Is Hamlet already getting his idea to stage The Mousetrap right here? It seems unlikely – though it is often played that way. I wonder though if this line is more about welcoming another king since the king he’s got now is so problematic. It might be such a relief to greet a pretend king in a moment when the local king is trouble.

Hamlet wouldn’t be the first person to have greeted an actor as if he were the person he represents. This paying of tribute to the Player King is partly a joke, I imagine and partly a show itself. That is, Hamlet might happily pay tribute to a player when he might avoid any tributes to the actual king. The very act might be a relief to finally get to welcome a king without complication.

I am wrong about Guildenstern and laughing in this bit. I just glossed right over the “ye” in this sentence I have always heard it as you, read it as you – just assured it was you. But it is “ye.” So Guildenstern must have laughed too and Rosencrantz answers the charge.

It is amazing what one little word can do to change things. A Guildenstern who laughs is very different Guildenstern than one who doesn’t.

Is this a gay joke? Or the nipping in the bud of a gay joke in the works? It is very often played that way. Or maybe it’s just a generic averted sex joke. A sort of “Maybe men don’t delight you but I know a woman in Wittenberg who’d delight you no end.”

In any case, it’s another clumsy move by Rosencrantz. Hamlet’s pouring out this serious poetic exploration, full of truth and darkness and depth and Rosencrantz starts in with a lascivious smile? Or at least one that Hamlet can interpret as such.

We’re both a little bit more and a little bit less than dust. We’re made up of particles even smaller than dust. We’re a collection of tiny parts, just like everything else. But as tiny collections of particles go, it is hard to argue that we’re not a particularly remarkable collection.

I’m particularly struck by the wonder today. I had a Functional Integration lesson and it was one of the profound ones. One in which I learned a new way of walking, one which I was surprised to discover that all of my previous walking had come from my ankles. And no wonder my ankles started giving me trouble ten years go – it is amazing that they haven’t been much trouble recently. Our brains! Our bodies! How and why did I learn to walk this way? Or rather that way – as I will no longer be walking that way in the future. Something as simple as walking really is rather a miracle.

While doing some Feldenkrais with someone yesterday, I discovered an interesting quirk he had. I can’t recall what it is was now – something simple like his arms moving in radically different ways. And I was delighted, interested and curious about this quirk. It made him unique. Another practice might encourage my seeing this particularity as an error, something to be corrected or eliminated, smothered over. The culture, for example, would steer us all toward an ideal. But it is fantastic to be delighted by the differences between us. To enjoy them. How a stooped and aged body can be just as express and admirable as a model. This practice helps me find every person a piece of work, every person, the beauty of the world.

And it’s not just Feldenkrais that has taught me to see this way. About four years ago, I watched a great many episodes of Doctor Who, all in a row. I found myself moved by the Doctor’s love for humans, and not just when they’re being nice and doing sensible things. He loved humans when they were being exceptionally human. When someone made a foolish choice, he would shake his head, cluck his tongue affectionately and say, “Humans.” (This was the 10th Doctor, for those of you who know about these things.)

And the stupider people were, the more he loved them. It seemed to me that he loved humans not in spite of their imperfections but because of them. The Imperfect Beauty of the World.

Damn you, Hair! I cannot read this line without singing the melody. And because the song got into my brain first (I had the soundtrack and was in a production as a teen) it makes it seem like the Shakespeare is wrong.

I feel like it should be “why it appears no other thing to me” because that was the lyric. I guess it scanned for the melody better. I think it would take MANY performances, rehearsals, repetitions of speaking this correctly before the correct text would seem right. It is a startlingly beautiful line, both the most delicate description of the air and the most horrible.

Lines like this are one of the reasons this play stands out. In Hamlet, Shakespeare had the perfect conduit for painfully beautiful language. It’s perfectly pitched, not ornate or beautiful for beauty’s sake. It is a string of juicy words that also serve a clear purpose.

We watched the season finale of Doctor Who last night. There was a dark, foreboding looking planet, black crust with fiery currents beneath. It was a fictional planet, of course, but it put into relief the goodliness of our own planet. In the previous episode, the Earth shone brightly above the moon’s horizon, blue, green, inviting.

In the hubbub and difficulties of daily life it is hard to remember that our planet looks like that – that it is teeming with life, with greenery and water.

When life kicks me around, the earth is only cement and tornados and broken dreams. It’s hard to remember the oceans, the forests, the grasses, the flowers and all.

Depression? Anxiety? I can’t work out which. I read a list of symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. The book said that three of them were enough to be diagnosed. I self-diagnosed right then and there, despite the fact that this was more a business book than psychology. Then I kept reading. An absence of flow (as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) leads to this stuff. Just two days of No Flow activities, and the subjects began to exhibit signs of anxiety. They had to stop the study for fear of doing real damage. So – maybe it’s just a general lack of flow.

Have I lost ALL my mirth? I don’t know about all. A LOT. MOST. I hope not all, I just haven’t seen in it in a while. This cartoon about severe depression showed me the inside track of that experience. I feel bad, but luckily, gratefully, not that bad.
Lost mirth is a much more accurate way to describe a feeling than any other diagnosis. Even No Flow. Even. . .anything. It makes sense that this is one of the famous lines. It says something we needed an expression of, obviously.

If this means what I think it does, this line (so often cut) is both kind and cagey. He’s saying he’ll tell them why they were sent for so they don’t have to reveal any more, so that they can safely report back to the King and Queen without fear of being discovered to have revealed anything. It’s kind because he’s attempting to keep them safe. And cagey because it’s a way to get them to reveal more. I’m not sure which it is. Moult no feather is a pretty fun expression. I’m assuming it’s like ruffling feathers in meaning, that it implies no disruption of the feathers of the royal couple in any way.

Fact is, I usually can tell you why, though I rarely do. My armchair psychoanalysis is mostly unasked for and would likely be unwelcome in most cases. Whether or not I actually know why is another thing but I really think I do. I won’t say much but I’m watching and filing away all kinds of behaviors out there in the world. Sometimes it makes me anxious and uncomfortable, sometimes it’s reassuring – It helps explain why someone is an asshole rather than just having to respond to the asshole behavior.

The times I get really wound up are the times I cannot explain. Those two years I spent so lonely and miserable were partly so miserable because I could not explain why. I wanted an explanation of what it was for – some good in all the unhappiness, but I never found it and the absence of the why was the worst of all of it. I like for things to have reasons. But there isn’t a reason for everything, is there?