The Roles We Play

Today in class when I posed the question to Nick, "How do we break from the roles that we play?" I don't feel that that question was fully what I meant to say.  I framed it in the wrong way and although this happened I got an excellent answer.  I wanted to clarify though what I meant.  And that is how do we play every role?  For instance if you were to look at my life and really study the different roles that I have played you would see a myriad of people.  In fact you would see; a future english teacher, a singer, a poet, an academic, a frat boy, a farmer, a gardener, a gamer, a film and tv nut, a couch potato, an athlete, a basketball player, a psychologist, a writer, a sociologist, a Roman Catholic, a nonbeliever as well as a believer, a loving son, a wannabe physicist, a harmonica player,a philosopher, an actor, a creator, a community service volunteer, an uncle, a fast food restaurant employee, a roofer, a brother, a golfer, among many others.  These are all roles that I have played and I'm sure there are more that I haven't recognized and that I will eventually play as well.  And the fact of the matter is I want to play them all at some point in my life.  In this way I have related to the overall nature of what Shakespeare represents.  And I believe that his best attempt at representing this was in Prospero from The Tempest.  This is part of the reason why The Tempest was my favorite of all the plays we read.  But the purpose of this post was to relay that I want to experience everything.  This is more along the lines of the question I wanted to ask Nick.  I have some ideas on how I would answer this but I would much rather see what other people would suggest.  Also in a subsequent post I am going to explore why it is that I want to experience everything, but for now I must go.