All the World’s a Stage

By Pamela Q. Fernandes

Metz Opera
Metz Opera, France

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players,” so begins the famous pastoral comedy “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare. It is, of course, one of his most famous poetic allusions to the theatre because quite frankly all of life is nothing but a play. Each of us acts a part or has a role that is unique to us. No two people are alike, not even monozygotic twins. Your role and the purpose you serve is unique to you. 

The Role We Play 

Shakespeare

That life is a stage; it is a religious idea in a way that fascinated Shakespeare and many of his fans. The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth have many scenes where the protagonists wonder, about the passions of life that so consumed them only for them to disappear into death having fulfilled their roles in life. And so, each of us plays a role. 

Often, I hear people trivialize themselves or the work they do, “I’m just an accountant or I’m just a housewife. I’m only at an entry-level job.” And on and on the go, making light of who they are and what they do. Yet, the role you play cannot be played by anyone else. You as a friend, as a son, or daughter, mother or father, brother or sister, worker, colleague, artist, lawyer, journalist. There’s none like you. You have a set of talents and experiences that are specific to you. 

What Makes You

Chicago

What makes you, you? The games you played as a child, the books you read, the subjects you learned, the movies you watched, the jokes you heard, the food you ate, the places you visited, the lives that touched yours, the lives you touched, the music you enjoyed, the people you met and the experiences you had, made you, you. And no one else will have the same cocktail of experiences you did. It is what makes you special. It is what makes you so suitable to play that role, the dice of life has handed to you. 

In my own life, I’ve noticed people raise eyebrows when I talk about who I am. I am an Indian-Portuguese by heritage but I was born in Kuwait. We fled the first Gulf War and stayed through the second. I love falafels and shawarma but still love a good chicken xacuti curry that’s been cooked in vinegar. I like dancing the jive and reading English classics. I wear many hats as I host a podcast, sing in a church choir, write fiction and volunteer at a hospital nearly 50 hours a week. I serve when I can and try to play the role I have the best way I know it. It’s not much but it’s the one I got and I try to follow the adage “to bloom where I’m planted.” Often, it’s hard, and I doubt myself and my ability to do it all. The critics and the work can be overwhelming. When Painting Kuwait Violet came out, I was nervous about writing about maids and their struggles. Then my book became a finalist at the American Book Fiction Awards. I realized that no one can do what I do. No one else could have written that book but, me. No one would probably love to do all the things I like doing, the roles I enjoy playing or wearing the many hats I wear. 

Life is Hard

Let’s not brush aside the fact that this play of life is hard. We’re all doing it for the first time and it doesn’t come with a manual. There’s no script to follow. Unlike theatre where the climax is over and the characters go home to real “normal” life, ours is a 24/7 role that never ends until we exit left into eternity. We can’t take a break from being a sibling or a friend, we can’t walk away from our spouses or quit being “us.” And so while on this stage of life, we need to ask ourselves about the purpose we serve and how our lives are being shaped by this purpose. The beauty of human life is that we can change. We can change emotionally, physically, politically and spiritually. We can learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and play our roles better. Having studied other great and not so great people, we can learn to transcend into finer human beings and adapt to our roles. 

You Are A Light

The greatest teacher, Jesus tells people, “You are the light of the world.” He says that to everyone. Each of us has the light to make a difference in the world. No matter how small the role we play in life is. We can be difference makers just by doing the next thing that we’re supposed to do. By playing that role, by changing that diaper, by taking out the trash, by offering a seat on the train, by being kind over the phone, by calling a lonely parent, visiting someone who’s sick, picking up the slack at work, lending a listening ear and simply being who we are. It takes courage and perseverance to do it, especially when no one sees what you do. Don’t lose heart when your role gets tough when life gets tougher when the going is difficult and the path might even be lonely. Just keep going because no one can light up the stage as you do. Even when there are no lights on us, when there’s no publicity, no crowds of adoring fans, no fancy clothes or makeup, just keep on fulfilling the role where all the world is a stage and the light is YOU. 

Pamela Fernandes

Pamela Q. Fernandes is an author, doctor and medical writer. She writes women’s fiction and romance. She hosts The Christian Circle podcast. You can find out more about her at https://www.pamelaqfernandes.com

Grimanesa Amorós – Lighting Up her Lovingly Romance with the Unknown

Grimanesa Amoros

The Artistic Directors of Creative Pois-On, Daniela Pavan and Tommaso Cartia, gently turned through the pages of the artist’s extraordinarily eventful life to paint a vivid chiaroscuro portrait of the woman behind the art, and the art behind the woman, circling the earth with her light in the attempt to make sense of her lovingly romance with the unknown.

