We’re in level 4 lockdown here in #Auckland New Zealand. There’s lots of contemplation time. It can be tough.
So many of us are considering where we are in our lives, our priorities, checking we are living our lives to our full potential. Reaching out if we need a friend.
I love Shakespeare’s poem that describes the seven stages of a person’s life: the helpless infant, the whining schoolboy, the emotional lover, the devoted soldier, the wise judge, the old man still in control of his faculties, and the extremely aged, returned to a second state of helplessness. Put schoolgirl, warrior, old woman.. at each stage we have a fresh set of challenges, learnings, joys…
Where are you? How are you at your stage? What growing are you doing? Challenges you are having? Do you reach out?
The Seven Ages of Man by William Shakespeare
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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