjects.
Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
It is natural to give a clear view of the world after accepting the idea that it must be clear.
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