Directors and playwrights:
Puppet-masters pulling strings.
With an ending clearly written
A divergence is unseen.
Lines rehearsed,
Movements blocked,
Costumes sewn,
A table of props.
Each piece dependent on the other,
With trust that each will stick
To the parts neatly rehearsed,
To the lines within the script.
And it is wondrous entertainment
For an evening in the dark,
Where the set is just a fiction,
Each player, just a part.
But I'm not here for your enjoyment.
I'm not here to play along.
With the conflicts you've determined;
With your solutions to these wrongs.
I know my lines, I read them.
I know my steps, I've walked them.
But these lines, you wrote them.
And these steps, you blocked them.
How can I accomplish
Something different, something new
When I am following in footsteps
Conjured up by you?
It'll leave my company scrambling
To get us back on course--
But I have no desire
In the destination forced.
And if the set begins to crumble--
And the illusion is dispelled--
And all others break from character--
And the misconceptions that they held,
Then certainly my disruptions
Would not have been in vain,
When something new arises
On the stage that still remains.
This is inspired by a philosophy my father taught me and which he learned from an old law school professor. The argument was that if you do what everyone expects you to do, then everything will turn out the way it has always turned out (the actual story is much longer and more specific, but this was the message). This coincides nicely with Shakespeare, and his assessment of the world as a stage.
