The Hamlet Project

On the radio today I heard a story about a corporate executive who became an artist. She told the story of a life of doing what she was supposed to – of doing what was expected, of doing the right job, in the right place, with the right husband. A lifetime of being told what to think had left her lost. When she discovered a form in which there was no right way, in which there was nothing but difference, in which her own thinking was the thing to explore, she almost had a breakdown.
An astonishing number of people want to be told what to think. It seems easier, I suppose. I suppose it is easier. It is easier to follow the lines laid out in front of you than to choose which direction to go. It is easier to color in a coloring book than to decide what to draw but the consequences of a lifetime of coloring in what has been set out for you, are probably dire. Perhaps if Ophelia weren’t concerned about what she should think, she wouldn’t be dead by the end of the play.