What is Your Philosophy of Life ?

What do you believe? Is there a God that controls human destiny? Does man have charge of his own fate? Do environmental and hereditary influences sway our behavior more than we are consciously aware? Or, do you believe that life's everyday forces control us? Maybe our place at work, our money or lack of it, our friends and lovers influence our life more than any supernatural force. Are we emotional well springs? Capable only of rationalization? Perhaps, you think as Hamlet did that mankind has infinite capacities. Then, what about chance as a factor in our lives? Is there a reasonable cause of human existence or an accidental bang and survival? In our day there are no simple answers to these questions that can suit all people. However, these and other fundamental questions about human life shape our actions.

Other life shaping influences are more down to earth. Family backgrounds, cultural influences, our politics, social positions, our state of economy, and our psychological state of mind. Your thoughts about such things are what you are trying to capture in this first task. Hopefully, by now you are saying to yourself, " I could not possibly write all that there is in my philosophy in two or three minutes." No, of course not. You have a lifetime of writing plays ahead of you to do that, but at this point you will prbably be glad to have more material than you need. You will have to be selective.

TASK #1

1. Write your philosophy of life as a two to three minute dramatic action.
2. Use two characters. One of these characters can be you, or both characters could be two different aspects of you, or the character can by symbolic of your philosophical values.
3. Set the scene with time and place, but be brief. Do not use much in the way of stage directions. For example: Calcutta, 1873, as the sun sets. John and Mary are sitting on a balcony.
4. Format. Write your character's name all in capitals and center it on the page. The speeches will be entered with a normal left margin. Stage directions should have a left margin that begins at center. Stage directions are in parentheses
   JOHN (Holding MARY in his arm, he caresses her.)
   Mary, as Calcutta's sitting sun tints your golden tresses with a rosy hue, I'm tempted to say....
   MARY (She pulls away from him.)
   Not now,. John.
5. Length. Start thinking about drama as a time/space art. In the short form, minutes are important. Your final task will be to write a play about thirty minutes long. The length of time it takes to play a page varies from about one minute to about a minute and twenty seconds. Your philosophy of life will be about two or three minutes long.

NOTE: Upon the completion of this assignment, some students will find that the work is too personal to read aloud in class for discussion. As a rule, and this should be clearly established, creative work should be read in class. This is an exception to the rule.

While you find out about yourself, you will also begin to determine a form and style. You can not find out everything through one exercise, but the task is a small step in the right direction.

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