Writer's Block: Destined for greatness
Mar. 28th, 2010 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebecca_in_blue[Error: unknown template qotd]
The idea that fate or some higher power controls our destinies has always really bothered me. I believe that some people use it as an excuse, a reason not to feel guilty when their lives don't go as planned. Yes, there are many things in our lives that we have no control over (the circumstances we're born into, the actions of those around us, etc.) but in the end, no one has more control over a person's life than that person.
JM Barrie examined this idea in one of my favorites of his plays, Dear Brutus. The title, of course, is taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." (This is one of Shakespeare's more famous quotes. It was featured prominently in the film Good Night and Good Luck and has popped up in various other places, and I'm suddenly very sad over my Uncle Johnny. I think I will always associate Shakespeare with him. Which he probably would've loved.) This is what the wiser characters of Dear Brutus realize over the course of the play: their destinies are not written in the stars; their destinies are written by each of them.
The idea that fate or some higher power controls our destinies has always really bothered me. I believe that some people use it as an excuse, a reason not to feel guilty when their lives don't go as planned. Yes, there are many things in our lives that we have no control over (the circumstances we're born into, the actions of those around us, etc.) but in the end, no one has more control over a person's life than that person.
JM Barrie examined this idea in one of my favorites of his plays, Dear Brutus. The title, of course, is taken from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." (This is one of Shakespeare's more famous quotes. It was featured prominently in the film Good Night and Good Luck and has popped up in various other places, and I'm suddenly very sad over my Uncle Johnny. I think I will always associate Shakespeare with him. Which he probably would've loved.) This is what the wiser characters of Dear Brutus realize over the course of the play: their destinies are not written in the stars; their destinies are written by each of them.
