All the World is a Stage

Hey everyone! On our podcast this week we are continuing our discussion on Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth”, and we are examining the concepts in chapter 3 “The Core of the Ego” and 4 “Role Playing: The Many Faces of the Ego.”

Role-playing: As a former Theatre teacher, the concept of role-playing stands out to me. Shakespeare wrote in one of his famous monologues, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” meaning that all humans have roles that they play in life. In his speech, Shakespeare presents the roles humans play as they age, while Tolle presents the different roles the ego plays throughout a human’s life. So, in a sense, roles within a role.

According to Shakespeare, there are seven roles or “ages” of man:

1. The baby: This age represents humans as helpless and innocent. They rely on others to help them survive the world.
2. The child: This age represents humans as they are young and idealistic. They are just venturing out of their house into the world to attend school.
3. The young man: This age represents a teenager hitting puberty and falling in love for the first time. Although still young and idealistic, they know a little bit more about life outside their parents’ house.
4. The soldier: This age represents a young adult venturing out of their parents’ house and earning a reputation with their first job. Shakespeare describes this age as quick to fight and quick to judge.
5. The justice: This age represents a somewhat older individual who is now working hard and earning money for themselves and their family.
6. The older man: This age represents retirement as a person grows older and thinner, but still wants to maintain their youthful appearance.
7. The old man: This age represents old age as humans begin to slip into their second childhood and become helpless and innocent. This age also represents the fact that life has come full circle. Humans start helpless and innocent, and they end helpless and innocent. Their last role to play is also childlike.

Within these roles, according to Tolle, the ego has its own roles to play, and most of them are attention-seeking roles. Tolle suggests that these roles start in childhood. Some very common attention-seeking roles that humans play are:

• The Villain: At a young age, these roles become apparent. The protagonist and the antagonist. The “good” guy and the “bad” guy. These roles are personified in every story ever made. In every Shakespeare play ever written. A common villain role is that of a criminal. Criminals often commit crimes to get caught. To get that attention that the ego looks for. Criminologists have tried to explain the motivations behind criminals going back centuries. Criminologists suggest that reasons for committing a crime include greed, anger, jealousy, revenge, or pride. All of these negative emotions relate to the attention-seeking ego. According to Tolle, “some egos perpetrate crimes in search of fame.” Negative attention is also attention.
• The Victim: This is a very common role in the sense that the attention the victim seeks is sympathy from others. In psychology, this could also be called a narcissist. Humans play the victim to keep the attention on them and only them. “Victims” often claim the negative actions of others or society contribute to them being the way they are.

Letting go of self-definitions is one way Tolle suggests that humans shed the roles they have chosen to play in their life. However, humans are obsessed with categorizing things. Those that refuse to identify with certain religions and genders are considered different and weird. However, it is also becoming more common for people to let go of self-definitions. Many people simply refuse to fit into a specific category.

While a person cannot let go of their roles in Shakespeare’s “ages of man,” you can let go of the “roles within your roles” and free your mind from the attention-seeking obligations of the ego. Yes, at certain times in your life you may be a victim or a villain, but you do not have to play that role all the time. Tolle suggests that these roles can only be temporary if you are open to finding true happiness.

I want to know what our readers think. Have you played any of these roles- in your life? How did you get past these roles or are you still playing them? Let’s continue the conversation on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.

Shakespeare’s Speech from Poetry Foundation:

“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 school-boy, 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 honour, 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 lin’d,
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 slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, 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.”