What can you learn from Rosencrantz and Guldenstern are dead

About forty years ago I saw a wonderful play by Tom Stoppard at the Yong Vic in London. The young Vic was associated with the Old Vic at the time when Old Vic was the site of National Theatre (English spelling for English story).

You could see top actors in a small intimate theatre for about ten bob (ten shillings - half a pound - about a dollar and a quarter in the exchange rate of the time.

The play was called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dread. It was funny, great words (Stoppard is a fantastic wordsmith) but the Hamlet relationship went over my head. Sure I understood it had something to do with the Shakespeare play, but not having seen a real Hamlet before (I had seen a couple of modern totally different Hamlets before - it was the sixties and London - weird).

Later I saw Hamlet so many times (both on the stage and in many different movies) and I discovered who our two heroes (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) were in Shakespeare's play.

They were minor characters who are in the periphery of the play and then they die (actually are killed thanks to Hamlet's cleverness instead of the Hero himself).

Hence the line from Hamlet: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead."

Many years later a lady friend kept badgering me about how she looked before we went to a wedding.

Suddenly the light went on. I understood the great psychological importance of the play:

"Whereas we are all the superstars of our own lives, we are the extras in other people's lives."

It hurts the ego to understand. We each have our own issues. We really don't pay that much attention to others. We may gossip about someone for a second or two (even an hour or two at times) but basically it is all forgotten very soon.

People deep down do not care what you are wearing, what you are doing, and so on. You beat yourself up for supposed shames way more than anyone else even notices. So next time you feel shame for some minor fashion, or manors misdemeanor stop beating yourself up.

It may be humbling but you are only center stage in your own life.