"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
. . . . . . .
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."
I am all we've ever been.
When I get weary my mind calls up the above passage from MacBeth. Sometimes I revel in it. Sometimes it puzzles me. Sometimes it appalls me.
The question is, does it contain wisdom? Who is the madman, and what is the meaningless tale?
The tale is creepy, or rather creeping, moving in seemingly disjointed episodes most of which are so common they escape notice. Each day begins with an awakening. Before we can jump into action we must take care of the petty necessities of life (so necessary to the maintaining of Life).
But no that's wrong. Life is not sustained by the small chores of corporeality; it's the other way around. To me the first step in understanding the passage is to realize that it's not concerned with Life: it's describing life. The speaker has fallen, or is among the fallen. There is nothing noble in what is being expressed. These sentiments are drawn from the well of despair. It sounds to me as though the bucket was lowered to obtain cool, crystal clear, refreshing, water and was raised full of mud.
The day, full of promise, is lost immediately after awakening, in the humdrum drabness of daily existence. The dream was so sweet, awakening from it so disappointing. In the dream everything contributes to the story: every detail is significant. Not so in the waking state ruled by time and biology.
The tale is structured by time and biology ( or rather, biology and time). Time is a function of biology as is space. The idiot's tale is contained within the framework of biology's time and space. The latter two being emergent epiphenomena of higher functioning biology. The creepy tale concerns humans, this planets highest functioning form of biology to date.
Evidently, only humans experience the "petty pace" of daily experience.
The speaker climbed the highest mountain around in the attempt to transcend ordinariness. At the summit he reached for the stars only to find they were beyond his grasp. In despair he took a swan dive down into the muck and the mire. He became bestial and ignoble: despicably petty. He allowed changeable circumstances to victimize him. He wallowed when he might have triumphed.
So's the fool. His tale is an escape story. He wanted to break out of his existence. He would have done better had he simply embraced it. All of his yesterdays were illumined by Life's Light. He shaded his eyes, preferring the darkness of malice, murder and mayhem. He mistook his own shadow for that of Death's, thereby missing out on his true significance. Tragic!
The Fool's Tale does have a happy outcome. All of our benighted yesterdays bring us to the brink where we have no choice but to jump into the maelstrom of Reality which separates us from separateness.
