A Lesson from Macbeth

The pointlessness of self-importance

These chicory flowers at Evergreen bloom early in the morning, then fall off by early afternoon, and are replaced the next morning by another blooming batch. In the context of eternity, all our lives are brief.

This week I did two things which counter-balanced each other.

The first thing I did was work on my memoir, and the second thing I did was notice a speech in Act 5, Scene 5, of Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, where Macbeth says these famous words, defining a human life:

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

When I overlay Macbeth’s words on my memoir it shocks me. What he was saying is that my life is just a story full of drama which, in the end, doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. And I’m the idiot telling it.

Hmm.

That pops the balloon of self-importance that writing a memoir has given me.

After reading the Shakespearean quote, I save the extremely large memoir document, turn off the computer, go outside, sit on a rotting tree stump overlooking the garden, and contemplate my idiocy and insignificance.

Of course, while I sit there, I try to justify writing a memoir. I haven’t led a bad life, like Macbeth did. I haven’t murdered anyone or conspired to become a king of anywhere. I haven’t been cruel, paranoid or tyrannical. So, what Macbeth said was true for him, not me. He was a megalomaniacal idiot. I’m not.

This thought makes me feel better.

But not for long.

I go deeper.

Murderous intent, cruelty, paranoia and tyranny operate on a sliding scale. So, if I examine my life with a torch fueled by pure starlight, I must confess I’ve been a Macbeth, although to a minor degree. My life has been filled with a lot of sound and fury of my own making.

While my backside squirms on the uncomfortable stump, I ask myself some even more uncomfortable questions:

• Do I hold resentment as tightly as geological rocks hold evolutionary data?

  
  

• Have I forgotten to forgive?

  
  

• Do I create emotional waves of discontent by wishing things were different?

  
  

• Will I ever learn to accept what is and work with it instead of fighting it?

  
  

• Is it possible for me to let go of my sense of self-importance?

  
  

• When will I stop dramatizing my life?

  
  

• Am I creating future regrets day by day?

  
  

• Can I accept my insignificance?

The Pointlessness of Self-Importance

Before going back inside, I decide I’ll keep working on the memoir. But this time away from the task has been helpful. With help from Macbeth I’m seeing it in perspective.

My life is important to me because I’m the one living it. But maybe no one else will be intrigued enough to buy a copy once it’s published. Maybe what I’ve done and thought and felt for seventy years is of no interest to anyone but myself. And maybe that’s what I’m writing it for – to finally realise that my life has been a lot of sound and fury of my own making. Perhaps that is the greatest lesson I can take from it.

Importance and insignificance are two sides of the same coin of myself.

What I do does impact those around me, so it’s important that I live consciously so I do the least harm. But in the context of eternity, the person called Marlane is just a pinprick of matter on legs, come and gone quicker than a rising spark from a dying fire.

With love, Marlane