Act to live, live to eat

One of Shakespeare’s most frequently quoted passages is “All the world’s a stage” from the play As you like it. 

The poem goes through the seven ages of man, drawing comparison of the world to a stage and the people to actors.

Jaques (As You Like it - Act 2, Scene 7):

All the world’s a stage,

and all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His act being seven ages.

In an earlier work too Shakespeare draws comparison of the world to a stage - Antonio (The Merchant of Venice - Act 1, Scene 1):

I hold the world but as the world,Gratiano;

A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

Renaissance humanist Erasmus too thought, 

“For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them offstage?”

There is a sloka from Srimad Bhagavatham which conveys that we humans are the instruments of kreeda (playthings/toys) of the Gods. He tries a few costumes for each toy and lets them enact various roles. He brings together few people, let’s them have a good time and might take them away according to his will and wish.

The theorist in me observed the cyclical process of nature: creation, sustenance and destruction. When this was backed by the spiritually inclined with conviction,  an air of deja vu had me convoluting at:

The world is a stage, life is drama, man is actor, God is director.

We have always faced certain tricky questions such as ‘Did the hen come first or the egg?’ 

Another one that is based on perception, ’Do we eat to live or live to eat.’

I can now relate to the latter by assuming us people as actors who have embarked on a journey quite dramatic. So with the world a stage and me an actor living it up, would not eating be a scene in my act?

That settles a perception, since acting comes naturally and eating a part of the act - I might as well indulge and ‘Live to eat'.

Act to live, live to eat, develop empathy and celebrate life. Hopefully winning the Oscar equivalent of awards, presented through the karmic software.