November 2019, is the Enlightenment month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast. “Let there be light. And there was light.” This infamous quote from the Genesis, expresses in a poetic and very visual way, an essential creative process – to bring something to the light, out of the darkness. This is true of all creations: when you birth an idea, when you bring to the light a child, when you light up the stage of a theater and you give light to your creation for everybody to see it, when you stand up under the spotlight to pitch your business idea that you’ve been working so hard on. This is what Creative Pois-On wanted to explore in the four episodes of the November podcast; trying to understand how vital Light is in any creative process, but at the same time how fundamental darkness is, meaning everything that happens in the dark before an idea, a project is out in the light.

Tommaso and Daniela were kind of wresting in the Dark, looking for the perfect interview subject for the November series; until they got hit by the Light in Grimanesa Amorós’s work – an artist who exemplary embodies and exudes the theme of light.

Please listen to our two-parts podcast interview with the artist here below:

About Grimanesa Amorós:
Grimanesa Amorós was born in Lima, Perú, and lives and works in New York City. She is an interdisciplinary artist with diverse interests in the fields of social history, scientific research and critical theory, which have greatly influenced her work. Her works incorporate elements from sculpture, video, lighting, and technology to create site-specific light installations to engage architecture and create community.Grimanesa Amorós has often drawn upon important Peruvian cultural legacies for inspiration for her large-scale light-based installations, which she has presented around the globe from Mexico, Tel Aviv, and Beijing to New York’s Times Square. She often gives talks at museums, foundations, and universities where her lectures not only attract future artists, but students and faculty engaged with science and technology. Amorós has exhibited in the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. For more information about Grimanesa Amorós, visit http://www.grimanesaamoros.com @grimanesaamoros #grimanesaamoros

The Creative Bridge with Daniela – November 2019, The Enlightenment Month

Our Artistic Director Daniela Pavan discusses the topic of Light and Enlightenment from a business and a creative ideas development point of view with our host of the month, Award-Winning Author, Playwright, and novelist David James Parr.

“I honestly believe that creativity cannot be switched on and off, like a light switch. It’s a process that requires us to become comfortable with making mistakes because it includes failed attempts, it requires us to take courage and try, it’s a test and learn approach. And this creative anxiety is borne out of a society that expects perfection, that expects creatives to generate ideas quickly. This same society though teaches us that there are only right or wrong answers and leaves very little space to experiment and test ideas. Think about Thomas Edison. Its invention of the light bulb in 1879 came out as the result of tons of experiments. According to The Time, he tested more than 6,000 possible materials before finding the one that worked, the carbonized bamboo. Also, he made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. And when a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Edison kept persevering without giving up and gave birth to a disruptive invention for those times, which still is part of our current standards of living. What do you think David?”

David James Parr

“I totally agree with you Daniela. The creative process takes time: You have to accept that sometimes you’re not going to have the time, or the energy, to deliver on an idea. I’ve had what I thought were light bulb moments on the subway on my commute to work in the morning, but by the time I’ve been crammed inside a subway car, and had the train delayed between stops, and the air conditioning to go out, and then to spill out into a station and climb up the stairs, and so on—the idea gets lost. So it’s important to just relax and breathe and know that another idea will come, or maybe that same idea will come back. The writer Jamaica Kincaid once said—and I don’t remember the exact quote—but it was that sometimes writers need to just walk around and feel sad or emotional or go to dark places in their brain in order to illuminate some real truths…”

For the full conversation, listen to the Creative Bridge Episode

Creative Briefing – November 2019, The Enlightenment Month

Yayoy Kusama
November, 2019, is the Enlightenment month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast. “Let there be light. And there was light.” This infamous quote from the Genesis expresses in a poetic and very visual way, an essentially creative process – to bring something to the light, out of the darkness. This is true of all creations: when you birth an idea, when you bring to the light a child, when you light up the stage of a theater and you give light to your creation for everybody to see it, when you stand up under the spotlight  to pitch your business idea that you’ve been working so hard on.
David James Parr

Guided by the voice and the enlightened mind of the host of the month of November, Award-Winning Writer, Author, Playwright and Novelist David James Parr – an exceptional creator of worlds – the Creative Directors Tommaso Cartia and Daniela Pavan try to go deep in the understanding of how important Light is in any creative process, but also how important and fundamental Darkness is, meaning everything that happens in the dark before an idea, a project is out in the light.

This is indeed a sparkling month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast, besides the upcoming Creative Bridge episode with Daniela and the Creative Being with Tommaso, we will be featuring two dazzling interviews with two surprising guests who navigate through the waves of light, striking their audience with their works.