In my piece, I performed a monologue about life, death, memory, and art. My speech consisted of my thoughts about the fluid nature of memory, as well as my doubts about my own self worth and the worth of what I do. As I spoke, I read from prepared notecards, crumpling each card and tossing it on the floor as I progressed. The speech ended with the line, “this is the last card. I think that’s it for me.” At that point, I crumpled the card and collapsed onto the stage, to be carried off by the rest of my class.
The somewhat theatrical format of my perfomance was suggested to me by the space–a raised porch with a bright overhead light that resembles a sort of proscenium theatre. Through the piece, I wanted both a discussion and a metaphorical representation of death. My ‘death’ at the end of the performance is abrupt, anti-climactic, and possibly surprising, all aspects of death. However, rather than take a purely Nihilistic view of life, I spend much of the piece encouraging the audience to take hold of their own lives, to do something, and to find personal meaning in their own circumstances. By setting this encouragement against my process of discarding my notes (a reminder of my own mortality) and my eventual death, the tension between the struggle for a fulfilling, meaningful life, and the inevitability of death is explored.
I've prepared a few notes:
When I was maybe 15 or so, I had an epiphany of sorts. It occurred to me that one goes through life like a person looking at a timeline through a magnifying glass. You can focus very intently on what's happening at that instant, and the farther you get from that, the hazier it gets. The past becomes increasingly distant memories and the future increasingly vague speculation. At that moment I became intensely aware of the present, and that awareness has resulted in a memory which is etched in my mind with a surprising degree of clarity. I was standing at a urinal at a summer camp—hardly an impressive moment in my life, but probably one of my more vivid memories from that camp.
I would like to say that it changed me, but it hasn't. Or maybe it has. I have no idea. I've gone on to forget a great many things from that point on. It's not all a haze; I do have plenty of memories that I've held on to or at least reconstructed. I guess they're all reconstructions—convincing simulations of how things happened. Fortunately, I won't ever have to check my facts, so I can take comfort in my memories.
I recently set up a digital calendar. I set it up so that my birthday would be a repeating event, and it asked me how many times I wanted it to repeat. I planned through my 86th birthday. I think that's a good number--at any rate, it's far enough off that I don't have to worry about it at the moment. 86 years. That's how long I plan to live. You may think that's an unreasonable plan, and perhaps you're right. Not all my plans necessarily work out. That's life. Anyway, 86 years. Too soon to say how it turns out--maybe I'll let you know how it went. The highlights, at least. I can't promise I won't sleep through most of it. Or eat. Or worry about what other people are thinking, trying to piece together exactly what happened in some partially-remembered past.
I'll try to keep busy. I've been keeping busy. I create things. I can say that definitively. There are things and I have created them. Hopefully, other people will find them meaningful. I don't necessarily need everyone, just some people. I find what I do meaningful. Usually. But if I can get someone else interested, that's validating. I'm not sure why I need this validation. Is this a good thing?
Sometimes I just want to yell, "look at me, look at me! I'm important and meaningful." I'm not sure if it is directed to those around me, of if it's for my own benefit. But it's a lie. Or rather, if I'm important because I'm a living, breathing human being, then it's so tautologically true that there's no point in saying. What right do I have to be notable? To be special? I realize that I'm surrounded by a group of people with just as much claim to humanity as I myself have. I look around and see a collection of people, and realize just how soon I'll have to say goodbye to you. Not necessarily to people individually—I'll probably see most of you in the days, months, years to come. But I'll never again see these people—this exact group of people, in these circumstances.
God, I wish I'd prepared more to say.
So, I look out and see how fleeting this evening has been. I think about how little time seems to have passed between this year and last year. I start to count the time up, start to look at numbers and percentages—how much longer until x point in the future, how much time has already passed. What have I done this morning? What have you done? Is it worth remembering? Maybe I'll remember. Maybe I won't. Most likely it's going to be some made-up memory—an amalgamation of the way I spent my mornings at this point in my life.
I'm almost done. Almost done.
I’m not sure if I have a point. I’m sure you want me to come to a point, but I don’t know how much I have to offer. I guess I have this much: Do something! Something memorable. Remember this—remember this evening. Make it meaningful. I've tried my part, but there's only so much I can do. Only so much time.
There's very little time. No! Don't think about it! That only makes it worse. Focus on now. Now lasts forever. Forever. Or something like it. I don’t know. What can I know? I’ve tried. We’ve all tried. And we’ve done things. We’ve accomplished something. Hopefully.
This is the last card.
I think that’s it for me.