Settling for Half

These days, according to Alfieri, we settle for half.

This weekend I had the privilege of seeing two fine theatrical productions, The Lonely Soldier Monologues and A View From the Bridge. Though one was a compilation of monologues performed on a sparse stage and the other a full-scale Broadway production, they both reminded me of the many ways we settle for less than being whole.

I cannot help but think that the shows were theatrical post-it notes reminding me to maintain a life.  The plays, like all narratives that  resonate with the public, from the suffering in Haiti to honor killings in Turkey to Britney Spears bashing the paparazzi with an umbrella, are stories in which human emotion and desire trumps logic. I wonder if when we say our interest in Jerry Springer dramas and celebrity is ‘human nature’ we’re not only referring to innate curiousity but something much more primal and dark: a  desire to see people act out morality plays outside the cool confines of the law on the books and adhere to the laws of human nature.  To steal from Miller, there is something so refreshing about people who are unapologetically themselves.

In our modern world  (code for civilized, muted and restrained) our instincts are mitigated by our minds. This, of course, is the way it must be, and most of the time, I to believe it is better this ways. Accept, of course, after I see a plays about death, revenge, honor and love.

So perhaps folks today will have to get their kicks through extreme sports,  answering the casual encounters section on Craigslist or Tweeting their narcissistic little hearts out.  I realize that the real problem is this: we’ve traveled so far from what it means to really be alive.

Now is a good place to stop, and my pontification makes little sense and even less without knowledge of the plays. These truisms about human nature are far better illuminated through stories than through half-baked analysis. So this is all leading up to my plug for the shows. Intellectual understanding is not emotional recognition.

Then again, you probably won’t. You’re used to settling for half.