Saturday, November 12, 2005

life's like a stage.

sometimes i wonder, if we're all just acting.

in one episode of sex and the city, carrie and her boyfriend jack berger's relationship was on the rocks. playing the on-off game. they were also fighting a lot and jack wasn't being the most honest guy about his feelings and thoughts. he acts as though he's ok with carrie being a successful published author and columnist and commanding a higher income while he got dropped by his publishers when sales of his book dropped drastically. but he's not. the male ego at work.

so anyway so jack told carrie it's ok. and they go back to being together. carrie buys him a brand new gorgeous prada shirt. (it's really quite nice) with her pay of $10k when they sold her book in paris. that made him feel even worse. at a premeire of a play where everyone was there, just after the photographers on the red carpet dished him aside and wanted a photograph of just carrie, he told carrie he couldn't deal with the pressure. so he left. and carrie was left alone with her friends.

and when they asked about berger, she said he was down with a cold.

in her concluding narration, she mused about how everyone is just acting, like in a huge play where the set is the world.

she said, "and tonight, i'm playing the part of a woman who's in a great relationship, but whose boyfriend was coming down with a cold."

in dead poet's society, this really really nice film, one of my favourites of all time, robin williams' character mr. john keating told his student neil perry (played by robert sean leonard, who's in House too! so cute.) that "you're playing the part of a dutiful son" when neil's father refused to let him act when acting is his passion. quite an irony right. but i thought that's where the beauty of the story was.

***

Neil Perry: I just talked to my father. He's making me quit the play at Henley Hall. Acting's everything to me. But he doesn't know! I can see his point; we're not a rich family, like Charlie's. But he's planning the rest of my life for me, and he's never asked me what I want!

John Keating: Have you ever told your father what you just told me? About your passion for acting? You ever show him that?

Neil Perry: I can't.

John Keating: Why not?

Neil Perry: I can't talk to him this way.

John Keating: Then you're acting for him, too. You're playing the part of the dutiful son. I know this sounds impossible, but you have to talk to him. You have to show him who you are, where your heart is!

***

i wonder if there's anyone that goes through life just as he is. no acting in front of anyone. if you don't act, how then do you protect your secrets? i'm sure all of us have deep dark secrets, some things that we just don't tell anyone. so when that comes up, don;t you just act nonchalant or ignorant so as to keep it a secret?

sometimes pride gets the better of us. so we act as though we're happy, but deep now we're actually not, just like carrie.

sometimes we want to act like someone we're not to get accepted by someone, some people, or by society.

sometimes we hate disappointing people, so we play the part of someone whom will not disappoint. someone who lives up to expectations. someone who'd do what is being told. someone who would forgo his own passion for the sake of pleasing another one, most frequently parents. just like in the case of neil perry in dead poet's society.

sometimes we just want to conceal our true self from the world, so that no one would ever know your weaknesses, and so no one could hurt you, or so they think.

so when do our true self really come out? after all these acting, i wonder if your true self would ever be lost and never found, and you'll just go through life playing different roles. the wannabe-cool teen, the awkard growing adult, the dutiful son, the surpressed wife, the obligated husband.

is there space to be yourself? are we allowed to be ourselves totally without the fear of being unaccepted? to not conform, but to just be who you are?

***

John Keating: Now we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even though the herd may go, "that's b - - a - - d." Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

***

i wonder...

***

just throwing this in. not a lit student so don't know what it really means. from midsummer's night dream and dead poet's society,

"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends."

***

Look at me
You may think you see who I really am
But you'll never know me
Everyday it's as if I play a part
Now I see
If I wear a mask I can fool the world
But I cannot fool my heart

Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside

I am now
In a world where I have to hide my heart
And what I believe in
But somehow
I will show the world
Whats inside my heart
And be loved for who I am

Who is that girl I see
staring straight back at me
Why is my reflection
Someone I dont know

Must I pretend that i'm
Someone else for all time

When will my reflection show
Who I am inside

There's a heart that must be free to fly
That burns with a need to know
The reason why
Why must we all conceal
What we think
How we feel
Must there be a secret me
I'm forced to hide
I wont pretend that I'm
Someone else for all time

When will my reflection show
who I am inside
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside

- Reflection by Christina Aguilera

This girl posted at 8:40 PM