What Light Is Light?

One of my best friends is up in NYC auditioning for Shakespeare in the Park. I don’t want to wish him “good luck” ‘cause that would be bad, so instead I’ll do a mental appeasement dance to the theatre gods in the hopes that his audition goes well. I’ll be very sad not to have him around to talk to all the time, but NY is where he needs to be. His destiny lies there just as mine seems to lie in LA right now. Hopefully some day our journeys will bring us back to the same town again, but for now our lives seem to have chosen to take different paths. It doesn’t matter really. We will remain extraordinary friends regardless of geography. Everything will work out for him. I just know it. We are both destined for great things. I can just sense it. Here’s hoping this is the start for him as well as for me… In honor of his audition, here’s one of Valentine’s monologues for your reading enjoyment:

“And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence, and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive.
I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
Tarry I here, I but attend on death:
But, fly I hence, I fly away from life.”

-- William Shakespeare - "Two Gentleman of Verona" - Act iii. Sc. 1